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Amazon.com Books Editors Announce "Best Books of the Year... So Far"

July 9, 2010

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SEATTLE, WASH (RPRN) 07/09/10 — Amazon.com Books Editors Announce "Best Books of the Year... So Far" Just in time for summer travel, customers can buy the Top 10 books of 2010 (so far) in the Amazon Book Store or Amazon Kindle Store

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced its picks for the annual Best Books of the Year...

So Far list (www.amazon.com/bestbooks2010). This midyear retrospective highlights the best books that have been released in 2010 between January and June. Customers looking for vacation reads will find an eclectic list, from the literary equivalent of "Big Love" to the true tale of a woman whose cells impacted medical history in a profound way. The Top 10 Best Books of the Year... So Far are all also available in the Kindle Store (www.amazon.com/kindlestore) via wireless download in less than 60 seconds.

"Our goal with Best of the Year... So Far is to create a list of books that transcend genre," said Daphne Durham, managing editor of Books at Amazon.com. "These are books that you could give to anyone, no matter what their taste, and this year you have a very global list to choose from--with settings ranging from China to Sweden, Vietnam to Baltimore. Narrowing the list of great reads for customers has always been one of our favorite activities, and 2010 has been an incredible year for books so far."

The Best Books of the Year... So Far are hand-picked by Amazon.com Books editors and represent their favorite titles in four categories: an overall Top 10, plus 10 books each in Fiction, Nonfiction, and Young Readers. Here's a quick peek at the Top 10 books of the year so far, listed alphabetically by author:

• "The Passage" by Justin Cronin: Just when you thought (or even hoped) vampires were dead, Justin Cronin's grand, gorgeously written and terrifying new novel lands--with a 1,000-page thud--pulling readers into an American landscape ravaged by monstrous, mutated immortals.
• "The Irresistible Henry House" by Lisa Grunwald: Inspired by real-life "practice babies" (orphans who were used as teaching tools in Home Economics courses), Grunwald's inventive novel follows the life of a child with many mothers and an inborn talent for making women love him.
• "Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory" by Peter Hessler: Hessler is a modest but intrepid observer of China and its dramatic change over the last 15 years, capturing the ambitions, the failures and the comedy of a country in which everybody, it seems, is on the move.
• "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" by Stieg Larsson: The finest example of a book that saves the best for last, "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" roars with an explosive storyline filled with revelations that make the end of this game-changing suspense series all the more bittersweet.
• "The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine" by Michael Lewis: Of the many books about our economic meltdown, "The Big Short" is arguably the one to read, told from the perspective of a few iconoclastic thinkers who saw the collapse coming--and bet big on it.
• "Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War" by Karl Marlantes: A highly decorated Vietnam veteran himself, Marlantes takes readers deep into the jungles of Vietnam, giving us a new perspective on the ravages of war, the bureaucracy of the military and the peculiar beauty of brotherhood.
• "The Imperfectionists" by Tom Rachman: A fictional English-language newspaper based in Rome is the stage for this sensational debut novel from a former foreign correspondent who has crafted a story that's as much about the disillusion in everyday life as the dissolution of a venerable industry.
• "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot: From a single, abbreviated life grew a seemingly immortal line of cells that made some of the most crucial innovations in modern science possible. From that same life, Skloot fashions a rich and haunting story that redefines what it means to have a medical history.
• "Just Kids" by Patti Smith: Smith's memoir of her friendship with Robert Mapplethorpe is tender and artful, told in the style of her rock anthems and balanced by her memories of their bohemian youth.
• "The Lonely Polygamist" by Brady Udall: Beyond soap opera or sensationalism, Udall reveals the side-splitting slapstick, tragedy and redemption in the life of a man with many wives. His large-hearted story shows particular sympathy for the loneliest members of this crowded family.

To see the Books team's picks for Fiction, Nonfiction, and Young Readers, go to www.amazon.com/bestbooks2010.

About Amazon.com

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle, opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth's Biggest Selection. Amazon.com, Inc. seeks to be Earth's most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices. Amazon.com and other sellers offer millions of unique new, refurbished and used items in categories such as Books; Movies, Music & Games; Digital Downloads; Electronics & Computers; Home & Garden; Toys, Kids & Baby; Grocery; Apparel, Shoes & Jewelry; Health & Beauty; Sports & Outdoors; and Tools, Auto & Industrial. Amazon Web Services provides Amazon's developer customers with access to in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on Amazon's own back-end technology platform, which developers can use to enable virtually any type of business. Kindle and Kindle DX are the revolutionary portable readers that wirelessly download books, magazines, newspapers, blogs and personal documents to a crisp, high-resolution electronic ink display that looks and reads like real paper. Kindle and Kindle DX utilize the same 3G wireless technology as advanced cell phones, so users never need to hunt for a Wi-Fi hotspot. Kindle is the #1 bestselling product across the millions of items sold on Amazon.

Kindle for iPad

Amazon and its affiliates operate websites, including www.amazon.com, www.amazon.co.uk, www.amazon.deb, www.amazon.co.jp, www.amazon.fr, www.amazon.ca, and www.amazon.cn. As used herein, "Amazon.com," "we," "our" and similar terms include Amazon.com, Inc., and its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates otherwise.

Forward-Looking Statements

This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ significantly from management's expectations. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that include, among others, risks related to competition, management of growth, new products, services and technologies, potential fluctuations in operating results, international expansion, outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment center optimization, seasonality, commercial agreements, acquisitions and strategic transactions, foreign exchange rates, system interruption, inventory, government regulation and taxation, payments and fraud. More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com's financial results is included in Amazon.com's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings.

SOURCE: Amazon.com, Inc.

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