The best books of 2026, according to the Amazon Editors

Key takeaways

Amazon Editors selected Min Jin Lee’s American Hagwon as the top pick for 2026. Others on the list include Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke and Cool Machine by Colson Whitehead.
The 2026 list features picks across popular categories, including new Horror and Buzzworthy categories.
Readers can explore the top 20 selections for their next favorite book or holiday gift from Amazon’s wide selection.

Each month, the Amazon Editors reveal our picks for the Best Books of the Month. As the end of the year approaches, we play favorites, and after much discussion and debate, we select the Best Books of the Year.

While many of the books on this list are distinctly of the moment, others are destined to become timeless classics, including our No. 1 pick, Min Jin Lee’s American Hagwon—a moving exploration of ambition, education, immigrant life and the sacrifices we make for those we love.

Our full list of the Best Books of 2026 has something for every reader, including biographies and memoirs, literature and fiction, history, mystery, and romantasy. And new this year, we’ve added Horror and Buzzworthy categories that have been staples of the cultural conversation.

Explore our top 20 picks below.

Page overview

American Hagwon

Exit Party

The Vanishing Family: Love, Fate, and the Quest to End Dementia

Kin

Fruit Fly

Land

London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family’s Search for Truth

Big Little Truths

This Cursed Beautiful Land: A Russian-American Story

Cool Machine

Whale Harbor

Luna, Phoenix, Queen

Public Access Afterworld

Bad Words

Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage

John of John

Yesteryear

The Disappearers

The Nightingales

Night Objects

American Hagwon

by Min Jin Lee

“An extraordinary Trojan horse of a novel that will make your heart sing and make you want to talk to everybody you know about it. Utterly magnetic, American Hagwon will change the way you think about family, sacrifice, and education. Min Jin Lee has written (another) once-in-a-lifetime read.” —Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor
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Exit Party

by Emily St. John Mandel

“A sparkling, genre-busting gift of a novel, Emily St. John Mandel’s latest is dystopian fiction that shook me to my core. Spanning continents, timelines, and perhaps even universes, Exit Party makes for a glorious puzzle, one with pieces that fit together seamlessly.” —Annabel Gutterman, Amazon Editor
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The Vanishing Family: Love, Fate, and the Quest to End Dementia

by Robert Kolker

“Robert Kolker’s enthralling medical mystery is both mesmerizing and heartbreaking—it asks big questions about chance and choice, what makes a full life, what we’re willing to run toward (or hide from), and how we care for each other. It’s a true story that will stick with you.” —Lindsay Powers, Amazon Editor
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Kin

by Tayari Jones

“This was our pick for the best book of the year so far, and our love for this novel about two motherless friends coming of age in the Jim Crow South endures. A nuanced portrait of friendship, family, and race—Jones’ sentences sing.” —Erin Kodicek, Amazon Editor
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Fruit Fly

by Josh Silver

“Walking the line between hysterical and horrifying, this electric psychological thriller ruthlessly takes on cultural appropriation through a delicious cat-and-mouse game like no other. If you’re in a reading slump, Fruit Fly is the cure.” —Abby Abell, Amazon Editor
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Land

by Maggie O’Farrell

“Never before have a 19th-century mapmaker, a scruffy, loyal dog, and a mysterious copse of trees been more enchanting. O’Farrell delivers a soaring and bewitching tale of family and how the remote Irish peninsula where they live defines and shapes them, generation after generation.” —Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor
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London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family’s Search for Truth

by Patrick Radden Keefe

“Illuminating and unforgettable, Patrick Radden Keefe’s latest delivers another knockout work of narrative nonfiction, this time telling the shocking story of how a young man got caught up in the dangerous and powerful world of Russian oligarchs and landed at the bottom of the Thames.” —Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor
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Big Little Truths

by Liane Moriarty

“The many fans of Big Little Lies will love this follow-up, but you don’t need to have read that book or seen the show to enjoy Big Little Truths. I’ve been a fan of Liane Moriarty since her early books, and this is simply one of her very best. The dialogue is so clever, and the storytelling so engrossing, you won’t be able to put this book down.” —Sarah Gelman, Editorial Director
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This Cursed Beautiful Land: A Russian-American Story

by Evan Gershkovich

“This heart-pounding, reported memoir sucked me in from the first page; it’s a gripping account of resilience and perseverance that goes far beyond the headlines to reveal what really happened to Evan Gershkovich when he was snatched off the street and thrown into a Russian prison.” —Lindsay Powers, Amazon Editor
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10.

Cool Machine

by Colson Whitehead

“Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Colson Whitehead delivers another searing page-turner of heists, gangsters, criminals, and families in this mesmerizing portrait of 1980s New York City.” —Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor
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11.

Whale Harbor

by Mary Beth Keane

“I’m guessing most authors can’t help but compete with themselves, and when you have novels like The Half Moon, Fever, and Ask Again, Yes in your repertoire, that competition is particularly stiff. But Mary Beth Keane has risen to the occasion, yet again, with this poignant family saga.” —Erin Kodicek, Amazon Editor
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12.

Luna, Phoenix, Queen

by Julie Orringer

“Reminiscent of Lily King’s Writers & Lovers and Meg Wolitzer’s The Wife, Luna, Phoenix, Queen is a deeply affecting, beautifully written book about love, fidelity, faithfulness, and loss. You will wish it went on for hundreds of pages more.” —Sarah Gelman, Editorial Director
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13.

Public Access Afterworld

by Jane Schoenbrun

“This wonderfully weird love letter to television is the perfect antidote to our screen-obsessed world. Be warned: Once you pick this glittering, genre-bending novel up, it’ll be nearly impossible to put down.” —Annabel Gutterman, Amazon Editor
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14.

Bad Words

by Rioghnach Robinson

“I have found it's more difficult to write about the books I really love, and that is the case with Bad Words. It is a spectacularly written ode to books, to being seen, and to falling in love with the person you least expect. I can't wait for everyone to read it.” —Abby Abell, Amazon Editor
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15.

Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage

by Belle Burden

“Strangers is a divorce memoir, but it’s also a forensic examination of a love and a marriage gone wrong, seemingly without any warning. Burden puts words to many of our worst fears, that one day the person we love and trust the most will become an utter stranger to us.” —Sarah Gelman, Editorial Director
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16.

John of John

by Douglas Stuart

“Set on a remote Scottish isle where you can feel the damp in your bones, John of John tells the story of a family reunion complicated by the secrets its members are keeping from each other. Stuart dazzles in the monumental but quiet moments that make a life.” —Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor
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17.

Yesteryear

by Caro Claire Burke

“When a tradwife influencer wakes up to discover it’s somehow the 19th century, her dizzying journey back to reality makes for a brilliant, biting novel about motherhood, fame, and faith.” —Annabel Gutterman, Amazon Editor
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18.

The Disappearers

by Marlon James

“In this decades-spanning epic feat of a novel, Marlon James traces the aftermath of a brutally violent attack on a group of gay men in 1980s Jamaica. He creates a dazzling maximalist portrait of queerness, identity, and survival that fires on all cylinders: It’s haunting, horrific, hilarious, and bursting with heart.” —Annabel Gutterman, Amazon Editor
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19.

The Nightingales

by Emil Wilson

“This emotional graphic novel finds a high school student and the dying man her dad invites into their household forming an unlikely and powerful friendship—one that will fuel the trajectory of the former’s life. It’s a story—full of heart, and thankfully plenty of humor—that readers will immediately recognize as not just good, but special.” —Erin Kodicek, Amazon Editor
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20.

Night Objects

by Eli Raphael

“This mesmerizing suspense novel about a teenager’s desperate search for belonging at her elite boarding school—where secrets swirl and danger looms large—lived in my head for days. Eli Raphael introduces herself as a writer you don’t want to miss.” —Annabel Gutterman, Amazon Editor
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