Ten Novels of the Decade

I just realised it's the end of the decade. Funny - I think I was sickened off such turning points with the whole millenium thing. Bit of a squib, that one. Especially in Norwich, where we were living just then...

Anyway, I thought I'd try to work out my ten favourite novels of the decade. It's distorted because I've allowed myself just one book per year and some years were much better than others. Sometimes my favourite book was an old one I'd eventually gotten round to and sometimes it was non-fiction. But here are the novels, anyway - one per year through this pretty tumultuous decade:


2000: Chocolat - Joanne Harris.
2001 - Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon
2002 - Carnevale - M R Lovric
2003 - Dancer - Colum McCann
2004 - Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
2005 - Mr Starlight - Laurie Graham
2006 - Hot to Trot - Lou Wakefield
2007 - The Woman on the Fifth - Douglas Kennedy
2008 - The Palace of Strange Girls - Sallie Day
2009 - The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Marie Schaffer and Annie Barrows

So... I like epic stories set over decades, or decades ago... with quite a bit of comedy and romance... probably classed as the more popular end of literary fiction... something life-affirming with eccentric ensemble casts of characters... with touches of showbiz, arty stuff or detective / adventure gubbins. My very favourites seem to have to include a bit of all this stuff. (I might have to go back to my reading journals to see how the Nineties compare. Somehow I think contemporary novels in that decade were altogether bleaker. These are pretty sparkly, on the whole...)