What to read next: ‘The Power Broker,’ National Book Award Longlist, T.J. Klune, and more
As the beginning of fall takes root, the Amazon Editors are recommending books that span the gamut from iconic biographies that appeared on everyone’s bookshelf during the pandemic to the latest crop of 2024 books longlisted for a National Book Award, to novels and nonfiction that have burrowed their way into our hearts and minds and haven’t let go.
We also recently talked to Liane Moriarty, who’s sold more than 20 million copies of her books, and Jimmy Fallon about what they’re reading and loving lately.
This week marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Robert Moses, a perhaps little-known government official who wielded immense power in shaping New York City and its surrounding areas—and for the first time ever, it's available on Kindle. Robert A. Caro’s engrossing take has been named one of the greatest books of the twentieth century, and it’s just as relevant today as ever. Moses’ decisions on where roads, bridges, and parks were built changed the face of communities where more than 20 million Americans call home—determining who had access to (and who didn’t) green spaces, grocery stores, good jobs, and affordable housing. And remarkably, for somebody who had such autonomy in America’s biggest city, the financial capital of the world, Moses was never elected to any office, or, as Caro explains, “Moses built an empire and lived like an emperor.” While most eyes are on the election now, it’s also insightful to learn about the hidden places where power resides outside of any ballot box. —Lindsay Powers, Amazon Editor
Yes, fall marks the return to school, pumpkin spice lattes, cozy blankets and the closing of windows, but it also marks the beginning of the literary award season. This year, the National Book Foundation will hold their 75th Awards program in November and they’ve just announced their longlists in young people’s literature, translated literature, poetry, nonfiction, and fiction. There are so many great books on this list—including our #1 and #5 picks for the Year So Far: James by Percival Everett and Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar. The underdog memoir (and one of our best memoirs of the year so far) that I’ll be rooting for come November’s award ceremony is Deborah Jackson Taffa’s. Whiskey Tender is a reminder of just how good memoirs can be: emotional and intense, shocking and quotidian, with wild moments that are rendered with the perfect balance of outrageous intrigue and unfiltered honesty. While Deborah Jackson Taffa admits early on that her “story is as common as dirt,” her ability to articulate the complexities of her family’s history—living on the Quechan reservation and leaving it, and their run-ins with violence, oppression, poverty, and addiction—is far from common. With both grace and inquisition, she searches for understanding and how to make sense of her Native American and Spanish bloodlines, and how her family chased assimilation only to later reject the implausibility of the American dream. This is a gutting and important read and now is the perfect time to read it. –Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor
To be clear, ahem, this is one of the most unusual, and wonderful, novels I’ve read in a long time. Taking place in a far-flung area of Scotland during the infamous Clearances, when wealthy land owners evicted tenants in favor of sheep, Clear finds a desperate minister on a mission to remove one such unfortunate denizen. This already fraught task becomes all the more complicated when said minister is gravely injured and nursed back to health by Ivar, the man he is meant to oust. So yeah, awkward. And all the more so when unexpected feelings start to develop…This spare but lush, and quietly provocative tale is not to be missed. And just having returned from a trip to Scotland, Davies’ evocative prose will bring me back. —Erin Kodicek, Amazon Editor
I read this on a flight and barely looked up the entire four hours. Longtime Dateline correspondent Dan Slepian spent decades investigating the cases of six men in the notorious Sing Sing prison, and the more I read, the more shocked and horrified I became. These men had been not only convicted of a crime they didn’t commit, but spent many years of their lives behind bars when they were clearly innocent. And these are only the cases Slepian looked into, in only this lone prison. It makes me wonder how many others there are suffering the same fate, as this is not likely to be a unique or isolated situation. The misconduct by law enforcement and ambitious prosecutors that Slepian uncovered went unpunished, and there is glaringly little hope for others suffering the same twisted fate as the men profiled here. The Sing Sing Files is a powerful, moving and important look at our justice system and its failures. —Seira Wilson, Amazon Editor
Count us as huge fans of Marcie R. Rendon’s Cash Blackbear series (we’re waiting impatiently to read the fourth in series, Broken Fields, out March 2025), so we were excited for this standalone. Missing and murdered Indigenous women (MMIW) is an epidemic and Quill, a Native woman who lives on the Red Pine reservation in Minnesota, has had her own brush with violence against women. It’s why she runs. She’s running in the woods—practicing for the Boston City Marathon—when she hears a woman screaming. Rendon’s portrait of women’s lives on the reservation captures both the quotidian—raising a family, hanging with friends—and the harrowing—Native women living with two truths: that they are easy prey for predators and that it’s because law enforcement turns a blind eye. Seeing Quill and friends decide their days as bystanders to this travesty are over, makes for an eye-opening and addictively suspenseful read. —Vannessa Cronin, Amazon Editor
Fans of T. J. Klune’s The House in the Cerulean Sea, change your plans and get your book nook ready—Somewhere Beyond the Sea is here and it’s just as good as we were hoping it would be. Book two in this series ups the stakes and keeps all the same lovable characters, while adding new voices to the mix and heightening the tension to what follows book one’s happily ever after. Linus and Arthur, the subjects of said happily ever after in book one, now have to fight to keep their magic alive as politicians threaten to take it away. The pages of this story come alive and wrap you up like a cozy blanket, at once feeling like a magical escape, as well as a critical take on the modern politics of immigration, identity, love, and found family. —Ben Grange, Amazon Editor
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