Books of the Decade

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

About this list

The Guardian, 52 Books

The 50 books that defined the decade(2000)

This list was originally published in 2009 and was added to this site over 12 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
221 White Teeth Zadie Smith 2000 British English
2183 No Logo Naomi Klein 1999 Canadian English
3170 The Tipping Point Malcolm Gladwell 2000 American English
1783 A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius Dave Eggers 2000 American English
2968 The Amber Spyglass Philip Pullman 2000 British English
11540 How to Be a Domestic Goddess Nigella Lawson 2000 British English
1827 Experience Martin Amis 2000 British English
237 The Corrections Jonathan Franzen 2001 American English
248 Atonement Ian McEwan 2001 British English
262 Austerlitz W. G. Sebald 2001 German German
5632 A Life's Work Rachel Cusk 2001 British English
1204 Nickel And Dimed Barbara Ehrenreich 2001 American English
11873 London Orbital Iain Sinclair 2002 British English
1010 Fingersmith Sarah Waters 2002 British English
670 Persepolis Marjane Satrapi 2000 French French
1074 The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown 2003 American English
12047 Landing Light Don Paterson 2003 British English
1812 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time Mark Haddon 2003 British English
892 The Kite Runner Khaled Hosseini 2003 Afghan English
9216 Eats, Shoots and Leaves Lynne Truss 2003 British English
9605 The 9/11 Commission Report 9/11 Commission 2004 American English
2485 Small Island Andrea Levy 2004 British English
723 The Line of Beauty Alan Hollinghurst 2004 British English
427 Cloud Atlas David Mitchell 2004 British English
12194 Being Jordan Katie Price 2004 British English
12194 Earth Richard Fortey 2004 British English
3233 Freakonomics Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner 2005 American English
11044 Untold Stories Alan Bennett 2005 British English
370 The Year of Magical Thinking Joan Didion 2005 American English
1638 Postwar Tony Judt 2005 British English
6729 Saturday Ian McEwan 2005 British English
10115 The God Delusion Richard Dawkins 2006 British English
290 The Road Cormac McCarthy 2006 American English
1884 The Looming Tower Lawrence Wright 2006 American English
12450 The Weather Makers Tim Flannery 2005 Australian English
12707 The Revenge of Gaia James Lovelock 2006 British English
2232 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows J. K. Rowling 2007 British English
10552 The Suspicions of Mr Whicher Kate Summerscale 2008 British English
11331 The Blair Years Alastair Campbell 2007 British English
1158 Half of a Yellow Sun Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 2006 Nigerian English
6920 The Reluctant Fundamentalist Mohsin Hamid 2007 Pakistani English
11199 The Audacity of Hope Barack Obama 2006 American English
13334 Change We Can Believe In Barack Obama 2008 American English
2206 Dreams from My Father Barack Obama 1995 American English
7687 The Rest is Noise Alex Ross 2007 American English
3536 Netherland Joseph O'Neill 2008 Irish English
4652 The Forever War Dexter Filkins 2008 American English
1876 Home Marilynne Robinson 2008 American English
7666 The Age Of Wonder Richard Holmes 2008 British English
397 Wolf Hall Hilary Mantel 2009 British English
232 2666 Roberto Bolaño 2004 Chilean Spanish
2366 Brooklyn Colm Toibin 2009 Irish English