These books were Amazon's bestsellers in 2020 and 2021

Books have been part of Amazon’s DNA since the beginning. We continually innovate the reading experience so customers have a never-ending bookshelf, from hardbacks to comic books and eBooks to audiobooks. It’s all in the spirit of helping customers find their next great read.

We’re taking a moment to celebrate some of the books and authors that bring our customers joy and inspire them to add books to their “Want to Read” list. We identified the best-selling books that flew off our shelves from March 2020 to March 2021 and created lists to highlight some of the best reads of the year. Explore the maps to learn what some of the top books on Amazon were in each U.S. state and in countries around the world. You might even find a recommendation for what you should read next.

Some of the best books to read across the globe

The preferences of readers from around the world are as unique as the countries and cultures they represent, with a few similarities in between. Here are some of the trends and highlights, according to best-selling data of most-sold books (inclusive of print and eBooks) on Amazon.com channels around the world:

In Mexico and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), self-improvement reigned supreme. Mexico’s customers turned to The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, and UAE customers tried to find joy and comfort with life’s every day moments by reading Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life.
Turkey preferred a classic work from Victor Hugo (The Last Day of a Condemned Man), while modern works of fiction topped the lists in Spain (Rey Blanco), Brazil (Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone), and Australia (Where the Crawdads Sing).
As close neighbors, Canada and the U.S. were the only two countries that shared the same book preference. A Promised Land, the memoir of former U.S. President Barack Obama topped lists in both countries.
The list rounded out with fun additions. Readers in Saudi Arabia preferred a book filled with brain puzzles; Italian customers loved an animated novel called Le Storie del Mistero, and the UK couldn’t get enough of the universal lessons found in The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse.

Top books on Amazon in the U.S.

Out of thousands of books sold on Amazon, nine titles rose to undeniable popularity in the U.S. over the last year. Working with Amazon Charts, we parsed the data to find favorites from each state, gleaning insight into what was important to American readers. Here’s what we found:

While the book most sold from March 2020 to March 2021 in the U.S. was A Promised Land, another popular title gave the book a run for its money. Midnight Sun from the Twilight Saga captivated the interest of readers across the country with the retelling of Edward and Bella’s love story from the perspective of a vampire, 15 years after the first Twilight book debuted.
Book preferences also reflected the important story of a nation facing a racial reckoning. How to be an Antiracist and White Fragility: Why it’s so Hard for White People to Talk About Racism were among the top-selling books in the U.S. as many people looked to books to educate themselves on issues surrounding systemic racism.
Academy Award-winning actor Matthew McConaughey’s memoir Greenlights was also a runaway success. The book was a top seller in states from coast to coast, including McConaughey’s home state of Texas.
In interesting regional trends, the modern fiction novel Where the Crawdad’s Sing stole the hearts of readers in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, as well as in states across the country.
Untamed and The Vanishing Half rounded out the list of top sellers in the U.S., especially in Colorado, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Connecticut.

Our methodology

We looked at Amazon.com’s Most Sold data for book sales across all formats from March 2020 to March 2021, in countries around the world, to assemble the list of most-loved books in each country. For the U.S. data, to determine the books customers loved in each state, we identified the three books with the top sales in each state during the designated timeframe and highlighted the unique or most representative choices from each state’s list. A Promised Land topped charts in nearly every state, so we used this method to show readers even more of the books loved in specific states. The list of the top nine books in the U.S. was compiled using data from Amazon Charts on the highest-selling eBooks and print books for fiction and non-fiction in the U.S. from March 2020 to March 2021. This includes titles read as part of reading subscription services, where available.

View and download our most-loved books lists and the international map:

If you're looking for something more technical, consider this list of the top artificial-intelligence books, with passages from each book that Kindle customers have highlighted most frequently.