We spend plenty of time here on The Millions telling all of you what we’ve been reading, but we are also quite interested in hearing about what you’ve been reading. By looking at our Amazon stats, we can see what books Millions readers have been buying, and we decided it would be fun to use those stats to find out what books have been most popular with our readers in recent months. Below you’ll find our Millions Top Ten list for July.
| This Month |
Last Month |
Title | On List | |
| 1. | 2. |  |
A Highly Unlikely Scenario, or a Neetsa Pizza Employee’s Guide to Saving the World | 3 months |
| 2. | 1. |  |
Beautiful Ruins | 5 months |
| 3. | – |  |
The Round House | 1 month |
| 4. | 6. |  |
Well-Read Women: Portraits of Fiction’s Most Beloved Heroines | 4 months |
| 5. | 3. |  |
The Son |
4 months |
| 6. | – |  |
Reading Like a Writer | 1 month |
| 7. | 4. |  |
Bark: Stories | 4 months |
| 8. | 8. |  |
Americanah |
2 months |
| 9. | – |  |
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves | 1 month |
| 10. | – |  |
My Struggle: Book 1 | 1 month |
July is the month of revolutions, writes Tom Nissley, and the theory is borne out in our July Top Ten. Not only do we have a new number one, but we also have four newcomers to our list — this in spite of the fact that not a single book from our June Top Ten graduated into our hallowed Hall of Fame. Are you intrigued? Then let’s get right to it.
Rachel Cantor’s A Highly Unlikely Scenario continues its months-long ascent up our list. When it debuted at #8 in May, I attributed its success to its placement on our Great 2014 Book Preview, but it looks like Millions readers have grown more and more intrigued ever since. Last month, Cantor’s book rose all the way to #2, and now it’s finally edged Jess Walter’s Beautiful Ruins out of the top spot. What will August hold in store for Cantor’s novel about “competing giant fast food factions rul[ing] the world?” Only time will tell.
Of the four newcomers to our list, the appearance of Karen Jay Fowler’s We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves is probably the easiest to explain. The novel, which has been described by Khaled Hosseini as “a gripping, bighearted book,” won this year’s PEN/Faulkner award, and was also recently longlisted for the Man Booker Prize.
Likewise, the debut of Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle: Book 1 is understandable — and, frankly, overdue — considering the immense hype it’s been getting lately. When Jonathan Callahan reviewed the book’s early installments for our site last year (which feels like ages ago…), he wrote of the autobiographical project:
With astounding single-mindedness (or monomania, if you prefer), Knausgaard conceives of and then executes the writing project that both consumes him and sequesters him from life. He’s Ahab, only with the final volume’s publication — which reportedly concludes with whatever the Norwegian is for “I am no longer an author” — he’s gone and caught the whale.
At the time, it seemed an unlikely candidate for breakout success. But oh, how wrong we were. Since last year, Knausgaard’s earned himself praise in the New York Times, the New Yorker, and more. He’s packed standing-room-only bookstore readings and he’s been talked about about just about every bar in New York. In fact there were rumors recently that the book was so popular in the author’s native Norway that the country had to institute “Knausgaard-free days” in order to keep its economy humming.
Also joining the list this month are books by Louise Erdrich and Francine Prose. The Round House has been knocking on the Top Ten’s door since its publication in 2012, and Reading Like a Writer seems like it’s perfectly suited for most of our readers.
Near Misses: The Good Lord Bird, Jesus’ Son, Just Kids, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and The Fault in Our Stars. See Also: Last month’s list.
