The Book Maven's Top 20 Books of the Decade

Upon hearing that I planned to put together a Best of the Decade book list, many people have said to me "How can you possibly remember?" or "How can you possibly choose?" 

I understand both questions, but let me explain why I'm able to do both: This past decade was my first as a professional journalist and book critic. We don't need to talk about how many decades came before it (a girl's got to have a few secrets), but I can tell you that I spent a few years in graduate school and teaching community college before I leapt off the high dive/went off the deep end and began writing about books and interviewing authors, the things that keep me joyful.

Since I kicked off the Aughties with a new professional vision, it's not difficult for me to recall the books that made the biggest impression on me during this decade. As I went through the many candidates (at one point, I had over 100 titles in play -- I just wrote them down as I remembered them, in a sort of hypnagogic state), I paid attention to the titles that just jumped right out at me. 

Does this mean my list is "opinion?" Yes. Does it mean there's not "analyis" or "critique?" Hmmm. I'm not sure. I've spent years reading, learning about, analyzing, discussing, criticizing, and sometimes even creating prose. How could any list I draw up not have some analysis/critique involved? That doesn't mean my opinion is valid, that my analysis is good, or my critiques are well done. It simply means that this is my job, people; I love it. I also love these books, and I believe that they are among the past decade's finest.

Don't agree? Find me on Twitter: @thebookmaven, email me: thebookmaven at gmail dot com, or just leave a comment right here. One note: The linked reviews have nothing to do with my opinions of the books; they are simply the first and strongest I found using a Google search on each of the titles.

Another note: I found that each year had a debut title (I think all of the books on this list are fiction, save for Martin Amis's "Experience," and all of the fiction titles are novels, except for Uwem Akpan's short-story collection "Say You're One of Them") I loved as well as a standout book from an established author.  

2000:

Debut: White Teeth by Zadie Smith 

Actually, "On Beauty" is a better novel -- but "White Teeth" has a stronger, fresher voice. Reading Smith's fiction debut is like hearing a healthy but ornery dog tear into steak: You're more transfixed by the dog's tenacity and satisfaction than you are by the steak.

Experience by Martin Amis 

Martin Amis fails as often (or perhaps more often) than he succeeds in fiction writing, but his nonfiction account of his amazing family and upbringing might be deemed "a memoirist's memoir." His facility with syntax and his acerbity in recall make this an important book.

2001:

Debut: Peace Like a River by Leif Enger

I tried not to let my choice of Enger's first novel be clouded by happy memories of teaching him to use chopsticks at a sushi joint in New Paltz, NY -- his book tour started just hours after 9/11, and we were all trying to cope. Amazing that that's what his lovely book demonstrates, too.

True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey 

Full disclosure: I have a soft spot for unreliable narrators, my maiden name is Kelly, my grandparents lived in Australia, and I love Peter Carey. Fortunately, all that aside? Carey's fictional take on a real-life Aussie made mythical is a grand romp of a book.

2002:

Debut: Life of Pi by Yann Martel

A boy is adrift in a small boat with a tiger named Richard Parker. Was this plot plagiarized from a Brazilian novel called "Max and the Cats?" Perhaps. Is this book original? Indubitably. Will you guess how it ends? Probably not. One of those books that you keep talking about, years later...

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters 

Here's another "phew" on my list (see "Home" by Marilynne Robinson, below) -- Waters' "The Little Stranger" is one of the great books of 2009, but it's already on my Top 10 of 2009 list -- so I feel justified to leave it off here. I can trumpet the glory that is "Fingersmith" instead!

2003:

Debut: Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi 

I'd heard of a "graphic novel" but never read one -- let alone one aimed at girls instead of boys. So when Pantheon sent me a copy of Satrapi's rich memoir of life in pre- and post- revolutionary Iran told in simple black-and-white frames, I started reading. Hope she'll keep writing and drawing!

Any Human Heart by William Boyd 

I don't even trust myself to describe Boyd's sweeping novel about a man named Logan Mountstuart who begins life in South America as the love child of beef magnate and ends up in London, a shill for the Baader-Meinhof guerillas. If I ask nicely, will you please read it?

2004:

Debut: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke

Clarke's much-vaunted doorstop of a novel did not live up to its pre-publication hype of The Next Harry Potter. Thank goodness! Her perspective is more Keith Donohue ("The Stolen Child") than J.K. Rowling. There's no easy, happy, or even resolved ending, but lots to ponder and enjoy.

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

For several years, my friend John urged me to read a novel called "Number9Dream," and I resisted -- but when David Mitchell's "Cloud Atlas" came out, I decided to see why John was so taken with this author. I soon understood -- Mitchell is a dazzling contortionist of a writer.

2005:

Debut: Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson 

My 2005 was rather tumultuous, and I didn't have very much time for reading, despite being the books editor at a very large media corporation. I read so much in litblogs about Petterson's novel that I made time to read it -- and found it a spare microcosm of 20th-century angst.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

If someone forced me to choose not my favorite or the best book of the past decade, but the book that has refused to leave my consciousness, this would be it. Impossible to describe plot too much without spoiling it, but trust me: Keep. reading. You will never be the same.

2006:

Debut: Fun Home by Alison Bechdel 

I was fortunate enough to interview Bechdel along with Harvey Pekar on the floor of Book Expo America 2006, and I tell you that so you'll know that the sharply dressed GN author looks as sharply drawn as a frame from her brutally honest memoir of coming out en famille.

Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky 

This is a bit of a cheat, since Nemirovsky's magnum opus appeared several decades after her death. The two related novellas in "Suite Francaise" are literary feats, combining elements of comic writing with blunt but never bitter political and social commentary. Stunning!

2007:

Debut: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz 

The readers I know are divided over Oscar Wao. I'm firmly in the Love Him category, and I think Diaz comes as close as any Latino writer to showing us an experience analagous to the one Spike Lee illuminated in his film "Do the Right Thing." Plus, Oscar? He's a sweetheart.

The Great Man by Kate Christensen 

While I adore Christensen's earlier novel "The Epicure's Lament," this one is her best -- a nuanced and compassionate look at older women's sexuality that turns into an clear-eyed view of how the individual -- any individual -- is supported by friends and family.

2008:

Debut: Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan 

My real-life interview with Akpan took place over two hours on a hot, sunny day on the grounds of Georgetown University. I tell you that because it should be a sunny day in a gorgeous place when you pick up this collection of bleak, superbly written stories about children in Africa.

Home by Marilynne Robinson 

The only way I managed to choose between "Gilead" and "Home" for this list was because David Mitchell trumped the former for 2004 inclusion. How did Robinson manage to write "Gilead" -- and then top her own work with "Home?" Just read them both; you'll be glad you did.

2009:

Debut: Stitches by David Small 

I will never understand why the National Book Awards committee placed Small's masterful graphic novel in its Young Adult category. This is a sad, searing, but ultimately hopeful story of parents whose motivations were so off that their son was permanently marked in body and soul.

A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick 

Many will argue that far greater novels were released in 2009 than Goolrick's fiction debut (but second book; he's also author of a memoir), but his is the book that flies over the rest of the year for me, with its deceitful, resourceful, and brave heroine and peony-layered paragraphs.