Vote for the best book of the decade

In association with Good Housekeeping, here at Lovereading we have compiled an all-important ‘Top 50 Books of the Last Decade’. There are numerous prize winners, occasional debut novels as well as novels that have now been made into films, but rest assured we think each and every one is, in its own unique way, a fantastic read and a book that will stand the test of time.

And we want your help in choosing the Top 10 books of the decade. It’s very easy – to put your favourites into the Top 10 just click the ‘Vote for Book’ button below each title.

You can vote for as many books as you wish — but only one vote will be counted per book.

The shortlist will be published on the website in April 2010. Thank you for your help.

Sort by author   Sort by title

		A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian Marina Lewycka 'Two years after my mother died, my father fell in love with a glamourous blonde Ukrainian divorcee. He was eighty-four and she was thirty-six. She exploded into our lives like a fluffy pink grenade,...	American Wife Curtis Sittenfeld In the year 2000, in the closest election in American history, Alice Blackwell's husband becomes president of the United States. Their time in the White House proves to be heady, tumultuous, and...
	Atonement Ian McEwan On the hottest day of the summer of 1934, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching her...	Body Surfing Anita Shreve At the age of twenty-nine, Sydney has already been once divorced and once widowed. Trying to find her footing again, she has answered an advertisement to tutor the teenage daughter of a well-to-do...	Brick Lane Monica Ali Still in her teenage years, Nazneen finds herself in an arranged marriage with a disappointed man who is twenty years older. Away from the mud and heat of her Bangladeshi village, home is now a...
	Child 44 Tom Rob Smith In Stalin's Soviet Union, crime does not exist. But still millions live in fear. The mere suspicion of disloyalty to the State, the wrong word at the wrong time, can send an innocent person to his...	Chocolat Joanne Harris When an exotic stranger, Vianne Rocher, arrives in the French village of Lansquenet and opens a chocolate boutique directly opposite the church, Father Reynaud denounces her as a serious moral danger...	Cloud Atlas David Mitchell 'Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies ...' A reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850; a disinherited composer blagging a precarious livelihood in between-the-wars Belgium; a high-minded...
	Disgrace J. M. Coetzee A divorced, middle-aged English professor finds himself increasingly unable to resist affairs with his female students. When discovered by the college authorities, he is expected to apologise and...	Fingersmith Sarah Waters London 1862. Sue Trinder, orphaned at birth, grows up among petty thieves - fingersmiths - under the rough but loving care of Mrs Sucksby and her 'family'. But from the moment she draws breath, Sue's...	Girl With a Pearl Earring Tracy Chevalier An international bestseller with over two million copies sold, this is a story of an artist's desire for beauty and the ultimate corruption of innocence. 17th Century Holland. When Griet becomes a...
	Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell Susanna Clarke Two magicians shall appear in England. The first shall fear me; the second shall long to behold me The year is 1806. England is beleaguered by the long war with Napoleon, and centuries have passed...	Life of Pi Yann Martel After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship, a solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild, blue Pacific. The only survivors from the wreck are a sixteen year-old boy named Pi, a hyena, a zebra (with...	Middlesex Jeffrey Eugenides 'I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974. My...
	Oxygen Andrew Miller In the summer of 1997, four people reach a turning point: Alice Valentine, who lies gravely ill in her West Country home; her two sons, one still searching for a sense of direction, the other...	Restless William Boyd It is 1939. Eva Delectorskaya is a beautiful 28-year-old Russian emigree living in Paris. As war breaks out she is recruited for the British Secret Service by Lucas Romer, a mysterious Englishman,...	Salmon Fishing in the Yemen Paul Torday This is the story of Dr Alfred Jones, a fisheries scientist - for whom diary-notable events include the acquisition of a new electric toothbrush and getting his article on caddis fly larvae published...
	Shantaram Gregory David Roberts In 1978, gifted student and writer Greg Roberts turned to heroin when his marriage collapsed, feeding his addiction with a string of robberies. Caught and convicted, he was given a nineteen-year...	Small Island Andrea Levy In this delicately wrought and profoundly moving, multi-award winning novel, Andrea Levy handles the weighty themes of empire, prejudice, war and love, with a lightness of touch and a generosity of...	Suite Francaise Irene Nemirovsky In June 1940 France fell to the Nazis. The effects of this momentous event on the lives of ordinary Parisians and the inhabitants of a small rural community under occupation are brilliantly explored...
	The Book Thief Markus Zusak HERE IS A SMALL FACT - YOU ARE GOING TO DIE. 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier. Liesel, a nine-year-old girl, is living with a foster family on Himmel...	The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas John Boyne Lines may divide us, but hope will unite us ...Nine-year-old Bruno knows nothing of the Final Solution and the Holocaust. He is oblivious to the appalling cruelties being inflicted on the people of...	The Corrections Jonathan Franzen From the author of 'Freedom', a richly realistic and darkly hilarious masterpiece about a family breakdown in an age of easy fixes. After fifty years as a wife and mother, Enid Lambert is ready to...
	The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time Mark Haddon Christopher is 15 and lives in Swindon with his father. He has Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism. He is obsessed with maths, science and Sherlock Holmes but finds it hard to understand other...	The Five People You Meet in Heaven Mitch Albom THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN is a wonderfully moving fable that addresses the meaning of life, and life after death, in the poignant way that made TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE such an astonishing book....	The Gathering Anne Enright The nine surviving children of the Hegarty clan gather in Dublin for the wake of their wayward brother Liam. It wasn't the drink that killed him - although that certainly helped - it was what...
	The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Stieg Larsson Forty years ago, Harriet Vanger disappeared from a family gathering on the island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger clan. Her body was never found, yet her uncle is convinced it was murder -...	The Gone-away World Nick Harkaway The Jorgmund Pipe is the backbone of the world, and it's on fire. Gonzo Lubitsch, professional hero and troubleshooter, is hired to put it out - but there's more to the fire, and the Pipe itself,...	The Kite Runner Khaled Hosseini Twelve-year-old Amir is desperate to win the approval of his father and resolves to win the local kite-fighting tournament, to prove that he has the makings of a man. His loyal friend Hassan promises...
	The Line of Beauty Alan Hollinghurst It is the summer of 1983, and young Nick Guest, an innocent in the matters of politics and money, has moved into an attic room in the Notting Hill home of the Feddens: Gerald, an ambitious new Tory...	The Lovely Bones Alice Sebold My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973. My murderer was a man from our neighborhood. My mother liked his border flowers, and my...	The Master Colm Toibin In January 1895 Henry James anticipates the opening of his first play, Guy Domville, in London. The production fails, and he returns, chastened and humiliated, to his writing desk. The result is a...
	The Night Watch Sergei Lukyanenko Walking the streets of Moscow, indistinguishable from the rest of its population, are the Others. Possessors of supernatural powers and capable of entering the Twilight, a shadowy parallel world...	The Outcast Sadie Jones 1957, and Lewis Aldridge is travelling back to his home in the South of England. He is straight out of jail and nineteen years old. His return will trigger the implosion not just of his family, but...	The Poisonwood Bible Barbara Kingsolver
	The Road Cormac McCarthy A father and his son walk alone through burned America, heading through the ravaged landscape to the coast. This is the profoundly moving story of their journey. The Road boldly imagines a future...	The Road Home Rose Tremain 'On the coach, Lev chose a seat near the back and he sat huddled against the window, staring out at the land he was leaving ...' Lev is on his way to Britain to seek work, so that he can send money...	The Rotters' Club Jonathan Coe Jonathan Coe's widely acclaimed novel is set in the 1970s against a distant backdrop of strikes, terrorist attacks and growing racial tension. A group of young friends inherit the editorship of their...
	The Sea John Banville 'A masterly study of grief, memory and love recollected' - Professor John Sutherland, Chair of Judges, Man Booker Prize 2005. When art historian Max Morden returns to the seaside village where he...	The Secret Scripture Sebastian Barry Nearing her one-hundredth birthday, Roseanne McNulty faces an uncertain future, as the Roscommon Regional Mental hospital where she's spent the best part of her adult life prepares for closure. Over...	The Shadow of the Wind Carlos Ruiz Zafon Hidden in the heart of the old city of Barcelona is the 'cemetery of lost books', a labyrinthine library of obscure and forgotten titles that have long gone out of print. To this library, a man...
	The Star of the Sea Joseph O'Connor In the bitter winter of 1847, from an Ireland torn by injustice and natural disaster, the Star of the Sea sets sail for New York. On board are hundreds of fleeing refugees. Among them are a...	The Tenderness of Wolves Stef Penney 1867, Canada: as winter tightens its grip on the isolated settlement of Dove River, a man is brutally murdered and a 17-year old boy disappears. Tracks leaving the dead man's cabin head north towards...	The Time Traveler's Wife Audrey Niffenegger At its core The Time Traveler's Wife is an old-fashioned love story. A terrific book...startlingly original' Observer. 'Wonky, sexy, incredible' The Times. This is the extraordinary love story of...
	The White Tiger Aravind Adiga Meet Balram Halwai, the 'White Tiger': servant, philosopher, entrepreneur and murderer. Balram, the White Tiger, was born in a backwater village on the River Ganges, the son of a rickshaw-puller. He...	Vernon God Little D. B. C. Pierre	We Need to Talk About Kevin Lionel Shriver This title is winner of the orange prize for fiction 2005. Two years ago, Eva Khatchadourian's son, Kevin, murdered seven of his fellow high-school students, a cafeteria worker, and a popular algebra...
	When Will There be Good News? Kate Atkinson In rural Devon, six-year-old Joanna Mason witnesses an appalling crime. Thirty years later the man convicted of the crime is released from prison. In Edinburgh, sixteen-year-old Reggie works as a...	White Teeth Zadie Smith One of the most talked about fictional debuts of recent years, White Teeth is a funny, generous, big-hearted novel, adored by critics and readers alike. Dealing - among many other things - with...

Share this page

close

Share or bookmark this page

Share this page on Facebook and Twitter.

Tweet about it
Share it on Facebook