What they liked best at Amazon in 2015

The editors at Amazon read hundreds of thousands of pages of books throughout the year to come up with this year's list of Top 100 Books from a range of categories.

It's that time of year, when holiday wish lists, shopping bags, and piles of presents swell. And with the release of its annual "Best Books of 2015" list, Amazon wants to help you add some books to your holiday shopping.

The editors at Amazon read hundreds of thousands of pages of books throughout the year to come up with this year's list of Top 100 Books from a range of categories. Taking top honors is Lauren Groff's "Fates and Furies," which the Amazon editors named the Best Book of the Year.

“Fates and Furies, our #1 pick of 2015, is a novel about a marriage from two different points of view, but it’s no linear ‘he said, she said,’” Sara Nelson, Editorial Director of Books and Kindle at Amazon, said in a statement. “Groff’s language is electric and her ingenious plotting is fascinating and unlike anything I’ve read in years. Our editors adored it.”

To put together the list, which includes picks from more than two dozen categories, including Literary Fiction, Children's Books, Mysteries and Thrillers, and Biography, Amazon relied on hundreds of hours of reading and months of debate and deliberation from its editorial team.

The top picks in the Children’s categories were Kevin Henkes' "Waiting," Cassie Beasley's "Circus Mirandus," and Sabaa Tahir's "An Ember in the Ashes." For Cookbooks, Ruth Reichl's "My Kitchen Year," topped the list, for Mystery, it was  Paula Hawkins' "Girl on the Train," for Romance, it was J.R. Ward's "The Bourbon Kings," and for Biography/Memoir, Mary Norris's "Between the World & Me."

Here’s a look at the Top 10 editors’ picks for the year:

1. "Fates and Furies," by Lauren Groff: An unusual, fascinating and intricate look at how two people can be married for years and still know so little about each other.
2. "Between the World and Me," by Ta-Nehisi Coates: A fiercely intelligent book about race in America, told by a father to his teenaged son.
3. "Becoming Nicole," by Amy Ellis Nutt: The inspiring true story of how one transgendered child began to change the world.
4. "An Ember in the Ashes," by Sabaa Tahir: Addictive and harrowing, this Young Adult novel is about political power, crippling deceit, and, ultimately, hope.
5. "The Nightingale," by Kristin Hannah: Two French sisters cope very differently with World War II in this compulsively readable novel.
6. "The Wright Brothers," by David McCullough: This is classic McCullough: a complete, erudite and engagingly human story about the early days of aviation and the all-American boys who pioneered it.
7. "H is for Hawk," by Helen Macdonald: A brilliant memoir about the unusual, personal way one woman dealt with the loss of her father.
8. "Purity," by Jonathan Franzen: A big fat novel about disaffected youth, the Internet and journalism. Oh, and love and family, too.
9. "Hold Still," by Sally Mann: In her memoir, the award-winning and controversial photographer Sally Mann uses words to create pictures of her life.
10. "The Girl on the Train," by Paula Hawkins: A wildly popular thriller about all the bad things that can happen when you step into other people’s lives.