100 Best Books of the Decade so Far (2010-2015)

This is one of the 759 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.

About this list

Oyster Books, 100 Books

The “100 Best Books of the Decade So Far” was essentially the work of a single editor, Kevin Nguyen, published April 2015 on Oyster’s literary site. The guiding idea was “books that most powerfully pursue truth” across fiction and nonfiction from 2010-2015. An advisory trio of Roxane Gay, Megan Abbott and Lauren Oliver could comment, but Nguyen made the picks. When Google acquired Oyster in Sept 2015 and the service shut down in early 2016, the original webpage vanished; only mirrors on LibraryThing, Reddit and blogs remain today.

This list was originally published in 2015 and was added to this site over 2 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
17160 Dare Me Megan Abbott 2012 American English
443 Americanah Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 2013 Nigerian English
1435 Life After Life Kate Atkinson 2013 British English
17160 The Middlesteins Jami Attenberg 2012 American English
6435 On Immunity Eula Biss 2014 American English
1495 Behind the Beautiful Forevers Katherine Boo 2012 American English
14232 The Boys In The Boat Daniel James Brown 2013 American English
14232 How Music Works David Byrne 2012 American English
3097 Open City Teju Cole 2011 American English
14232 This Is How You Lose Her Junot Diaz 2012 American English
1413 All the Light We Cannot See Anthony Doerr 2014 American English
421 A Visit From The Goon Squad Jennifer Egan 2010 American English
10453 A Hologram For The King Dave Eggers 2012 American English
2070 The Round House Louise Erdrich 2012 American English
17160 Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self Danielle Evans 2010 American English
409 My Brilliant Friend Elena Ferrante 2012 American Italian
14985 The Unnamed Joshua Ferris 2010 American English
14985 Bossypants Tina Fey 2011 American English
17160 Thank You For Your Service David Finkel 2013 American English
791 Gone Girl Gillian Flynn 2012 American English
3139 Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk Ben Fountain 2012 American English
2002 Freedom Jonathan Franzen 2010 American English
2326 Being Mortal Atul Gawande 2014 American English
5169 Bad Feminist Roxane Gay 2014 American English
9699 The Information James Gleick 2011 American English
3485 The Fault in Our Stars John Green 2012 American English
14985 The Magician King Lev Grossman 2011 American English
14985 Blood, Bones, And Butter Gabrielle Hamilton 2011 American English
17160 Time Warped Claudia Hammond 2012 British English
5250 The Art of Fielding Chad Harbach 2011 American English
7022 The Girl On The Train Paula Hawkins 2015 British English
10453 Ten Thousand Saints Eleanor Henderson 2011 American English
17160 The Short And Tragic Life Of Robert Peace Jeff Hobbs 2014 American English
4943 The Buried Giant Kazuo Ishiguro 2015 British English
17160 Slow Getting Up Nate Jackson 2013 American English
6537 The Empathy Exams Leslie Jamison 2014 American English
2077 Thinking, Fast and Slow Daniel Kahneman 2011 Israeli English
3615 11 22 63 Stephen King 2011 American English
8358 Redeployment Phil Klay 2014 American English
1844 The Sixth Extinction Elizabeth Kolbert 2014 American English
2001 The Flamethrowers Rachel Kushner 2013 American English
17160 Submergence J. M. Ledgard 2011 British English
4942 Ghettoside Jill Leovy 2015 American English
2845 10:04 Ben Lerner 2014 American English
10100 Every Day David Levithan 2012 American English
14985 Flash Boys Michael M. Lewis 2014 American English
17160 We Were Liars E. Lockhart 2014 American English
8618 Sidewalks Valeria Luiselli 2013 Mexican Spanish
1381 Station Eleven Emily St John Mandel 2014 Canadian English
2919 Bring Up the Bodies Hilary Mantel 2012 British English
3603 A Girl Is A Half Formed Thing Eimear McBride 2013 Irish English
4163 The Good Lord Bird James McBride 2013 American English
3539 C Tom McCarthy 2010 British English
10426 The Son Philipp Meyer 2013 American English
17160 Those Guys Have All The Fun James Andrew Miller 2011 American English
6152 The Thousand Autumns Of Jacob De Zoet David Mitchell 2010 British English
17160 Bark Lorrie Moore 2014 American English
13339 Home Toni Morrison 2012 American English
1974 The Emperor of All Maladies Siddhartha Mukherjee 2010 American English
14985 Dear Life Alice Munro 2012 Canadian English
4680 Skippy Dies Pauli Murray 2010 Irish English
17160 Evil And The Mask Fuminori Nakamura 2010 Japanese Japanese
5569 Everything I Never Told You Celeste Ng 2014 American English
4686 The Tiger's Wife Téa Obreht 2011 Serbian English
17160 Before I Fall Lauren Oliver 2010 American English
9145 Boy, Snow, Bird Helen Oyeyemi 2014 British English
14985 People Who Eat Darkness Richard Lloyd Parry 2010 British English
14232 The Imperfectionists Tom Rachman 2010 British English
1861 Citizen Claudia Rankine 2014 American English
6500 The Black Count Tom Reiss 2012 French English
14985 Gulp Mary Roach 2013 American English
17160 The Psychopath Test Jon Ronson 2011 British English
5318 Eleanor And Park Rainbow Rowell 2012 American English
5118 Swamplandia! Karen Russell 2011 American English
1898 Tenth of December George Saunders 2013 American English
9074 Cleopatra Stacy Schiff 2010 Egyptian English
17160 Adam Ariel Schrag 2014 American English
17160 Swimming Studies Leanne Shapton 2012 Canadian English
17160 And So It Goes Charles J. Shields 2011 American English
17160 I'll Be Right There Kyung-sook Shin 2010 South Korean Korean
1817 The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Rebecca Skloot 2010 American English
14985 Mr Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore Robin Sloan 2012 American English
2116 Just Kids Patti Smith 2010 American English
5600 Changing My Mind Zadie Smith 2009 British English
1751 NW Zadie Smith 2012 British English
2183 Far From the Tree Andrew Solomon 2012 American English
14985 The Drunken Botanist Amy Stewart 2013 American English
5258 Tiny Beautiful Things Cheryl Strayed 2012 American English
7175 Wild Cheryl Strayed 2012 American English
1672 Pulphead John Jeremiah Sullivan 2011 American English
741 The Goldfinch Donna Tartt 2013 American English
9976 Daughter Of Smoke & Bone Laini Taylor 2011 American English
17160 The Isle Of Youth Laura Van den Berg 2013 American English
4534 Annihilation Jeff VanderMeer 2014 American English
5597 The Sound Of Things Falling Juan Gabriel Vásquez 2011 Colombian Spanish
1752 Men We Reaped Jesmyn Ward 2013 American English
1368 Salvage the Bones Jesmyn Ward 2011 American English
11353 The Interestings Meg Wolitzer 2013 American English
7028 Going Clear Lawrence Wright 2013 American English
13286 How To Live Safely In A Science Fictional Universe Charles Yu 2010 American English