Jump to content

The 20 best books of the decade


Recommended Posts

I've read Fingersmith, No Country for Old Men, Never Let Me Go and The Lovely Bones. Fingersmith was excellent, but I preferred Affinity and The Night Watch by the same author.

 

No Country was a great read, but I thought The Road was better.

 

Enjoyed Never Let Me Go, but thought The Lovely Bones was massively over-rated. A real disappointment.

 

I have Dreams From My Father, White Teeth, Atonement and The Life of Pi on my to-be-read mountain. And The God Delusion is on my wishlist.

Edited by Ruth
spelling
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've only read two of the books on the list, but I have read other books by these authors:

 

Sarah Waters

Zadie Smith

Ian McEwan

Lynne Truss

Alan Bennett

Malcolm Gladwell

Kazuo Ishiguro (currently reading my first book by this author)

Khaled Hosseini

 

I'd probably read more by most of them as well, so it's interesting that while I haven't read what seems to have been their best work, I have recognized them for their other books.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've read Atonement, The Lovely Bones, and The Corrections from the list. There should definitely be some others on the list. I'm surprised to see The Lovely Bones on this writer's list of best. What about Middlesex by Jeffery Eugenides? or Water for Elephants? or The Road, like Ruth mentioned? Opinions are like....uhh...everybody has one.:D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 months later...

* hangs head in shame *

 

I haven't read any of the books on that list, although I do have a couple of them waiting to be read and there are a couple of others on the list which I would like to read at some point...

 

 

No shame in that at all :) Which ones are you wanting to read?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Have read about half a dozen of the books, and if they are representative of the rest, then am not impressed with the list one little bit - certainly don't inspire me to read them. If they do define the past decade, then what a mediocre decade it's been. Certainly nowhere near the best books of the decade:

 

Suspicions of Mr Whicher.

Mediocre at best. Overextended book with little to grab one. Much better suited to an extended magazine article. There have been much better history books, including 'popular' history.

 

White Teeth

Gave up reading this one.

 

Eats, Shoots and Leaves.

Entertaining and diverting, and a best seller, but not exactly a great book. David Crystal is much better on the English language (amongst others).

 

The God Delusion

Even though I agree with much of what Dawkins says, he says it in a completely unnecessarily aggressive way. Found the book more hectoring than anything else. But I suppose if you've been at the forefront of having to deal with the creeping influence of creationism, you might get to sound somewhat exasperated at times.

 

The Lovely Bones

Hated this - way too sentimental. Didn't finish.

 

The Life of Pi.

Thoroughly enjoyed this. I wouldn't have put this in a top or even defining 20 personally, but can understand why it's there.

 

Short History of Everything.

Have dipped in and out, and what I've read has been reasonably interesting. One of a defining 20? Possibly, but there have been other science books that I've found far more rewarding.

Edited by willoyd
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...

I have read 'Life of Pi' and 'The Lovely Bones'. Whilst enjoyed reading these books, I was a little disappointed with 'The Lovely Bones'. I didn't think it was as life changing as people were making it out to be at the time of its release. I also don't think that they could be considered some of the greatest books of the last decade.

 

'Atonement' and 'Never Let Me Go' are going on my 'To be Read' list!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...

I only read Never Let Me Go. To be honest I don't think I will read the other ones any time soon, I'm a bit more of the adventure/action type and these seem all a bit .... slow. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 8 months later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...