Books

'Cursed Child' Tops Amazon's 2016 Best Seller List

by K.W. Colyard
ARUN SANKAR/AFP/Getty Images

Book nerds are capping off a year of unpleasant surprises with a palatable ending. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child tops Amazon's 2016 best seller list, coming in first on both the children's and overall lists. It's the first time a play has ranked in Amazon's Top 20, so Cursed Child's authors, fans, and other playwrights have reason to celebrate.

Unfortunately, J.K. Rowling and Cursed Child are outliers on Amazon's overall list, where women authored or co-authored only eight of the 20 titles. Only three books — When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi (No. 2), The Black Widow: Book 16 of Gabriel Allon Series by Daniel Silva (No. 9), and The Magnolia Story by Chip and Joanna Gaines (No. 16) — were authored or co-authored by a person of color.

When you compare those numbers to Amazon's best seller list for 2015, it's clear that gender representation took a big hit in 2016. Last year, women authors held the top four spots on Amazon's overall list, and took six other places within the Top 20. More of Amazon's 2016 bestsellers were written by people of color, however.

Here are the 20 books on Amazon's 2016 bestseller list:

Things are a bit better for women on Amazon's list of bestsellers for kids and teens. Women authored or co-authored 12 of the 20 books on this list, but there is much less representation for authors of color.

The Top 20 bestselling books for kids and teens on Amazon in 2016 are: