LitHub's Top Novels of the Decade

LitHub chose their top novels of the decade. How many of these have you read?

Updated December 4, 2023
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All my puny sorrows
Toews, Miriam
Paper Book
A New York Times 2015 Holiday Gift Guide selection. Elf and Yoli are sisters. While on the surface Elfrieda's is an enviable life (she's a world-renowned pianist, glamorous, wealthy, and happily married) and Yolandi's a mess (she's divorced and broke, with two teenagers...
The Buddha in the attic
Otsuka, Julie
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * PEN/FAULKER AWARD WINNER * The acclaimed author of The Swimmers and When the Emperor Was Divine tells the story of a group of young women brought from Japan to San Francisco as "picture brides" a century ago in this "understated masterpiece ... that...
The fifth season
Jemisin, N. K.
Paper Book
At the end of the world, a woman must hide her secret power and find her kidnapped daughter in this "intricate and extraordinary" Hugo Award winning novel of power, oppression, and revolution. (The New York Times) This is the way the world ends. . .for the last time. ...
In the distance
Díaz, Hernán
Paper Book
Finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction A young Swedish immigrant finds himself penniless and alone in California. The boy travels East in search of his brother, moving on foot against the great current of emigrants pushing West. Driven back again and again, he meets...
A little life : a novel
Yanagihara, Hanya.
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A stunning "portrait of the enduring grace of friendship" (NPR) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century. NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST *...
Milkman : a novel
Burns, Anna
Paper Book
Winner of the Man Booker Prize "Everything about this novel rings true. . . . Original, funny, disarmingly oblique and unique."--The Guardian In an unnamed city, middle sister stands out for the wrong reasons. She reads while walking, for one. And she has...
Outline
Cusk, Rachel
Paper Book
A Finalist for the Folio Prize, the Goldsmiths Prize, the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction One of The New York Times' Top Ten Books of the Year. Named a A New York Times Book Review Notable Book and a Best Book...
The overstory : a novel
Powers, Richard
Paper Book
The Overstory, winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, is a sweeping, impassioned work of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of--and paean to--the natural world. From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, Richard Powers's twelfth novel unfolds in concentric...
Salvage the bones : a novel
Ward, Jesmyn.
Paper Book
Winner of the National Book AwardThe National Book Award winning novel from the author of Let Us Descend and Men We Reaped--a gritty but tender story of family and poverty in the days leading up to Hurricane Katrina.A hurricane is building over the Gulf of Mexico,...
The sellout : a novel
Beatty, Paul.
Paper Book
Winner of the 2016 Man Booker Prize Winner of the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction Named one of the best books of 2015 by The New York Times Book Review and the Wall Street Journal A biting satire...
The sympathizer
Nguyen, Viet Thanh
Paper Book
Now an HBO Limited Seriesfrom Executive Producers Park Chan-wook and Robert Downey Jr., StreamingExclusively on Max Winner of the 2016Pulitzer Prize for Fiction Winner of the 2016 EdgarAward for Best First Novel Winner of the 2016 Andrew Carnegie Medalfor...
Train dreams
Johnson, Denis
Paper Book
ANew York Times Notable Book for 2011 One ofThe Economist's 2011 Books of the Year One of NPR's 10 Best Novels of 2011 Denis Johnson'sTrain Dreams is an epic in miniature, one of his most evocative and poignant fictions. Robert Grainer is a day...
Trust exercise : a novel
Choi, Susan
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION NATIONAL BESTSELLER "Electrifying" (People) * "Masterly" (The Guardian) * "Dramatic and memorable" (The New Yorker) * "Magic" (TIME) * "Ingenious"...
The Underground Railroad : a novel
Whitehead, Colson
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * PULITZER PRIZE WINNER * NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER * "An American masterpiece" (NPR) that chronicles a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. One of The New York Times's 10...
A visit from the Goon Squad
Egan, Jennifer.
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE WINNER * With music pulsing on every page, this startling, exhilarating novel of self-destruction and redemption "features characters about whom you come to care deeply as you watch them doing things they shouldn't, acting gloriously,...

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