Best Books of the Month- according to Amazon.com

Discover Amazon's editors' picks for January--available at 40% off all month long--plus more new releases not to miss, or browse this month's editors' picks in Kindle Books

Spotlight Selection: The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson

It is only January, but Adam Johnson’s astonishing novel is destined to cast a long shadow over the year in books. Jun Do is The Orphan Master’s Son, a North Korean citizen with a rough past who is working as a government-sanctioned kidnapper when we first meet him. He is hardly a sympathetic character, but sympathy is not author Johnson’s aim. In a totalitarian nation of random violence and bewildering caprice--a poor, gray place that nonetheless refers to itself as “the most glorious nation on earth”--an unnatural tension exists between a citizen’s national identity and his private life. Through Jun Do’s story we realize that beneath the weight of oppression and lies beats a heart not much different from our own--one that thirsts for love, acceptance, and hope—and that realization is at the heart of this shockingly believable, immersive, and thrilling novel. --Chris Schluep

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green		Quiet: The Power of Introverts by Susan Cain		Agent 6 by Tom Rob Smith
John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars tackles big subjects--life, death, and falling in love--with a perfect blend of levity and heartbreak as we follow Hazel and Augustus, teenagers with cancer, who meet and discover they share an irreverent sense of humor, immense charm, and a deeply moving love story. Read more.		How many introverts do you know? The real answer may surprise you. With cutting-edge research, fascinating factoids, and engaging, highly readable writing, Susan Cain's Quiet cuts through the "extrovert ideal" to sing the praises of introverts everywhere. Read more.		To solve the murder that splinters his family, ex-KGB Leo Demidov escapes the ruins of Stalinist Russia through opium-soaked 1980s Afghanistan to New York. Tom Rob Smith secures his place in the pantheon of crime writers with this taut, absorbing conclusion to the trilogy he so brilliantly began with Child 44 and The Secret Speech. Read more.
The Flame Alphabet by Ben Marcus		Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler		Running the Rift by Naomi Benaron
From the dark mind of Ben Marcus comes another brain-melting novel. In The Flame Alphabet, children are slowly killing their parents by speaking--and Sam leaves his family behind to look for a cure. We watch his self-destructive journey, fascinated and repelled, unable to imagine what we might do differently. Read more.		Written with an emotional depth that will leave you wondering how Daniel Handler knows exactly what it's like to be a teenage girl in love, Why We Broke Up is a heartrending story of Min's first love, revealed one love token at a time. Read more.		No wonder Barbara Kingsolver awarded her Bellwether Prize to Naomi Benaron's Running the Rift. This story of gifted young Tutsi runner Jean Patrick makes one of history's most inconceivable episodes--the Rwandan genocide--vividly personal, as Jean Patrick's Olympic training fuels a race to save himself and his family. Read more.
Fraternity by Diane Brady		The Spy Who Jumped Off the Screen by Thomas Caplan		The Ice Balloon by Alec Wilkinson
After MLK Jr.'s assassination, Reverend John Brooks, the future president of Holy Cross College, personally recruited and mentored 20 African-American students. Diane Brady follows the lives of five of them--including Justice Clarence Thomas and author Edward P. Jones--in her impressively researched debut. Read more.		Soldier turned actor Ty Hunter craves nothing more than some R&R after his latest Hollywood blockbuster… until he's tasked with thwarting a potential nuclear arms deal. Using his celebrity sway and former training, Hunter goes undercover within a wealthy, powerful inner circle in search of a rogue. Read more.		1897, Swedish explorer S.A. Andree attempted to discover the North Pole by flying over it in a hydrogen balloon. What makes this more than another adventure story is Wilkinson's exploration of mankind's compulsion to reach the extreme points of the Earth, despite all the absurd and obvious risks. Read more.