Every morning at 2 oâclock Chris Schluep wakes up, reads for an hour, then goes back to sleep. Heâs done that for at least a couple of decades and canât really explain why.
âItâs like someone asking me, âwhy do you eat food?â or âwhy do you put your feet on the floor when you get out of bed?â I just do. Books are vital to me. I love reading, and Iâve always been this way,â said Schluep, who manages the Amazon Books editorial team.
Schluep is part of a small team of literary lovers who had many years of experience in the publishing industry before joining Amazon. Theyâre obsessed with helping customers find their next great read, and they do it the old-school way by sorting through thousands of published works, reading almost a hundred books each month, debating the merits of books theyâve read, and then assembling monthly recommended reading lists for customers through Amazon.com and the companyâs retail bookstores.
âThe machine learning at Amazon and the personalization system here is extremely impressive,â said Erin Kodicek, an editor on the Amazon Books team. âBut when the guys who work on artificial intelligence want a book recommendation, they come to us.â
The books editorial team includes Schluep, Kodicek, Adrian Liang, Seira Wilson, Jon Foro, Sarah Harrison Smith, and other avid readers throughout the company. One way they help customers discover books theyâll enjoy is through curated lists that are part of Amazonâs book personalization system that includes automated recommendations based on purchase history, customer book reviews, a site called Goodreads which allows people to see what books their friends are reading, and the Amazon Book Review blog.
Discussion, debate and âkilling your darlingsâ
Schluepâs team just released their Top 20 picks for 2018âs Best Books of the Year So Far. The list includes fiction and non-fiction must-reads heading into the summer, but it wasnât easy for the book-loving team to narrow a large list of possibilities down to 20 titles.
âItâs this painful process of killing your darlings because these are all books that we are passionate about and that we really, really love. It can be a tense process,â said Kodicek. âYeah, we do it the old-fashioned way,â Schluep added. âWe argue.â
As each team member tries to sway another toward their favorite books, they keep their customers in mind. âWe want to find books that appeal to a variety of readers. People read to be entertained. They read to learn something, to be inspired. They read because they really appreciate a well told, well-structured story. We hope our lists represent that,â Kodicek said. âItâs about introducing readers to new authors, or authors who they otherwise might not have discovered. Thatâs what we really get a kick out of.â
The Amazon Books editorial teamâs number 1 pick was unanimous this year. Thatâs rare. The best book of the year so far is âEducated: A Memoirâ by Tara Westover. Kodicek describes the memoir as an extraordinary story of a woman who was sitting in a college class when the professor mentioned the Holocaust. She raised her hand and asked, âWhatâs the Holocaust?â
âIt was not a sick joke. She honestly didnât know what it was and thatâs because she never set foot into a classroom until she was 17 years old,â said Kodicek. âShe grew up with a family where the father was very distrustful of the government, he did not believe in sending them to school or to the doctor. So itâs a story of how she survived her survivalist upbringing and she eventually ended up getting a PhD from Cambridge University.â
Although theyâre pleased with the top 20 picks, the editorial teamâs task of reading, discussing and selecting books never ends. And thatâs the way they like it. Soon theyâll choose their favorites for the next month, then the next, and eventually 2018âs âbest of the yearâ list.
âThere are so many great books. We donât care what you read, and we donât care if itâs on paper, on the Kindle, on a stone tablet, or Audible. Just please read,â Kodicek said. âWe want people to love reading as much as we do.â
That doesnât mean readers need to get up at 2 a.m. to swipe open a Kindle book, like Schluep does. But they might relate to his attitude toward literature.
âWhen you find a great book itâs like finding a great friend,â he said. âWhatâs the value of having a great friend? You tell me.â
Favorite books of all time
Click below to hear how Erin and Chris discovered a love of reading, and find out what their favorite books of all time are. Hint: Erinâs favorite is from someone she describes as âone of our greatest living writers.â Chris has âunapologeticallyâ read his favorite book three times, although many of us struggle to get through it once.