Best Books of the Month: August 2012See this month's editors' picks and other featured new releases in our Best Books of the Month store, or browse this month's editors' picks in Kindle Books.
Need a lush and epic novel set in someplace beautiful? We've got two. Need a post-apocalyptic fiction fix? Done. How about spies? Take your pick - we've got real and fictional. Our Best Books of the Month for August has something for all tastes, from a dark novel about cheerleaders to a legendary writer's memoir on aging, from a surprisingly impressive novel by actress Molly Ringwald to a nonfiction look at the history and science of dreams.
Oh, and an added bonus: in addition to our Debut Spotlight ( The Orchardist), half of this month's Best Books are debut novels ( The Light Between Oceans, Dog Stars, When It Happens to You, We Sinners, and City of Women).
|
1.
|
|
The Light Between Oceans: A Novel
by M. L. Stedman
|
 (2,329 customer reviews)
|
In Stock
Scribner
July 31, 2012
Hardcover
Click here for more information
|
| List Price: | $25.00 | | Price: | $17.32 | | You Save: | $7.68 (31%) |
|
|
Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best Books of the Month, August 2012: Tom Sherbourne is a lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, a tiny island a half day’s boat journey from the coast of Western Australia. When a baby washes up in a rowboat, he and his young wife Isabel decide to raise ...
Read more
|
|
|
2.
|
|
The Dog Stars
by Peter Heller
|
(632 customer reviews)
|
In Stock
Knopf
August 7, 2012
Hardcover
Click here for more information
|
| List Price: | $24.95 | | Price: | $16.95 | | You Save: | $8.00 (32%) |
|
|
Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best Books of the Month, August 2012: Adventure writer Peter Heller’s The Dog Stars is a first novel set in Colorado after a superflu has culled most of humanity. A man named Hig lives in a former airport community—McMansions built along the edge of a runway—which he shares ...
Read more
|
|
|
3.
|
|
Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies
by Ben Macintyre
|
 (242 customer reviews)
|
In Stock
Crown
July 31, 2012
Hardcover
Click here for more information
|
| List Price: | $26.00 | | Price: | $15.96 | | You Save: | $10.04 (39%) |
|
|
Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best Books of the Month, August 2012: What do a Polish pilot, a Peruvian party girl, and a Spanish chicken maven have in common? They were all central to the success of Operation Fortitude, the audacious ruse that kept Hitler guessing over the location of the D-Day invasions, ...
Read more
|
|
|
4.
|
|
Dare Me: A Novel
by Megan E. Abbott
|
 (129 customer reviews)
|
In Stock
Reagan Arthur Books
July 31, 2012
Hardcover
Click here for more information
|
| List Price: | $24.99 | | Price: | $16.40 | | You Save: | $8.59 (34%) |
|
|
Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best Books of the Month, August 2012: Oh my, these beautiful, terrible girls, with their "Aruba-tanned" legs and their ferocity and fears, for whom the smallest slights become life-and-death matters. This brilliantly dark and uncomfortably real story, sharp and suspenseful and chilling, made me desperately glad I have ...
Read more
|
|
|
5.
|
|
When It Happens to You: A Novel in Stories
by Molly Ringwald
|
(274 customer reviews)
|
In Stock
It Books
August 14, 2012
Hardcover
Click here for more information
|
| List Price: | $24.99 | | Price: | $16.75 | | You Save: | $8.24 (33%) |
|
|
Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best Books of the Month, August 2012: Any lingering Brat Pack associations you may bring to When It Happens to You, Molly Ringwald’s first novel, will rapidly evaporate. Ringwald renders the families and lovers in her intertwined stories with a compassionate eye for the kind of heartbreak that ...
Read more
|
|
|
6.
|
|
Winter Journal
by Paul Auster
|
(74 customer reviews)
|
In Stock
Henry Holt and Co.
August 21, 2012
Hardcover
Click here for more information
|
| List Price: | $26.00 | | Price: | $17.58 | | You Save: | $8.42 (32%) |
|
|
Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best Books of the Month, August 2012: At nearly 64, one of our greatest modern writers is feeling his age. In his quietly transfixing new memoir, Winter Journal, Paul Auster meditates on what it means for his mind, body, and creativity to experience the unforgiving passage of time. ...
Read more
|
|
|
7.
|
|
The Double Game
by Dan Fesperman
|
(76 customer reviews)
|
In Stock
Knopf
August 21, 2012
Hardcover
Click here for more information
|
| List Price: | $26.95 | | Price: | $17.38 | | You Save: | $9.57 (36%) |
|
|
Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best Books of the Month, August 2012: The Double Game begins as a playful spy caper within a spy caper, in which clues to a mystery are found in the pages and plots of old spy novels. Okay, clever enough. But the story quickly becomes more refreshingly and ...
Read more
|
|
|
8.
|
|
Dreamland: Adventures in the Strange Science of Sleep
by David K. Randall
|
(65 customer reviews)
|
In Stock
W. W. Norton & Company
August 13, 2012
Hardcover
Click here for more information
|
| List Price: | $25.95 | | Price: | $17.56 | | You Save: | $8.39 (32%) |
|
|
Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best Books of the Month, August 2012: Forget about outer space and deep-ocean trenches. There are scientific mysteries far closer to home. In our bedrooms each night, something odd happens--we try to fall asleep. No one knows exactly why. What happens if we don't sleep? Do men sleep ...
Read more
|
|
|
9.
|
|
We Sinners: A Novel
by Hanna Pylväinen
|
(56 customer reviews)
|
In Stock
Henry Holt and Co.
August 21, 2012
Hardcover
Click here for more information
|
| List Price: | $23.00 | | Price: | $16.85 | | You Save: | $6.15 (27%) |
|
|
Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best Books of the Month, August 2012: At the center of We Sinners is the Rovaniemi family--two parents and nine children, all adherents of a hyper-conservative Finnish church in the Midwest. Each chapter takes the perspective of a different family member, furthering the tension between the belief ...
Read more
|
|
|
10.
|
|
City of Women
by David R. Gillham
|
(268 customer reviews)
|
In Stock
Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam
August 7, 2012
Hardcover
Click here for more information
|
| List Price: | $25.95 | | Price: | $17.56 | | You Save: | $8.39 (32%) |
|
|
Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best Books of the Month, August 2012: While the world hardly lacks for novels about WWII, David R. Gillham’s City of Women is extraordinary for what it does not do. It does not detail the events or imagined conversations of Hitler’s Reich, and it has not a single scene of life ...
Read more
|
|
|
11.
|
|
The Orchardist: A Novel
by Amanda Coplin
|
(421 customer reviews)
|
In Stock
Harper
August 21, 2012
Hardcover
Click here for more information
|
| List Price: | $26.99 | | Price: | $18.18 | | You Save: | $8.81 (33%) |
|
|
Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best Books of the Month, August 2012: Set against the rugged beauty of Washington State at the turn of the twentieth century, Amanda Coplin’s debut novel, The Orchardist, introduces readers to William Talmadge and his lovingly cultivated orchards of apples and apricots. Coplin’s characters are deeply ...
Read more
|
|
More About Amazon.com's Best Books of the MonthEach month, Amazon.com's editorial team reads with an eye for the Best Books of the Month, plus the best books in popular categories like Cooking, Food & Wine books, Literature & Fiction, Children's books, Mystery & Thrillers, Comics & Graphic Novels, Romance, Science Fiction & Fantasy, the best books for teens, and more. We scour reviews and book news for tips on what the earliest readers have loved, we swap books amongst ourselves, and spend our nights and weekends tearing through as many of the best books as possible. Then we face off in a monthly Best Books showdown meeting to champion the books we think will resonate most with their readership. The titles that make our Best Books of Month lists are the keepers, the ones we couldn't forget. Many of our editorial picks for the best books are also customer favorites and bestsellers, but we strive to spotlight the best books you might not otherwise hear about. The books included in Amazon's Best Books of the Month program are entirely editorial selections. We have great passion for uniting readers of all ages and tastes with their next favorite read, helping our customers find terrific gifts for booklovers, and drawing more attention to the best books by exceptional authors of all stripes. 
|
Debut Spotlight: Amanda Coplin
Set against the rugged beauty of Washington State at the turn of the twentieth century, Amanda Coplin’s breathtaking debut novel, The Orchardist, tracks a reclusive apple and apricot grower as he confronts the ghosts of his troubled past. Coplin’s characters, deeply rooted in the mystery of the American West, form a unique family bound not by blood but by the shared experience of tragedy, the land, and ultimately fate.
|
