This Year in Books by Amazon: Top twenty Amazon books 2024 - authors include Freida McFadden and Richard Osman

For book lovers, This Year in Books by Amazon lists make fascinating reading and so the online retail giant releasing their top 20 most sold and most read data for 2024 - is welcome news. While many inclusions in the list will likely come as no surprise, there may be a few authors you didn't expect to see, while other titles you might have assumed would be there, not making the cut.

The Amazon Books Most Sold list ranks books according to the number of copies sold and pre-ordered in both print and ebook. Topping the list is the ever-popular Freida McFadden with her book The Housemaid, crowned the best-selling book of the year on Amazon’s UK platform. And it was Rory Stewart’s memoir Politics On The Edge topping the biography category.

While Stewart’s memoir was the bestselling biography, at number 42 on the overall bestseller list, Boris Johnson’s Unleashed missed out on this year’s bestsellers list, having only been released in October.

Colleen Hoover’s It Ends With Us, which was released as a film adaptation this year, was the second-biggest seller as social media increasingly drove sales, the retailer said. Amazon said “romantasy” dominated the fiction category, with Rebecca Yarros’s Fourth Wing and Iron Flame and multiple entries from Sarah J Maas’ Court Of Thorns And Roses series making the top 20.

Cookbooks, and particularly those dedicated to cooking with air fryers, dominated the non-fiction category. Pinch of Nom Air Fryer by Kay Allinson and Nathan Anthony’s Bored Of Lunch: The Healthy Air Fryer Book both capitalised on the appliance’s popularity – while So Good by British nutritionist Emily English was the second bestselling cookbook.

Chris van Tulleken’s Ultra-Processed People and Tim Spector’s The Food For Life also made the top sellers list, reflecting concerns about both the cost-of-living crisis and growing awareness of diet’s role in wellbeing, Amazon said.

Top Twenty Amazon Books Most Sold 2024 (print and ebook)

1. The Housemaid by Freida McFadden
2. It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover
3. A Court Of Thorns And Roses by Sarah J Maas
4. It Starts With Us by Colleen Hoover
5. We Solve Murders by Richard Osman
6. Verity by Colleen Hoover
7. A Court Of Mist And Fury by Sarah J Maas
8. None Of This Is True by Lisa Jewell
9. The Last Devil To Die by Richard Osman
10. The Housemaid’s Secret by Freida McFadden
11. Tomorrow, And Tomorrow, And Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
12. A Court Of Wings And Ruin by Sarah J Maas
13. The Wrong Sister by Claire Douglas
14. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
15. Atomic Habits by James Clear
16. The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods
17. Ultra-Processed People by Chris van Tulleken
18. Yellowface by Rebecca F Kuang
19. Weyward by Emilia Hart
20. Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros

Amazon’s Most Read list, ranked by the average number of daily Kindle Readers and Audible listeners each week, saw JK Rowling dominating the list, with all seven Harry Potter books captivating readers years after their release.

Top twenty Amazon most read 2024

1. Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix by JK Rowling
2. Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire by JK Rowling
3. Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone by JK Rowling
4. Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling
5. Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince by JK Rowling
6. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban by JK Rowling
7. Harry Potter And The Chamber of Secrets by JK Rowling
8. The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods
9. The Fellowship Of The Ring by JRR Tolkien
10. The Running Grave: Cormoran Strike Book 7 by Robert Galbraith
11. The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
12. The Housemaid by Freida McFadden
13. A Court Of Thorns And Roses by Sarah J Maas
14. His And Hers by Alice Feeney
15. A Court Of Mist And Fury by Sarah J Maas
16. The Last Devil To Die by Richard Osman
17. We Solve Murders by Richard Osman
18. Dune by Frank Herbert
19. Atomic Habits by James Clear
20. The Bee Sting by Paul Murray

Zak Watts, UK books country manager at Amazon.co.uk, said: “This year’s bestseller list tells a fascinating story about British readers in 2024. From the surge of popularity for romantasy, to our continued love affair with cosy crime, we’re seeing how our nation’s reading habits are a means of escapism and perhaps a much-needed departure from day-to-day reality.

“The remarkable success of authors like Rebecca Yarros, Sarah J Maas and Emily English shows how social channels like TikTok and Instagram shape the publishing landscape, while news of TV adaptations are helping to drive further success for the likes of Richard Osman, who has five books in the top 50 bestselling books this year.

“That interplay between social media and mainstream entertainment has also helped new audiences discover David Nicholls, the winner of our ‘Best Book of the Year’ for You Are Here, following the successful TV adaptation and resulting social media buzz for One Day earlier this year.”