2017

This Year in Books

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Welcome to This Year in Books by Amazon Charts, celebrating you, the readers, and the extraordinary books that defined 2017.

The cover of The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye: A Lisbeth Salander novel, continuing Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Series (Millennium Series Book 5) by David Lagercrantz. Click for more details.
The cover of Turtles All the Way Down by John Green. Click for more details.
The cover of A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. Click for more details.
The cover of Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders. Click for more details.
The cover of Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng. Click for more details.
The cover of The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur. Click for more details.
The cover of A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman. Click for more details.
The cover of The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. Click for more details.
The cover of It by Stephen King. Click for more details.
The cover of Wonder by R. J. Palacio. Click for more details.
The cover of Beneath a Scarlet Sky: A Novel by Mark Sullivan. Click for more details.
The cover of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari. Click for more details.
The cover of You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life by Jen Sincero. Click for more details.
The cover of Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty. Click for more details.
The cover of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson. Click for more details.
The cover of The Cuban Affair: A Novel by Nelson DeMille. Click for more details.
The cover of Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J. D. Vance. Click for more details.
The cover of Into the Water: A Novel by Paula Hawkins. Click for more details.
The cover of Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. Click for more details.
The cover of 1984 by George Orwell. Click for more details.
The cover of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling. Click for more details.
The cover of Stillhouse Lake (Stillhouse Lake Series Book 1) by Rachel Caine. Click for more details.
The cover of Origin: A Novel by Dan Brown. Click for more details.
The cover of Grant by Ron Chernow. Click for more details.
The cover of Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah. Click for more details.
The cover of Exit West: A Novel by Mohsin Hamid. Click for more details.
The cover of We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Click for more details.
The cover of Before We Were Yours: A Novel by Lisa Wingate. Click for more details.
The cover of Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson. Click for more details.

Most Read Books of 2017

Top of the Charts! Here are the Most Read titles of the year, reflecting customers’ favorite Kindle and Audible books.

Top 10 Most Read Fiction Books in 2017

Top 10 Most Read Nonfiction Books in 2017

America, by the Book

Talk about the United States! In 2017, The Handmaid’s Tale topped sales everywhere but Ohio, Utah, Puerto Rico, and Guam. Here are this year’s top 10 reading hotspots, as measured by Kindle reads per state population, plus a few intriguing facts about reading in America.

Top 10
Local Fact
MA NH VT WA HI WY ID MT NV CA CO NM TX OK KS NE SD ND MN WI IA MO IL AR MS LA AL GA FL SC NC TN KY IN OH MI PA VA W V NY ME RI CT NJ DE MD DC GU MP AS VI PR AZ AK UT OR

Click on the map or choose a state/territory below to reveal more. Choose a state/territory below to reveal more.

Top 5 Highly Quotable

From elegant turns of phrase to sage words of wisdom, here are the top passages from the books that Kindle customers highlighted most frequently in 2017.

Top 5 Unputdownable

Some books are too good to let life get in the way. Here are the Kindle and Audible titles readers tore through faster than comparable books.

Most Listened to on Alexa

Alexa plays the hits, delivers the news and weather, and — as many customers discovered this year — reads books in your Audible and Kindle libraries. Here is the top title read on Amazon Echo devices this year.

The top of an Amazon Echo device. You can ask Alexa to read your favorite book from Audible or Kindle.

Top 5 All Ears

Sometimes, you need to hear what a book has to say. These are the top five titles more customers listened to on Audible than read on Kindle.

The Sun and Her Followers

“Instagram Poet” Rupi Kaur put poetry in the spotlight with her books Milk and Honey and The Sun and Her Flowers.

Photo Credit: Nabil Shash
The cover of The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur. Click to learn more.

The Sun and Her Flowers

Rupi Kaur

READ SAMPLE ›

Accio Highlights!

Twenty years on, Harry Potter continues to cast a spell on readers. Choose a language to see the top highlighted passages from Muggles around the world.

Found in Translation

In a world filled with stories to discover, there’s no reason to let language be a barrier to great reading. Here are this year’s Most Read fiction books in translation.

Reading Around the World

April 23, 2017, was World Book Day and people all around the globe celebrated by reading. If you took all the pages read worldwide that day and lined them up lengthwise, there would be

39,000 miles of pages

…or approximately 1.3 million copies of Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Astrophysics for People in a Hurry.

If we connected the pages end-to-end, it would equal the ISS orbiting the Earth approximately 1.5 times.

Top 5 Most Wished For

Wait for a shooting star or birthday candles? Not around here. Amazon customers use their Wish Lists to make their dreams come true throughout the year. Here are 2017’s Most Wished For books.

Top 5 Most Gifted

Still looking for presents this holiday season? These were the Kindle and print books for adults that kept on giving — because Amazon customers couldn’t stop buying them for loved ones.

Most Popular Animal

Bears growled, horses said “neigh,” and birds tweeted up a storm. But dogs were mentioned in more kids’ Kindle books in 2017 than any other critter. (Cats won’t dignify the results with a response.)

animal

Top 5 Most
Gifted Children's Books Gifted Children's Books

Want an instant uplift? Pass these Most Gifted kids’ Kindle and print books on to your favorite future readers and try to count the smiles.

The Year That Was

We celebrated March in winter, went Underground in spring, marveled at the Cosmos over the summer, and finished 2017 in Wonder. Here are the books that topped the Charts and told the story of 2017.

JANUARY

Graphic novel March, on Rep. John Lewis’s Civil Rights activism, has highest grossing week.

The cover of March: Book One by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, illustrated by Nate Powell. Click for more details. The cover of Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat by Javaka Steptoe. Click for more details.

Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat wins Caldecott Medal.

The cover of 1984 by George Orwell. Click for more details.

The 1949 classic 1984 spikes in gross sales. In 2017, it sold nearly seven times more than last year.

Film Hidden Figures, about African-American women at NASA, enters wide release. The book surges in sales.

The cover of Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly. Click for more details.
A from a scene from the Hidden Figures movie.
February
The cover of Fifty Shades Darker by E L James. Click for more details.

Fifty Shades Darker opens in theaters, boosting sales of the racy trilogy.

A promotional image of the Fifty Shades Darker movie.
The cover of The Shack by William P. Young. Click for more details.

The Shack hits its highest-grossing sales week just before opening in movie theaters.

A picture of a scene from The Shack movie.
The cover of Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty. Click for more details.

Big Little Lies debuts on HBO. Liane Moriarty’s thriller has its highest grossing week.

A picture of a scene from the Big Little Lies show.
MARCH
The cover of LaRose: A Novel by Louise Erdrich. Click for more details.

Louise Erdrich's LaRose and Hope Jahren's Lab Girl among winners of National Book Critics Circle Awards.

The cover of Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher. Click for more details.

Teen title13 Reasons Why spikes in gross sales after the series premieres on Netflix.

A picture from a scene in the Thirteen Reasons Why miniseries
The cover of Exit West: A Novel by Mohsin Hamid. Click for more details.

Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West named one of the best books of March by Amazon editors.

The cover of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: Illustrated edition by J.K. Rowling, Newt Scamander, illustrated by Lomenech Gill. Click for more details.

Muggles get their hands on a special charity edition of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

APRIL
The cover of The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. Click for more details.

Colson Whitehead wins Pulitzer for The Underground Railroad; Matthew Desmond wins for Evicted.

The cover of The Immortal Live of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. Click for more details.
A promotional image of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks movie

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, based on Rebecca Skloot’s book, debuts on HBO. Book sales spike.

The cover of The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. Click for more details.
A promotional image of The Handmaid's Tale series.

The Handmaid’s Tale debuts on Hulu. In 2017, Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel sold 22 times more than last year.

The cover of American Gods by Neil Gaiman. Click for more details.
A picture from a scene in the American Gods series.

American Gods debuts on Starz; Neil Gaiman’s book has its highest-grossing sales week of the year.

MAY

Amazon Charts launches with Born a Crime, Sapiens, and Astrophysics for People in a Hurry on the list.

The cover of Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah. Click for more details.

Great-for-graduation books like Oh, the Places You’ll Go! and Make Your Bed land on Amazon Charts.

The cover of Oh, the Places You'll Go! By Seuss. Click for more details.
JUNE
The cover of I Can't Make This Up: Life Lessons by Kevin Hart. Click for more details. The cover of Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J. D. Vance. Click for more details.

Hillbilly Elegy and I Can’t Make This Up top Amazon Charts' Most Sold nonfiction list.

The cover of Oslo by J.T. Rogers. Click for more details.

Tony Awards crown Oslo for best play and Jitney for best revival.

The cover of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling. Click for more details.

Harry Potter celebrates 20th anniversary; magically, all seven books in series appear on Charts simultaneously.

The cover of Jitney: A Play by August Wilson. Click for more details.
JULY
The cover of The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger by Stephen King. Click for more details.

The Gunslinger (Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series) debuts on Charts, one week before the film opens.

A picture of a scene from the Dark Tower movie.

Homo Deus, by Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens) debuts on Amazon Charts’ Most Sold nonfiction list.

The cover of Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari, translated by the author. Click for more details.
The cover of The Miracle of Dunkirk: The True Story of Operation Dynamo by Walter Lord. Click for more details.

Dunkirk opens in theaters, while The Miracle of Dunkirk debuts at No. 3 on Amazon Charts.

A picture from a scene in the Dunkirk movie.
AUGUST
The cover of Beneath a Scarlet Sky: A Novel by Mark Sullivan. Click for more details.

Beneath a Scarlet Sky, by Mark Sullivan, hits No. 1 on Amazon Charts’ Most Sold fiction list.

Hillary Clinton's What Happened hits No. 1 on Amazon Charts’ Most Sold nonfiction list in pre-orders.

The cover of What Happened by Hillary Rodham Clinton. Click for more details.
The cover of A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin. Click for more details.

Game of Thrones tops Charts’ Most Read fiction list two weeks before the HBO finale airs.

A picture of a scene from the Game of Thrones series, showing Queen Cersei as played by Lena Headey.

Carl Sagan’s Cosmos debuts on Amazon Charts in celestial alignment with the solar eclipse.

The cover of Cosmos by Carl Sagan. Click for more details.
SEPTEMBER
The cover of It by Stephen King. Click for more details.

King of the Charts? Stephen King’s It opens in theaters; tops Charts’ Most Sold fiction list.

A promotion image for the movie It.

Emmy Awards crown The Handmaid’s Tale Outstanding Drama Series. It’s the Most Read book of 2017.

A photo of Elisabeth Moss with her new Emmys.
The cover of Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling. Click for more details.

Potter's Epilogue Day: On Sept. 1, 2017 a grown-up Harry Potter sends his son Albus to Hogwarts.

Back-to-school titles East of Eden, Aesop’s Fables, and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings debut on Charts.

The cover of I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Mara Angelou. Click for more details.
OCTOBER
The cover of The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. Click for more details.

Kazuo Ishiguro wins Nobel Prize for Literature. His 1989 book, The Remains of the Day, debuts on Charts.

Kids’ lit treasure Little Golden Books celebrates its 75th anniversary this month.

The cover of The Little Red Hen by J.P. Miller. Click for more details.
The cover of Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders. Click for more details.

George Saunders wins the Man Booker Prize for Lincoln in the Bardo.

"Instagram Poet" Rupi Kaur's The Sun and Her Flowers hits Charts; her Milk and Honey is 2017’s Most Read poetry title.

The cover of The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur. Click for more details.
NOVEMBER

Kindle celebrates its 10th anniversary.

Murder on the Orient Express, based on Agatha Christie’s classic, opens in theaters and debuts on Charts.

The cover of Murder on the Orient Express: A Hercule Poirot Mystery by Agatha Christie. Click for more details.
A picture of a scene from the Murder on the Orient Express movie.
The cover of Sing, Unburied, Sing: A Novel by Jesmyn Ward. Click for more details.

Jesmyn Ward wins her second National Book Award for Sing, Unburied, Sing.

Wonder opens in theaters and the book lands at No. 1 on Charts' Most Sold fiction list.

The cover of Wonder by R. J. Palacio. Click for more details.
A picture of a scene from the movie Wonder.
DECEMBER

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, adapts Chris Van Allsburg’s book about a board game that comes to life.

The cover of Jumanji by Chris Van Allsburg. Click for more details.
A picture of a scene from the movie Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.

In Iceland’s traditional Book Flood, they give books on Christmas Eve. What a terrific way to end the year!

Girl with a Christmas tree made of books

Ferdinand opens in theaters. It’s the second adaptation of Munro Leaf’s 1936 classic The Story of Ferdinand.

The cover of The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf, illustrated by Robert Lawson. Click for more details.
A picture of a scene from the Ferdinand movie.

PHOTOS: Hidden Figures: Hopper Stone/Twentieth Century Fox; Fifty Shades Darker: Universal Pictures; Big Little Lies: HBO; The Shack: Lionsgate; 13 Reasons Why: Beth Dubber/Lionsgate; The Handmaid’s Tale: Hulu; The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks: HBO; American Gods: FreemantleMedia North America; The Dark Tower: Ilze Kitshoff/Sony Pictures Entertainment; Game of Thrones: HBO; It: New Line Cinema; Elisabeth Moss: Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic; Murder on the Orient Express: Twentieth Century Fox; Wonder: Lionsgate; Jumanji: Frank Masi/Sony Pictures Entertainment; Ferdinand: Twentieth Century Fox; Book Flood: Shutterstock

Happy Reading in 2018!

Copywriting by Alynda Wheat, Senior Writer at Amazon.com.

Amazon Charts data reported on 2017 This Year in Books covers activity from 1/1/2017 – 11/30/2017.

Most Sold 2017 books are ranked according to the number of copies sold and pre-ordered through Amazon.com, Audible.com, Amazon Books stores, and books read through digital subscription programs (once a customer has read a certain percentage – roughly the length of a free reading sample). Bulk buys are counted as a single purchase.

Most Read 2017 books are ranked by the number of unique daily Kindle readers and Audible listeners per book per year. Categories not ranked on Most Read charts include dictionaries, encyclopedias, religious texts, daily devotionals, and calendars.