Preamble
I know I’m a bit late for this type of post… My blogging schedule was already full up when I got the idea to write this type of post. I started using Goodreads in 2011 – hard to believe it’s been so long! That made it easy for me to look back on the roughly 550 books I read that were published in the past decade.
I originally planned to write two list: one for books I read during that year and one for books that were published in that year. But then I decided to just go with published in the year because it fits better with ‘favourite books of the decade’. It seemed liked there would be a lot of overlap. I also realized that in May 2019 I listed favourite reads from the past 10 years (2008 to 2018). It was interesting to compare these two lists.
I put a lot more thought into this one, choosing titles that I personally felt most pulled to or enjoyed the most. I don’t mean to snub any of the excellent books I’ve read over the past 10 years. This isn’t a list of the best or most important books or ones I think should be widely read. These are the books that defined my decade of reading and helped shape me.
I found it unexpectedly easy to pick the top book of each year. The honourable mentions are excellent, but no competition for the titles I chose to highlight first. 2014 turned out to be the most difficult year to pick a top read. I had to narrow it done from a six serious contenders. 2016 had an immediate standout but honourable mentions were difficult to narrow down. The publication year is when the book was published or translated in Canada. Links go to my reviews.
The List
- 2010: Doctor Who: The Writer’s Tale – The Final Chapter by Russell T. Davies and Benjamin Cook
- 2011: The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente
- Honourable mention: A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
- 2012: Splendors and Glooms by Laura Amy Schlitz
- Honourable mention: The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
- 2013: The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
- Honourable mentions: A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki and Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
- 2014: The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton
- Honourable mentions: The Storied Life of A.J Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin (I gave it the rare five star rating and raved about it in my review, but can’t really remember the experience of reading it? Maybe due for a reread.), Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer, The Enchanted by Rene Denfeld, and In Other Lands by Sarah Ress Brennan
- 2015: Uprooted by Naomi Novik
- Honourable mentions: Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman, The Nest by Kenneth Oppel, and Cuckoo Song by Frances Hardinge
- 2016: Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire
- Honourable mentions: When the Moon Was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore, The Witches of New York by Ami McKay, and The Good People by Hannah Kent
- Honourable non-fiction mentions: The ABC’s of LGBT+ by Ash Hardell (published under Ashley Mardell), Indigenous Writes by Chelsea Vowel, Strangers in Their Own Land by Arlie Russell Hochschild, and You Will Not Have My Hate by Antoine Leiris
- 2017: Radio Silence by Alice Oseman
- Honourable mentions: Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire, Spirit Hunters by Ellen Oh and The Trials of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend
- 2018: Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
- Honourable mention: Thisby Thestoop and the Black Mountain by Zac Gorman, Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth by Catherine McIlwaine, and Blanca & Roja by Anna-Marie McLemore
- 2019: Middlegame by Seanan Mcguire
- Honourable mentions: In an Absent Dream by Seanan Mcguire, The Devouring Gray by Christine Lynn Herman, On the Come Up by Angie Thomas, and The Winter of the Witch by Katherine Arden
What have been your standout reads over the past 10 years?
This must have taken a bit of work to compile. At least I read one of these books.
It did take me almost two hours to review everything and make up my mind! Ooh, which one – The Ocean at the End of the Lane is my guess?
Is my original comment lost? 😭
Okay it must be… I still might do a post like this, I’m not sure if I’m up for the work 🙈 I do love you did it by published year. That makes me want to do it more. 👍🏻 I need to read Radio Silence as so many rave about it. And The Girl Who is a middle grade series I need to make time for. The Snow Child would maybe make my list.
Oh no, sorry your comment was lost! Thank-you for taking the time to rewrite it, cos I get too frustrated to do that when my comments are lost 😛
It takes a bit of work but it’s a lot of fun. You can remember how much you enjoyed all your favourite books 😉 I can’t recommend Radio Silence and The Girl Who enough (the series overall is a bit uneven but worth your time). The Snow Child is a nice winter read. If you love wintry stories like I do, then I’d recommend it.
I did one of these posts too, but I let myself choose two favorites from each year (I didn’t do honorable mentions though). I found it easier than I expected, mostly because I went with my gut. I actually haven’t read any of your selections but Naomi Novik is high on my must-read list!
Right, sometimes the gut knows what’s what! 😛 I hope you get to enjoy Novik in 2020. I just started rereading Spinning Silver last night 🙂
So glad to see some of my favorites on your list! I love both Uprooted and Ava Lavender. I’ve been meaning to get to Radio Silence. I’ve heard so many good things about it. Hope this decade is full of amazing reads for you!
Thank-you! Radio Silence is one that seems to have passed by a lot of people, even though they’ve heard good things. I hope you get to enjoy it sometime!
That’s an interesting question to considder, I’ve only ever looked at my favourite reads of the year but never compared the years. I may have to go do that now!
I would definitely be interested if you wrote a post on this topic! The nice thing about doing it this way is that it helps narrow it down a bit. ’10 favourite books from the past 10 years’ sounds to me more difficult than choosing ‘one’ favourite from each year 😛
It does sound a lot easier to word it that way
I’m still hoping to write a stats post from last year, so I can’t judge your timing, haha.
What a cool list! I also really enjoyed Radio Silence and Uprooted. This seems like a fun list to put together. I typically find it difficult to pick end of year favorites, but it sounds like your favorites for years past were pretty easy for you to pick and I’m curious if I’d find it easier to pick favorites from years that are longer ago. It seems like time might help you identify what books really stick with you.
Yes, I think that’s exactly it! Over time, I only remembered the books that invoked the best and strongest feelings, so it was easy to feel ‘drawn’ to my top picks.