You’ve probably noticed that Amazon, like many sites, employs an “auto-complete” feature on its search box. When you start typing in letters, it suggests things that begin with those letters. It’s probably safe to assume that it suggests the most frequently searched words, so, if we look at Amazon’s book section we can type in letters and discover, for each letter of the alphabet, the most popular searches on Amazon. Last time we did this, about a year and half ago, vampires were the dominant theme. This time around, the vampires have mostly disappeared and things are perhaps a touch more literary. As we termed it last time, you might consider this exercise, the ABCs of Amazon (a peek into the reading habits of America and, like it or not, a primer for what’s popular in the world of books):
- Audio Books
- Bible
- Charlaine Harris (ok, some vampire books are still popular)
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid (the very popular children’s series by Jeff Kinney)
- Ebooks (a sign of the times)
- Free Kindle Books (Ibid)
- Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
- Harry Potter (as if there was any doubt)
- ISBN number search (funny because ISBNs work in the search box)
- James Patterson
- Kindle (no surprise here)
- Lee Child
- Mark Twain Autobiography 2010
- Nora Roberts
- Outliers (by Malcolm Gladwell)
- Pretty Little Liars (there’s a TV show based on these)
- Quilting
- Room (by Emma Donoghue)
- Stephen King
- The Help (by Kathryn Stockett)
- Unbroken (by Laura Hillenbrand)
- Vince Flynn
- Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
- X-Men
- Yoga
- Zane
(Amazon has been known to personalize and regularly adjust its results, so your Amazon alphabet may vary.)
