Here are the top 10 books of 2016.

Just in time for holiday season, Amazon has announced the best books of 2016.

The list of 10 includes something for everyone. Each year, Amazon editors read thousands of pages, from all sorts of genres, to create the list of top picks.

The top pick, chosen unanimously as numero uno for 2016, is The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead about a young slave seeking freedom.

“Colson Whitehead’s novel is timely, important, and a great work of literature,” senior book editor at Amazon Chris Schluep told Huffington Post. 

This year, three debut authors can be found in the top 20 books of the year. There are six science-related books in the top 100. And four books were considered possibilities for the top spot, before the editors decided on The Underground Railroad. Here are the top 10 books perfect for anyone looking for Christmas presents or a summer read.

1. The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

The book tells the story of Cora, a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia in the US. She is an outcast, even among other slaves, and she is fast approaching womanhood. When she meets Caesar, who tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to escape together.

But, before they can get away, Cora kills a young white boy who was trying to stop her. They are now being chased. The pair traverse different cities - different worlds - in their quest for freedom. This book offers brilliant and powerful insight into the terrors African-American people faced before, and during, the American Civil War. (We also love that the protagonist is a woman!)

2. The Wolf Road by Beth Lewis

This is a cross between a literary thriller and a Western, where a young woman is leading the charge once again. Elka was seven years old, wandering hungry in the wilderness, when Trapper - a solitary hunter - found her. He took her in and taught her how the land works and how to survive in a world where all civilisation has been destroyed.

When Ekla discovers Trapper is a killer, a murderer, she flees for her life. She heads to the frozen north in search of her parents. The journey cannot end, until the pair confront each other.

3. Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance:

America's white working class is being talked about. Since the 2016 presidential election, we want to know more about the "middle" class. The Americans who we didn't hear much from but who, quietly and clearly, voted in an outsider. Someone who was different from the political "norm". Someone who half the world disliked, and the other half (more quietly) trusted. Our pick of the cosiest beds to read in... (Post continues after gallery.)

Set in a poor Rust Belt town, Hillbilly Elegy is a memoir that tells the story of the Vance family. A family who moved north from Kentucky's Appalachia region to Ohio in the hopes to escape poverty. The start of the story is hopeful. Years later the family's grandson (the author of the book) would graduate from Yale Law School.

Through the book, we hear about his life. His background. How his mother struggled with the demands of living in a new place, a new life. How his family could not shake the history of abuse, alcoholism, poverty and trauma.

4. The Nix by Nathan Hill:

About love and home, The Nix is set in 2011 when the mother of Samuel Andresen-Anderson, a college professor, reappears. Her name is Faye and he hasn't seen her in decades. She ran away from the family when he was a boy.

Not only has she reentered his life, but she's also committed a crime and needs his help. The media is against her, and Samuel doesn't know what to believe. The story is Samuel's journey to discovering long-buried family secrets, spanning decades and reaching back in time to Norway, to discover who his mother, and himself, really is.

5. Mischling by Affinity Konar

Twin sisters - Pearl and Stasha - arrive at Auschwitz in 1944 with their mother and grandfather. In face of the horror, the sisters share a private language and the games of their childhood. Soon, they lose hope and, that winter, Pearl disappears. (Post continues after video.)

Stasha never gives up hope that Pearl might be alive and, when the camp is liberated by the Red Army, she and her friend Feliks travel though Poland to find her. The book tells the story of their quest. The devastation and desperation they witness along the way. And the hope they refuse to let die.

6. Lab Girl by Hope Jahren

Women in science. We don't hear much about it, but Lab Girl, written by acclaimed scientist Hope Jahren, is about work and love. Most importantly, the power of these two things combined.

Told from Jahren's perspective, she reveals her childhood was difficult and the breakthroughs and exhilaration of scientific work.

Behind her work, however, Jahren probes into her relationship with Bill. A brilliant, wounded man who is her lab partner and best friend. Together, they travel the world, searching for new plants, new discoveries, new adventures.

7. Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson

It's a story of two worlds and a friendship between four girls. One world is full of hope and beauty and excitement for young girls like August. The other has danger and predators and grown men who hurt small children.

Another Brooklyn looks at that life-shaping time when childhood gives way into adulthood, when forever-friendships are formed and innocence is slowly, but oh-so-surely, slipping away.

8. Pumpkinflowers by Matti Friedman

'Flowers' was the military code word for 'casualties'. And, in Pumpkinflowers, we fall in step with a band of young Israeli soldiers on a hilltop in Lebanon called the Pumpkin. They are fighting in an unnamed war in the late 1990s.

Award-winning writer Marri Friedman - who was one of those soldiers - re-tells the experience that would change him forever. That would make history and be uttered in boardrooms and army barracks as the United States went on to confront Afghanistan and Iraq. Part memoir, part reportage, part history - whatever genre it falls within, the reader feels as though they're in the fight themselves.

9. Before the Fall by Noah Hawley

A survival story that follows a plane crash, this novel provides glimpses into the lives of different Americans. A private jet departs Martha's Vineyard and is headed for New York. On board is a Wall Street money-maker, his wife, a Texan-born party boy, a young woman at a life crossroad, and a career pilot.

Sixteen minutes after taking off, the plane plunges into the ocean. The only survivors are Scott Burroughs (a painter) and a four-year-old boy. The book unravels the ever-evolving mystery surrounding the crash, as well as the life stories of whose who had been on board.

10. Swing Time by Zadie Smith:

It's the story of every childhood friendship - both want to be good at something. Only one has the talent. This is a book about two "brown girls" Tracey and Aimee. They both dream of being dancer, but Tracey has the talent. Aimee has ideas and dreams.

They can't make it work and their friendship ends in their 20s. The book follows their parallel lives. Tracey makes it to the chorus line, but can't quite cut through. Aimee travels the world as an assistant to a famous singer. The story travels from London to West Africa, where Aimee finds women who dance just like Tracey.