Best literature and fiction of November 2023, as chosen by Amazon editors

Best literature and fiction of November 2023, as chosen by Amazon editors

A debut that’s an in-house favorite, a story that lets you step into the paws of Oscar Wilde’s cat, a novel set in the near-future that will have you yearning to stay in the past, and much more.

Check out the Amazon editors’ full list of literature and fiction picks, and our favorite books across all genres published this month.

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The Berry Pickers

by Amanda Peters

Every summer, a Mi’kmaq family from Novia Scotia comes to Maine to pick blueberries. In the summer of 1962, their four-year old girl, Ruthie, disappears. The last person who saw her is her six-year old brother, Joe. Years later, Joe is a broken man and looking back on the losses in his life, which started with his little sister’s disappearance. Meanwhile, a young woman named Norma grows up in Maine as the only child of an emotionally unavailable couple. Debut novelist Peters explores the lengths we go to for love, the cancerous impact of lies, and the unbreakable bonds of family. For fans of Celeste Ng and Ann Patchett, this quietly beautiful book will break, then mend, your heart. 

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Absolution

by Alice McDermott

At first it might seem like Absolution is a politely spun novel of two 1950s wives who accompany their American husbands to Saigon, and how they reckon with home sickness, their marriages, and motherhood. But there is far more lurking beneath the surface. During one of their social engagements, Charlene stumbles onto a business idea, igniting a “goodwill” project that gives the women additional purpose—and yet it indubitably toes the line between an altruistic act and a nefarious one. Going along with Charlene’s scheme, the narrator admits, “She was not, in short, a saint. I was to be the saint. The saint in her cabal.” With exquisite tension, McDermott crafts a novel that pushes notions of good intentions (of individuals and countries) to the breaking point. Like watching a thunderstorm roll in, you won’t soon forget this quietly explosive novel.

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The Future

by Naomi Alderman   

Naomi Alderman’s new novel is a dazzling, all-too-realistic story of near-future technology, environmental destruction, and human divide that has us hurtling toward the end of the world as we know it. And what do you do if global disaster is imminent and those with power and extreme wealth care only about riding out the post-apocalyptic years in style, the rest of the world be damned? There are survivalists, preppers and billionaires, a doomsday cult and a love story, heroes, villains, and some who fall into the gray area between. The Future is a wild ride of surprises and insight into trust, greed, and hard choices that kept me on the edge of my seat, highlighting memorable lines all the way to the immensely satisfying end.