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

This is one of the 743 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 about 2 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
17008 Dare Me Megan Abbott 2012 American English
441 Americanah Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 2013 Nigerian English
1435 Life After Life Kate Atkinson 2013 British English
17008 The Middlesteins Jami Attenberg 2012 American English
6423 On Immunity Eula Biss 2014 American English
1494 Behind the Beautiful Forevers Katherine Boo 2012 American English
14165 The Boys In The Boat Daniel James Brown 2013 American English
14165 How Music Works David Byrne 2012 American English
3090 Open City Teju Cole 2011 American English
14165 This Is How You Lose Her Junot Diaz 2012 American English
1431 All the Light We Cannot See Anthony Doerr 2014 American English
419 A Visit From The Goon Squad Jennifer Egan 2010 American English
10424 A Hologram For The King Dave Eggers 2012 American English
2064 The Round House Louise Erdrich 2012 American English
17008 Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self Danielle Evans 2010 American English
407 My Brilliant Friend Elena Ferrante 2012 American Italian
14901 The Unnamed Joshua Ferris 2010 American English
14901 Bossypants Tina Fey 2011 American English
17008 Thank You For Your Service David Finkel 2013 American English
790 Gone Girl Gillian Flynn 2012 American English
3134 Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk Ben Fountain 2012 American English
1997 Freedom Jonathan Franzen 2010 American English
2318 Being Mortal Atul Gawande 2014 American English
5159 Bad Feminist Roxane Gay 2014 American English
9678 The Information James Gleick 2011 American English
3482 The Fault in Our Stars John Green 2012 American English
14901 The Magician King Lev Grossman 2011 American English
14901 Blood, Bones, And Butter Gabrielle Hamilton 2011 American English
17008 Time Warped Claudia Hammond 2012 British English
5240 The Art of Fielding Chad Harbach 2011 American English
7009 The Girl On The Train Paula Hawkins 2015 British English
10424 Ten Thousand Saints Eleanor Henderson 2011 American English
17008 The Short And Tragic Life Of Robert Peace Jeff Hobbs 2014 American English
4934 The Buried Giant Kazuo Ishiguro 2015 British English
17008 Slow Getting Up Nate Jackson 2013 American English
6524 The Empathy Exams Leslie Jamison 2014 American English
2071 Thinking, Fast and Slow Daniel Kahneman 2011 Israeli English
3610 11 22 63 Stephen King 2011 American English
8489 Redeployment Phil Klay 2014 American English
1843 The Sixth Extinction Elizabeth Kolbert 2014 American English
1996 The Flamethrowers Rachel Kushner 2013 American English
17008 Submergence J. M. Ledgard 2011 British English
4933 Ghettoside Jill Leovy 2015 American English
2837 10:04 Ben Lerner 2014 American English
10079 Every Day David Levithan 2012 American English
14901 Flash Boys Michael M. Lewis 2014 American English
17008 We Were Liars E. Lockhart 2014 American English
8601 Sidewalks Valeria Luiselli 2013 Mexican Spanish
1380 Station Eleven Emily St John Mandel 2014 Canadian English
2913 Bring Up the Bodies Hilary Mantel 2012 British English
3598 A Girl Is A Half Formed Thing Eimear McBride 2013 Irish English
4158 The Good Lord Bird James McBride 2013 American English
3536 C Tom McCarthy 2010 British English
10398 The Son Philipp Meyer 2013 American English
17008 Those Guys Have All The Fun James Andrew Miller 2011 American English
6141 The Thousand Autumns Of Jacob De Zoet David Mitchell 2010 British English
17008 Bark Lorrie Moore 2014 American English
14901 Home Toni Morrison 2012 American English
1969 The Emperor of All Maladies Siddhartha Mukherjee 2010 American English
14901 Dear Life Alice Munro 2012 Canadian English
4671 Skippy Dies Pauli Murray 2010 Irish English
17008 Evil And The Mask Fuminori Nakamura 2010 Japanese Japanese
5560 Everything I Never Told You Celeste Ng 2014 American English
4677 The Tiger's Wife Téa Obreht 2011 Serbian English
17008 Before I Fall Lauren Oliver 2010 American English
9124 Boy, Snow, Bird Helen Oyeyemi 2014 British English
14901 People Who Eat Darkness Richard Lloyd Parry 2010 British English
14165 The Imperfectionists Tom Rachman 2010 British English
1860 Citizen Claudia Rankine 2014 American English
6489 The Black Count Tom Reiss 2012 French English
14901 Gulp Mary Roach 2013 American English
17008 The Psychopath Test Jon Ronson 2011 British English
5308 Eleanor And Park Rainbow Rowell 2012 American English
5108 Swamplandia! Karen Russell 2011 American English
1896 Tenth of December George Saunders 2013 American English
9053 Cleopatra Stacy Schiff 2010 Egyptian English
17008 Adam Ariel Schrag 2014 American English
17008 Swimming Studies Leanne Shapton 2012 Canadian English
17008 And So It Goes Charles J. Shields 2011 American English
17008 I'll Be Right There Kyung-sook Shin 2010 South Korean Korean
1816 The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Rebecca Skloot 2010 American English
14901 Mr Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore Robin Sloan 2012 American English
2109 Just Kids Patti Smith 2010 American English
5590 Changing My Mind Zadie Smith 2009 British English
1749 NW Zadie Smith 2012 British English
2171 Far From the Tree Andrew Solomon 2012 American English
14901 The Drunken Botanist Amy Stewart 2013 American English
5248 Tiny Beautiful Things Cheryl Strayed 2012 American English
7159 Wild Cheryl Strayed 2012 American English
1671 Pulphead John Jeremiah Sullivan 2011 American English
740 The Goldfinch Donna Tartt 2013 American English
9955 Daughter Of Smoke & Bone Laini Taylor 2011 American English
17008 The Isle Of Youth Laura Van den Berg 2013 American English
4528 Annihilation Jeff VanderMeer 2014 American English
5587 The Sound Of Things Falling Juan Gabriel Vásquez 2011 Colombian Spanish
1750 Men We Reaped Jesmyn Ward 2013 American English
1367 Salvage the Bones Jesmyn Ward 2011 American English
11321 The Interestings Meg Wolitzer 2013 American English
7016 Going Clear Lawrence Wright 2013 American English
13252 How To Live Safely In A Science Fictional Universe Charles Yu 2010 American English