The end of this decade is coming into view – which means a raft of articles on the best of the 2010s, be that books, movies, music or whatever else. I haven’t listened to much new music since around 1998, and couldn’t be bothered checking out most new films (Scream is demanding to be rewatched for the millionth time, after all). But I do, and have, read quite a lot of new books.
The other day I wrote a short piece for the Irish Independent on my two favourite books of the decade…and it was hellishly difficult, narrowing the choice down to just two. So I’ve decided to expand the concept, numerically speaking, and throw up my favourite 100. However – and following the Guardian’s recent example – I’ve further decided to go the whole hog and select from the entire millennium so far. The final results, after much head-scratching, are presented below.
(These aren’t, by the way, necessarily my favourites of what I’ve read during the last two decades. I’d tend to skew towards older stuff/classics etc. etc. But these are the best I’ve read which were first published since the millennium.)
A few brief notes:
- I’m cheating a little here in including Ballard, Orwell, Calvino and Zweig. These stories or essays were written long before the 20th century ended. But they were first published in this complete form post-2000, so for me, these count as books of the new millennium.
- Publication dates for non-English books are for the first English translation (as far as I can work it out). Some of them were out in their original language several years before that.
- A few mildly interesting stats (interesting to me, at any rate): 29 of the books on this list are non-fiction, 63 are novels and there are seven short story collections; 80% men versus 20% women (no particular reason, just how it worked out; I guess more men get published in general? I’m certainly not one of those ridiculous people who “only” reads one or other sex. A good book is a good book, full stop); 12 books in translation; nine Irish works make the cut.
- The most common entries? Don DeLillo with four (ish*), Margaret Atwood with three and JG Ballard with 3 (also ish*). No big surprise there, as those three are probably my all-time favourite authors. (William Gibson on the subs’ bench.) * The “ish” refers to the fact that one DeLillo, and one Ballard, are actually collections of interviews with them, not fiction. But – it’s all their own words and thoughts, so again, I’ll allow it.
- Decade by decade, my top 100 breaks down thus: the 2000s get 39, the 2010s get 60. Meanwhile the “worst” years, for my liking, were 2001, 2002 and 2003 – each with just one entry. “Best” year was 2017, with 11. In fairness, there’s probably a weighting towards later years because I didn’t start reading for review/work purposes until c. 2006, so would have read more (and probably better) books from that time onwards…
- AND FINALLY: eagle-eyed and/or mathematically minded people might have noticed that some of my sums don’t add up, e.g. 39 plus 60 does not make 100. That’s because I left the list at 99 – in the hope that you, dear (fellow) reader, might suggest a hundredth in the comments section below…
MY FAVOURITE 100 BOOKS OF THE MILLENNIUM SO FAR
The Blind Assassin (2000), Margaret Atwood
Shirker (2000), Chad Taylor
The Consolations of Philosophy (2000), Alain de Botton
True History of the Kelly Gang (2000), Peter Carey
Europeana (2001), Patrik Ourednik
Essays (2002), George Orwell
Cosmopolis (2003), Don DeLillo
2666 (2004), Roberto Bolaño
Oryx and Crake (2004), Margaret Atwood
Cloud Atlas (2004), David Mitchell
The Plot Against America (2004), Philip Roth
How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World (2004), Francis Wheen
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (2004), Susanna Clarke
A Short History of Nearly Everything (2004), Bill Bryson
Mutants (2004), Armand Marie Leroi
Conversations with Don DeLillo (2005), Thomas DePietro ed.
The Trudeau Vector (2005), Juris Jurjevics
Empires of the Word (2005), Nicholas Ostler
Molly and the Cyclops (2006), Ailbhe Keogan
Complete Short Stories Vol I (2006), JG Ballard
Complete Short Stories Vol II (2006), JG Ballard
A Brief History of Misogyny (2006), Jack Holland
Blindsight (2006), Peter Watts
Special Topics in Calamity Physics (2006), Marisha Pessl
Tenderwire (2006), Claire Kilroy
Darkmans (2007), Nicola Barker
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union (2007), Michael Chabon
The Savage Detectives (2007), Roberto Bolaño
The Rest is Noise: Listening to the 20th Century (2007), Alex Ross
The Ghost (2007), Robert Harris
The Raw Shark Texts (2007), Steven Hall
Return of the Player (2007), Michael Tolkin
Falling Man (2007), Don DeLillo
Netherland (2008), Joseph O’Neill
The Book of Silence (2008), Sara Maitland
The Complete Cosmicomics (2009), Italo Calvino
The City and the City (2009), China Miéville
Blood’s a Rover (2009), James Ellroy
You Are Here: A Portable History of the Universe (2009), Christopher Potter
Day for Night (2010), Frederik Reiken
The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog, and of His Friend Marilyn Monroe (2010), Andrew O’Hagan
Lights Out in Wonderland (2010), DBC Pierre
Zone One (2010), Colson Whitehead
Red Plenty (2010), Francis Spufford
1Q84 (2011), Haruki Murakami
The Prague Cemetery (2011), Umberto Eco
The Sisters Brothers (2011), Patrick deWitt
Ready Player One (2011), Ernest Cline
The Angel Esmeralda (2011), Don DeLillo
HHhH (2012), Laurent Binet
Extreme Metaphors: Interviews with JG Ballard (2012), Simon Sellars and Dan O’Hara eds.
The Last Testament: A Memoir by God (2012), David Javerbaum
Shooting Stars: Ten Historical Miniatures (2013), Stefan Zweig
Night Film (2013), Marisha Pessl
The Circle (2013), Dave Eggers
Autobiography (2013), Morrissey
Consumed (2013), David Cronenberg
How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia (2013), Mohsin Hamid
I Am Pilgrim (2013), Terry Hayes
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2014), Yuval Noah Harari
Bleeding Edge (2014), Thomas Pynchon
Sinker (2014), Jason Johnson
The First 15 Lives of Harry August (2014), Claire North
We Are all Completely Beside Ourselves (2014), Karen Joy Fowler
Aurora (2015), Kim Stanley Robinson
Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights (2015), Salman Rushdie
The Pier Falls (2016), Mark Haddon
I Am No One (2016), Patrick Flanery
The Gene (2016), Siddhartha Mukherjee
Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany (2016), Norman Ohler
The Secret History of Twin Peaks (2016), Mark Frost
Time Travel: A History (2016), James Gleick
Beautiful Pictures of the Lost Homeland (2016), Mia Gallagher
Solar Bones (2016), Mike McCormack
The Zoomable Universe (2017), Caleb Scharf
Amberlough (2017), Lara Elena Donnelly
We Have No Idea (2017), Jorge Cham and Daniel Whiteson
Universal Harvester (2017), John Darnielle
Eat Me: A Natural and Unnatural History of Cannibalism (2017), Bill Schutt
Hag-Seed (2017), Margaret Atwood
Madness is Better Than Defeat (2017), Ned Beauman
The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve (2017), Stephen Greenblatt
Manhattan Beach (2017), Jennifer Egan
Artemis (2017), Andy Weir
Before the Fall (2017), Noah Hawley
The Line Becomes a River (2018), Francisco Cantú
Dictator Literature (2018), Daniel Kalder
The First Sunday in September (2018), Tadhg Coakley
The Consolations of Physics (2018), Tim Radford
Coal Black Mornings (2018), Brett Anderson
The Silence of the Girls (2018), Pat Barker
How to Change Your Mind (2018), Michael Pollan
The Paper Wasp (2019), Lauren Acampora
Underland (2019), Robert Macfarlane
Daisy Jones & The Six (2019), Taylor Jenkins Reid
The Moon (2019), Oliver Morton
The Chain (2019), Adrian McKinty
Paris Syndrome (2019), Lucy Sweeney Byrne
The Last (2019), Hanna Jameson
Darragh McManus, author and journalist 
November 21st, 2019 at 6:25 pm
Thanks Darragh!!! Excellent choices 🙂
November 22nd, 2019 at 12:09 pm
Thanks yourself! Hope all is well with you and you’re working on another masterpiece. BTW keep an eye on the Indo “Best of the decade” bit running in the Saturday Review section on (I think) December 14th…