the Top 10 Books of the Year... According to Amazon

The Amazon book editors have just released their list of the top 10 best books of the year... so far. I was appalled to see that I had not only not read any of these books, but I've also not heard of any of them! Although they're not all my cup of tea, some sound really interesting.

I've added The Forgotten Garden, Sag Harbor, and Let the Great World Spin to my summer reading list. I'm car pooling to BlogHer in a few weeks and will have tons to time to read on the way up and back. Anyone want to do a book swap in Chicago?

I thought I'd share them with you all to see if you've read any of these and if you enjoyed them. And if these titles are new to you too, perhaps you'll want to add some to your summer reading list.

Here's the list, alphabetical by author, with descriptions courtesy of Amazon:

• “Cheever: A Life” by Blake Bailey. This outstanding, unprecedented biography of American writer John Cheever clocks in at nearly 800 pages, but don’t let that dissuade you: Senior Books Editor Brad Thomas Parsons read it one sitting.
• “Fordlandia” by Greg Grandin. Truth can indeed be stranger than fiction: this absorbing narrative history reveals the little-known story of Henry Ford’s ill-fated utopia (complete with rubber roads) in the middle of a Brazilian rainforest.
• “Lost City of Z” by David Grann. Follow New Yorker writer David Grann as he retraces the steps of renowned British explorer Percy Fawcett in his 1925 quest to discover the legendary kingdom of El Dorado in the heart of the Amazon—in an exclusive review for Amazon.com, John Grisham calls it “a riveting, exciting and thoroughly compelling tale of adventure.”
• “Let the Great World Spin” by Colum McCann. According to Frank McCourt, “this is fiction that gets the heart thumping”-- set in mid-70s New York City, against the backdrop of Philippe Pettit’s Twin Tower tightrope crossing, it’s also a must-read for anyone who loves Don DeLillo, Jonathan Lethem, or E.L. Doctorow.
• “The City and the City” by China Mieville. Fans of hard-boiled mysteries and literary suspense will love “The City and the City,” China Mieville’s ingenious breakout novel that imagines two cities coexisting on the eastern edge of Europe: one dying, one thriving, and both home to a host of mysterious secrets.
• “The Forgotten Garden” by Kate Morton. Paying homage to Frances Hodgson Burnett’s children’s classic, “The Secret Garden,” Kate Morton's second novel is an epic page-turner following an orphaned girl as she journeys from Australia to Cornwall that’s at once haunting and enchanting.
• “Crazy for the Storm” by Norman Ollestad. Norman Ollestad has written a memoir that will last—just the story itself could take your breath away: as an 11-year-old boy, he was the only survivor of a small-plane crash and made his way to safety down an icy mountain face in a blizzard, using the skills and determination he learned from his father (who perished in the crash).
• “The Gamble” by Thomas Ricks. If you only read one author writing about Iraq, read Thomas Ricks. “The Gamble” tells the remarkable story of how a few people in and outside the Pentagon pushed new strategy through and put a difficult plan into action to sharply reduce the chaotic violence in Iraq.
• “Brooklyn” by Colm Toibin. Colm Toibin’s story of an industrious young girl in 1950s Ireland who reluctantly finds herself on a boat to New York City is elegantly told and full of beautiful, bittersweet moments.
• “Sag Harbor” by Colson Whitehead. Colson Whitehead’s pop culture tour-de-force is made for beach reading. The year is 1985 and 15-year-old Benji Cooper-- a Converse-wearing, Smiths-loving, Dungeons & Dragons-playing nerd--leaves the city to spend three largely unsupervised months living with his younger brother Reggie in an enclave of Long Island's Sag Harbor.