Amazon has churned out a number of top books lists this year. We’ve already mentioned the Editors’ Top 100 Books, but there’s also the Customers’ Top 100 Books, the Top 10 Literature and Fiction, the Top 10 Cookbooks, and the Top 10 Science Books.
Amazon’s Top Book Lists
The New Yorker on the TSA
The New Yorker posts its airport security cartoons, from 1938 to the present.
More Authorial Car Crashes
“Camus, Car Crashes, Cinema,” a weird sequel to Bill Morris’ two lists of writers who met death by motor vehicle.
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High Expectations
“My sense, though, was that he was a very complicated man. He could enter a room and be the organizer of games and magic tricks and funny stories and a brilliant mimic and holding forth and entertaining and holding the center. But he was also incredibly controlling; he was domineering.” Ralph Fiennes on playing Charles Dickens.
Visionary
At the Times Literary Supplement, Raymond Tallis reviews Hallucinations, a new book by Oliver Sacks that defines “sensational consciousness.”
You’ll Never Believe What Happens Next
If you’re looking for some great poetry, check out these classic poems that will change your life, from Robert Frost’s “This Man Stops By Woods On a Snowy Eve… You Won’t Believe What Happens Next!” to Gwendolyn Brooks’s “We Real Cool… and You Can Be Too After These 5 Easy Tricks.” Pair with this Millions piece on poetry for people who hate poetry.
David Mitchell on The King’s Speech
The King’s Speech is the first film to portray my speech defect realistically, says novelist David Mitchell.
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Where Have You Been
Recommended Reading: Mark L. Keats explores “international adoption as resettlement.”
Selling Point
“The uncanny—not truth, beauty, or goodness—is literature’s boon.” The good thing about literature: it makes you weird.