10 best books of May 2014, according to Amazon's editors

From the inspiring story of an American couple who saved Jewish children during World War II to a novel about the aftermath of mysterious plane crashes, May titles have a lot to offer readers. Here are Amazon's choices for the best new books of this month, with thoughts from Amazon editorial director Sara Nelson.

1. 'No Place to Hide,' by Glenn Greenwald

Guardian reporter Greenwald broke the story of Edward Snowden and the NSA, and now the reporter is looking back at his encounters with Snowden as well as revealing new documents given to him by the NSA contractor. Nelson said readers shouldn't expect dry storytelling, calling Greenwald's writing "impassioned." "He's not shy about having opinions," she says. "It's more than just a report."

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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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