Five Books You Should Read from Amazon’s List of the Most Popular Kindle Books of All Time

The printed page may not be going away, but there’s no denying the impact that the Kindle has had the past decade. To mark its 10-year anniversary, Amazon has released for the first time the list of the Most Sold Kindle Books of All Time. The 10 fiction and 10 nonfiction books include some titles—like Fifty Shades of Grey—that you might not want your fellow subway riders to know you’re reading. But they also include some bestsellers that are absolutely worth sharing with friends, whether digitally or on good ol’ fashioned paper. Here are five we recommend, followed by the full lists.

1. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (2012)

Any blow-by-blow plot summary of TFIOS would sound so depressing as to be hardly readable, but John Green navigates some very deep waters with great finesse. His star-crossed lovers, Hazel and Augustus, meet at a support group for terminally ill teenagers. Both have already stared death in the face and come to accept its reality, but in one another they each find reason to live out their remaining days with passion and purpose. Here is a story about chance and choice too tragic to be comedic, and too funny to be sad. It is exquisitely crafted and universally accessible. At the center of this swirling vortex of big ideas lies the notion that made-up stories can mean a great deal to people … and that we face losing such stories just as we face losing life. —Ray Deck III

2. Bossypants by Tina Fey (2011)

As the first head writer at Saturday Night Live and creator of both 30 Rock and The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Tina Fey has had no trouble making us laugh. That’s the case as well in her 2008 autobiography, which feels like a combination of sketch comedy stories, stand-up jokes and acerbic commentary on gender politics. It’s intimate, funny, revealing, honest, original, wise and self-deprecating—the Tina Fey you already thought you knew. —Josh Jackson

3. Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed (2012)

In 1995, Cheryl Strayed was 26, freshly divorced and turned on to heroin, a few months past an abortion, and, for all intents and purposes, an orphan on her own in the world. With no place to be and no one to be any place with, she found a book in a store, traced her finger across a line on a map, and decided to follow that jagged line across the mountains of the Pacific Crest Trail. Wild is the true story of how walking that line took Strayed from where she started to the person she is today—a successful writer and the voice behind the beloved advice column Dear Sugar. In the column, she doles out advice anonymously with just the right combination of toughness and warmth, a balance she also walks in this book like a tightrope. —Sara Faye Lieber

4. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (2012)

Gillian Flynn’s runaway bestseller Gone Girl sucked readers in with one of the darkest portrayals of marital dysfunction in recent literature. When Amy goes missing on the night of her fifth wedding anniversary, her husband Nick is an immediate suspect. The book’s myriad of twists and turns range from mildly predictable to wildly out there. Like almost every book on this list, the novel has been made into an entertaining movie, in this case directed by David Fincher. —Jessica Gentile

5. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (2008)

The megablockwhopperbuster Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins has already become a Young Adult classic, one of those books like J.K. Rowling’s that command sales and critical respect at the same time. Much has been made of the violence in The Hunger Games, but the page admits reflection and consideration that a video screen fights hard to shut down. That’s one of the sweet ironies in this book, actually. We’re reading about viewing. The kids in combat in The Hunger Games force us to examine where the heck we really might be headed with entertainment that seems to require more and more shock and sensationalism to raise ratings…and to influence us into buying products of its sponsors. It also takes us back to the myths, the collective consciousness. —Charles McNair

The 10 Most Sold Fiction Books on Kindle

1. Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James
2. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
3. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
4. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
5. Fifty Shades Darker by E. L. James
6. Fifty Shades Freed by E. L. James
7. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
8. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
9. The Help by Katherine Stockett
10. The Fault in our Stars by John Green

The 10 Most Sold Nonfiction Books on Kindle

1. Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
2. Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back by Todd Burpo, Sonja Burpo, and Lynn Vincent
3. Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed
4. The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown
5. Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
6. The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts by Gary Chapman
7. Bossypants by Tina Fey
8. American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in the U.S. Military History by Chris Kyle, Scott McEwen, and Jim DeFelice
9. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen R. Covey
10. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot