10 best books of May 2017, according to Amazon's editors

May's releases bring something for every reader, from Jeffrey Kluger's real-life space chronicle 'Apollo 8' to a short story collection from 'Empire Falls' author Richard Russo. Amazon editors have selected what they consider to be the cream of the crop – here's the full list with thoughts from Amazon senior editor Chris Schluep.

1. 'Priestdaddy,' by Patricia Lockwood

"Balloon Pop Outlaw Black" writer Lockwood's memoir looks at the author's time living with her husband at her parents' home, which is a rectory now that her father has become a Catholic priest. "The love on our team for this book was universal...," Schluep says. "We feel like this could be the memoir of the year."

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Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

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