One of the most encouraging parts of joining the blogosphere is seeing the number of people who still love to read books.  You hear all the time how no one ever reads anymore because of cell phones, the Internet, Netflix, and video games.  But when you enter the blogosphere, you witness a whole world of book lovers.  That got me wondering.  What were the most-read books of 2017?

I’m all about fiction, so I’m only going to list the books in that category.  Fantasy is well represented.  According to Amazon, the top 10 most-read fiction books of 2017 on Kindle were:

1. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
2. It by Stephen King
3. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
4. A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
5. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by Rowling
6. Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan
7. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by Rowling
8. A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
9. Origin by Dan Brown
10. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by Rowling

The list is an interesting time capsule of what Americans are reading.  Harry Potter remains as popular as ever.  No doubt, the TV series based on The Handmaid’s Tale and the movie based on It boosted those two novels to the top this past year.  Thanks to the TV series, A Game of Thrones is still a popular book more than 21 years after its first publication.

Amazon’s 2017 lists even break down book sales by U.S. states.  The Handmaid’s Tale was the most-sold book in 48 of the 50 states in 2017.  Ohio and Utah were the exceptions, but The Handmaid’s Tale was still No. 2 in those two states.  In my home state of Alabama, Camino Island by John Grisham was No. 2 and The Shack by William Paul Young was third.

Amazon’s 2017 lists also include the Top 5 Highly Quotable passages and the Top 5 Unputdownable books.  The passage that Kindle readers highlighted most frequently in 2017 was from the book The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss.  All the Top 5 quotes were from nonfiction self-help books, by the way.  Here’s the top quote:

“Parkinson’s law dictates that a task will swell in (perceived) importance and complexity in relation to the time allotted for its completion.”

The most Unputdownable book of the year was the one that Kindle customers “tore through faster than comparable books,” and topping that list was Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson.

If you’re curious, the most-read nonfiction book of 2017 was The Subtle Art of Not Giving a “F*CK: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson.

You can check out these Amazon lists at this link https://www.amazon.com/article/this-year-in-books.

What was your favorite read in 2017?  Mine was the epic fantasy The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson.  The first book in The Stormlight Archive series featured one of the best climactic scenes that I’ve ever read.  It was that rare goosebump kind of moment.  At 1,013 pages and with multiple storylines, The Way of Kings is a commitment, but thankfully I was rewarded at the end.