Amazon Best Books of 2008

Over the last several days, Amazon has been doling out their "Best Books" lists, in a wide variety of categories. I won't run through all of them -- we'd be here all day -- but I did want to poke around a bit at the ones that interest me the most. (The full list is always available at Amazon.)

First, I'll note that their Top 10 Business & Investing books includes three from that mighty powerhouse of publishing, John Wiley & Sons. (Some of you might recall that I currently work as a marketing manager in Wiley's Business Group; all of these books are from that group, but none are from my particular line.) Those three are The Brand Bubble (from our Jossey-Bass imprint, out of San Francisco), The Gone Fishin' Portfolio, and The Contrarian Effect.

The Science Fiction & Fantasy list -- presumably by Omnivoracious contributor Jeff VanderMeer, though I don't see anywhere that explicitly says that -- includes only two books I've read so far, though there are a couple more that are on my shelf. (And there's only one book -- Neal Stephenson's Anathem -- that's both on the "Editor's Choice" list and the Top Ten of what Amazon customers actually bought.

The Comics & Graphic Novels list is quite eclectic -- starting with The Umbrella Academy and ending with The Amazing Remarkable Monsieur Leotard -- and I've either already read or expect to soon read nearly all of it. I'm not sure if I'll spring for Dilbert 2.0, since that strip isn't what it once was -- it's still funny, but I no longer feel any need to read the strips again in book form. And I have to admit that I've never really warmed up to Lynda Barry's work, so I won't be making a special effort to find What It Is.

And last (for me), is the Teens section, which has books most of us call "Young Adult." It's got both The Graveyard Book and Little Brother, amid other things I think I should read someday -- like the second book of Octavian Nothing -- and a lot of things that I'm not as familiar with.

Amazon, as usual, has many more lists than that, with both "Editor's Choice" (the highbrow stuff you should read) and "Customer Favorites" (the books people actually are buying and reading) in every category. I suggest bouncing back and forth between the two in the categories that interest you, and thinking up complicated theories to explain the differences.