20 of the Best Books of 2026, According to Amazon

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Amazon’s List of the Best Books of the Year So Far

I want to say that Amazon’s list of the best books of the year so far is robust because it is, in a way. There’s an overall roundup of the top 20 books of all genres, then expanded lists of different genres, like Biographies & Memoirs, Children’s Books, Literature & Fiction, Romantasy, and more. This year, they’ve also added a Book Club section.

What’s holding me back from fully calling this list extensive is its glaring lack of diversity. Within the top 20 overall list, there are only two lists by authors of color—Kin by Tayari Jones and Night Objects by Eli Raphael—and the expanded lists by genre don’t seem to do too much better. Just wild to think of in 2026. As an aside, I see Jones’s Kin as being named The Book of the Year for quite a few lists.

The Authors Guild Examines Why Authors’ Salaries Have Declined

This one surprised me. All of the book clubs popping up, the increased access to digital, physical, and audiobooks, and the plethora of book subscription services had me thinking that authors were up. Turns out they make, on average, $10,000, which is a 42% decline since 2009. The study the Authors Guild sponsored found that only 19% of the print books and ebooks read in the last month were bought new, while 6% came from a paid subscription (which gives authors lower royalties), and 10% were bought used. The most common way people got their latest read was from the library—29% of readers surveyed went this route. As for audiobooks, 36% were purchased new, and 37% were borrowed from libraries, while the last third was obtained through other avenues, which include pirating.

The most surprising thing to me, though? Readers who earned more than $75,000 “were most likely to borrow a book from a library instead of buying it.”

A Refreshing List of the Best Books of 2026

Adam Vitcavage did his big one when he compiled his list of the best debut books of 2026 (so far) for Debutiful. A few of the books were already on my list, some I’d seen mentioned here and there, and a few were totally new to me. The list includes indie and big publisher titles alike, and heavily leans towards literary fiction—a specific kind of lit fiction, I’d say. Many of the characters in these books are queer, coming of age, immigrants, have messy family dynamics, and are maybe just messy themselves. I mean, it’s very much my kind of lit fic, which is why I love the list.

A few standouts: The Age of Calamities: Stories by Senaa Ahmad, Cat Love by Tomás Q. Morín, One Leg on Earth by ‘Pemi Aguda, Names Have Been Changed by Yu-Mei Balasingamchow, and Maybe the Body: Poems by Asa Drake.

The Best Young Adult Books of the Century

We are continuing on with our best books of the century (so far) lists with this compilation of the best young adult fiction.

In reflecting on 25 years of growth, change, and evolution, what stands among the best of YA this century? That all depends upon how you define “best,” of course. This list is less about the best in terms of measurable quality and more about the books and authors that have left an indelible mark on the category. These are books and authors whose influence has been felt, whether their work was published early in the century or more recently.