A not bad top ten books of the decade

Amazon lists its top ten books of the decade. I am apparently simpatico with the Amazon reviewers, as I love the majority of these books. Tana French is representing crime, although I would have picked the sorta sequel over the Woods. They also implicitly declare The Forever War to be the best Iraq war book. The freshness of it might make me give the nod to The Good Soldiers, but I have nothing but praise for The Forever War.

I am trying to think of my own selections for best of the decade. The word "best" here implies some mixture of quality, influence and timelessness. These would be books that people might still read in 2030. I am going to have to think of some others.

The best selling authors of the decade list is a bit of a bummer. The top book aside, I am not sure any of these books will be read in 2015, let alone 2030. Harry Potter takes the top, naturally, followed by the Twilight books. So far, so good. Then we start heading into CostCo book territory. Nora Roberts/JD Robb, the wicked James Patterson, Dan Brown, and Spencer Johnson of the horrendous Who Moved My Cheese Empire make most of the rest.

The one big surprise is Mary Pope Osbourne, the writer of the neverending (43 books and counting) Magic Tree House series. I guess it is the number of books, considering that everyone I know with younger kids has a couple of these lying around. It helps that kids books are still a relative bargain.