Skip to main content

Historical Fiction on Amazon's Best of 2012 List

Today Amazon's Top Picks for 2012 list appeared in my inbox:
"All year, the Amazon Books editorial team reads voraciously, tracking down and sharing the most fascinating, compelling, enlightening, and entertaining books for readers of all tastes. Here are our 100 picks for the best reads of the year."

In order of appearance:

Bring Up the Bodies  Sweet Tooth: A Novel The Song of Achilles: A Novel
Sutton  The Coldest Night  Live by Night: A Novel

Half-Blood Blues: A Novel  The Orchardist: A Novel  By Blood: A Novel
The Snow Child: A Novel  Beautiful Ruins: A Novel  Winter of the World: Book Two of the Century Trilogy
The Headmaster's Wager  In Sunlight and in Shadow  Wilderness: A Novel
Toby's Room  The Absolutist

Seventeen historical fiction titles on the list. Some of these titles you may recognize from the USA Today bestseller list, and some of them may be brand new to you, as they were to me! I was very pleased to see so many historical fiction titles on the list, and surprised to see many of the 100 titles on the list have very few reviews (some less than five), and many have a less-than-favorable average review score. (And none are self-published.)

What do you think? Did Amazon get it right? Any surprises here? Any titles you're surprised didn't make the list?