The Millions Top Ten: June 2014

July 21, 2014 | 9 books mentioned 2 min read

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 June.

This
Month
Last
Month
Title On List
1. 2. cover Beautiful Ruins 4 months
2. 9. cover A Highly Unlikely Scenario, or a Neetsa Pizza Employee’s Guide to Saving the World 2 months
3. 4. cover The Son 3 months
4. 3. cover Bark: Stories 3 months
5. 8. cover The Good Lord Bird
3 months
6. 7. cover Well-Read Women: Portraits of Fiction’s Most Beloved Heroines 3 months
7. 5. cover Just Kids 6 months
8. cover Americanah
1 month
9. 6. cover Eleanor & Park 3 months
10. 10. cover Jesus’ Son: Stories 3 months

 

As I predicted in last month’s write-up, the ascension of The Beggar Maid to our Hall of Fame means that Alice Munro has now officially graduated to the “Top Ten Two Timers Club” (working title) — a nine-member cohort of authors who’ve reached the Hall of Fame for more than one book.

Consequently, space on the Top Ten has opened up for a new number one — Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter — and for a new addition to the list: Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, which saw a sales bump after it was released in paperback last March, and then again after it was announced that a film adaptation could be on the way. (Of course, being featured on a surprise Beyoncé album never hurts, either.) Millions readers looking for an additional Adichie fix are welcome to check out her contribution to our Year in Reading series, as well.

Meanwhile, Rachel Cantor’s A Highly Unlikely Scenario, or a Neetsa Pizza Employee’s Guide to Saving the World continues to enjoy breakout success among Millions readers. The book takes place in the not-too-far-off future, where “competing giant fast food factions rule the world.” (One could be forgiven for wondering how, exactly, that’s different from the way things are right now.)

Next month, I expect to see multiple books from our recent Most Anticipated list to make it into our Top Ten. After all, two Millions staffers did just publish books last week, you know

Near Misses: Little Failure: A MemoirStories of Anton Chekhov, My Struggle: Book 1, The Fault in Our Stars, and Blood Will Out: The True Story of a Murder, a Mystery, and a MasqueradeSee Also: Last month’s list.

works on special projects for The Millions. He lives in Baltimore and he frequents dive bars. His interests can be followed on his Tumblr, Nick Recommends and Twitter, @nemoran3.