The 10 Best Books From the Past 10 Years

[@heathersneddon8866]

Great choices, Eric. Here are mine:- 2013 - The Testament of Mary: Colm Toibin 2014 - How to be Both : Ali Smith 2015 - A Little Life : Hanya Yanagihara 2016 - The Power: Naomi Alderman 2017 - Home Fire : Kamila Shamsie 2018 - Circe : Madeline Miller 2019 - Girl, Woman, Other - Bernardine Everisto 2020 - The Memory Police : Yoko Ogawo 2021 - Claire Keegan : Small Things and last but not least a non-fiction book for 2022 My 4th time, We Drowned : Sally Heyden. Should be compulsory reading for us all

[@EricKarlAnderson]

Ah interesting! Many of those amongst my favourites too. Thank you! 😊📚

[@karenshann]

I really enjoyed this, such diversity, some I have read and didn’t like, some I have loved and some I am now going to read. I would love to do something like this, I have kept a record of all of the books I have read since 2012 with star ratings but know how to go about starting off. I am a new subscriber to your channel and am thoroughly enjoying it.

[@EricKarlAnderson]

@@karenshann Thanks Karen! Hope I can tip you off to some new favourites.

[@amytheshihtzumom]

The Power is currently my favorite book of all time. Thanks for the list of books to check out.

[@artiste335]

Thank you for your list. I am ordering My 4th Time, We Drowned today! Also...what did you love about Circe by Madeline Miller?

[@jdunderwood17]

Congrats on 10 years. 'The Goldfinch' - Yes!

[@heathergregg9975]

10 years of making booktube videos is a rare and amazing achievement, so very well done and thank you for the gift that this is to us all. Your enthusiasm for the books is genuine and contagious, there must be many thousands of books which people have read only because they heard about it from you. That is truly being an "influencer".

[@EricKarlAnderson]

That’s extremely kind of you to say. Thank you! 😊📚 It’s a such a good pleasure recommending books I’ve loved reading.

[@suzannebousquet2710]

Congratulations on ten years!🎉🎉🎉 Your passion for books is infectious. Your content is very well thought out and you are so articulate. Thank you😊.

[@EricKarlAnderson]

Thank you! That’s very nice of you to say. 😊📚

[@michaelrobertson3369]

A great video. Here is my list from the last 8 years: 2015 - Story of the Stone (Cao Xuequin) 2016 - The Luminaries (Eleanor Catton) 2017 - The Lost Honour of Katarina Blum (Heinrich Boll) 2018 - The Last Summer (Ricarda Huch) 2019 - How To Do Nothing (Jenny Odell) 2020 - Tale of Genji (Murasaki Shikubu) 2021 - Olive Ketteridge (Elizabeth Strout) 2022 - Olive, Again (Elizabeth Strout) 2023 - The Odyssey (Homer / Emily Wilson)

[@sabinagruden2702]

I think The Lost Honour of Katarina Blum should be an obligatory read for every human being. It's an amazing and important book❤

[@karakask5488]

I let out an audible sigh when you picked Lincoln in the Bardo. I love that book so much, it absolutely blew me away!

[@EricKarlAnderson]

Yes!

[@GuiltyFeat]

Love this although I am still traumatized by the month I spent with Ducks, Bloody Newburyport.

[@ReadingintheDriftless]

Erik! You should make a read like Erik challenge for the best books of this arbitrary decade. Love these kinds of lists. Who we were 10 years ago? What hadn’t happened yet? I often find myself thinking about these things when I am walking or driving. Congrats on 10 years!

[@EricKarlAnderson]

That would be fun. Thank you!

[@nelsonkaiowa4347]

Congrats! I totally lost you because you fifn´t come up in the suggestion list like forever. So I am catching up. The cook of Castamar is finally translated, so hoping you will read it! it is my favourite book. Other favourites are Rebecca, O Guarani, Oorlogswinter (winter in wartime), Towers of Trebizond, Maus, Angela´s Ashes, The hippopotamus, Call me by my name, Les misérables. But they are mostly not written in the last ten years.

[@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711]

Be sentimental. Why not? Ten years is definitely something to celebrate. Watching this brought back some joyous reading experiences of the last decade for me and reminded me of books I meant to read and missed. Thank for all you have shared with us as an expert amateur 😊

[@EricKarlAnderson]

Absolutely! 😊 Thank you so much!

[@pialikaushik5437]

Congratulations on your ten year anniversary 😊

[@Dottiemi]

I really enjoyed this look back over the years. We have some shared favourites. Now……on with the next 10 years!

[@hettiestroebel4952]

Wonderful selection of books! Some of my favorites: Covenant of Water; Cutting for Stone; A little life; This blinding absence of light; The rent collector

[@SelinaAllinson]

Ow Happy Ten years Eric✨ That's incredible! Thank you for everything. I love reading more than ever now and I know it's because of you. All the hard work you put in is so evident. Thank you for sharing what you do with so much joy, enthusiasm and very thoughtful insight. You always give very honest and heartfelt reviews and it's apparent you are so respectful of what you are doing. You critique and talk about novels in a very moving and admiring way. Your wonderful recommendations and OF COURSE your sparkling personality. I'm going to read them all! ☺️✨I sobbed and sobbed at Lincoln in The Bardo. This One Sky Day was so so good. It should have won the Women's Prize that year. Happy Ten and thanks again. Here's to ten more! 😜💜✨🥹🎉📚

[@EricKarlAnderson]

Thank you, Selina! It’s great to hear that and it’s very kind of you to say. I keep meaning to read Leone Ross’ previous books. Looking forward to more book chat with you. 😊📚

[@sandysleeper9969]

I love your enthusiasm for reading. I always find books that no one is talking about on social media on your vlog. I hope to watch your video for the next ten years.

[@bev9708]

Huge CONGRATS on the 10-year anniversary!! This is such a great video, thanks so much for the lovely concise treasure trove!!! 📚📖🙋🏻‍♀️

[@EricKarlAnderson]

Thanks so much! 😊📚

[@sithpanda]

You have an incredibly inviting smile, that pulled me into watching your videos, specifically the one on 'The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida' and then I just kind of hung out for a bit. Thank you for sharing your passion!

[@EricKarlAnderson]

Thanks so much! That’s kind of you to say. 😊📚

[@cindyhaiken5644]

This is an amazing and excruciating exercise!! Picking one among favorites is so hard. In the past ten years some of my favorites include A Little Life, This Is Happiness, Hamnet, Still Life, The Whalebone Theatre, Warlight and also The Luminaries, Flight Behavior, H is for Hawk, Lincoln in the Bardo, Tin Man and of course Demon Copperhead.

[@EricKarlAnderson]

Thank you, Cindy! Those are some top choices! 📚

[@hollyly88able]

What a great list. Lots of exciting books to add to my TBR. 😊

[@karinasuarez9981]

Wonderful list of books Eric! I love the passion you put in your comments. I’m from Argentina and a big fan of Claudia Piñeyro. My list from recent years includes old books that I re read, like Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges. Klara and the Sun by Ishiguro. Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. 1000 years of joys and sorrows by Ai Wei Wei. I just started Werner Herzog’s memoirs.

[@stalkingkafka]

Ah! Massive congrats on 10 years! I am so sad I haven't had time to read The Waves with you...I've never read anything by Ali Smith (or Sarah Waters for that matter) and probably should. I remember The Goldfinch being fantastic. I didn't realize when I clicked on this video that you would be talking about more than 10 - adding so many I missed to my TBR! ❤

[@branwynnemay]

What a treasure trove of book recommendations! I wrote down each one I haven’t read yet- thank you for this video. I’ve been a lifelong book lover but nearly stopped reading for a decade. This year I’ve read 83 books and am so happy. My favorite discoveries have been everything written by Becky Chambers, What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo, and Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer. ☺️

[@peggynewman7159]

Loved this video. You are such fun to listen to, I admire your open honesty. You have the ability to sum up the content of a book in a very concise and interesting way, a gift. Thanks for all you do.

[@EricKarlAnderson]

Thank you for the kind words! That means a lot. 😊📚

[@vanhouten64]

Eric, I'd like to hear your opinion on the annoying trend of authors eschewing grammar, particularly with regards to quotation marks. I've been reading through the Booker prize list and at least four of the authors (Lynch, Feeney, Harding, and Murray) did not use quotation marks to distinguish spoken words in the way that we all learned to do in elementary school. This irritates me! 😡 It often genuinely confuses me as to which person said something, or even whether or not something was spoken. I'm wondering if this annoys other people!

[@vickieanderson2804]

The only time a lack of punctuation did NOT bother me was in reading the works of Jose Saramago. It nearly drove me to distraction while reading The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy, though!

[@tjpieraccini]

Interesting how people's tastes overlap - and don't overlap! I loved Ducks, Newburyport and The Ghost Wall, but couldn't get on with Marlon James and found Lincoln in the Bardo a big 'huh?' But a fascinating video, as ever! have you read Lidia Yuknavitch? Her 'Book of Joan' was almost a transformative experience, for me.

[@LouiseKellett]

Congratulations on the 10 year anniversary. I’ve learnt so much from you and my reading life is so much richer thanks to you.

[@dorotheafinan2419]

Goodness ,you really are a lifer with Joyce Carol Oates! What an interesting and stimulating video. Nice to be reminded of the recent great novels, many of which I also enjoyed and some of which I now intend to read. I would put Canada right up there. Also Sarah Moss. Ian Mc Ewan’s The Lesson is I think his best, just from last year. Like you I loved the Ali Smith season series. She is always the first to capture the Zeitgeist. the biography Hamilton is a wonderful read. And there is a quietly wonderful book called This is Happiness by Niall Williams which helped me through Lockdown. I think Cormac Mac Carthy hit an all time high with The Passenger. Isn’t it great that rumours of the death of the book have been grossly exaggerated!

[@Ihearbooks]

Great video I almost wish you had gone further back. Read at least 3 out of every year you showed. Thanks

[@ΛΕΜΟΝΙΑΤΑΣΟΥΛΑ]

What a great selection of books, Eric! I would add the Wolf Hall trilogy and Swing time by Zadie Smith.

[@EricKarlAnderson]

Thanks! 😊📚

[@kimswhims8435]

A decade of great reading. Congratulations Eric. I often think our tastes are similiar but my choices would be different, I think. You've reminded me of a number that I've been meaning to read and reminded me of my favourites over the last decade too. Here's to another decade or 10 of great reading 😊

[@cherylynlarking191]

Thanks for incredible recap of the past 10 years. You have certainly influenced my reading choices in the past few years which in turn have changed the choices of my bookclub friends.

[@NomadicBrian]

Well done. I'll look into these books. Thank you.

[@Nina_DP]

Happy Anniversary, Eric! 🥂

[@EricKarlAnderson]

Thank you! 😊📚

[@aishathrubeenanaseem6195]

Wow!! Happy happy 10!!! my go to space for all things books. Thank you Eric for bringing such great content on books. Best of wishes for many many more… 😀🎉🎉🎉

[@EricKarlAnderson]

Thanks so much! 😊📚

[@toniblessing4624]

Loved this, Eric! ❤

[@user-yg6ft1iu1i]

What a creative idea and so many favorites. I’m glad you mentioned Canada by Richard Ford a book I thought was very good but has kind of disappeared from a lot of lists

[@altanava]

I’m not sure that it’s been translated, but since I saw you liked Claudia Piñeiro’s Elena Knows, I highly recommend you read her novel “Cathedrals” I absolutely loved it, it has stuck with me for so long. Live your channel, new to it.

[@rimattiman]

I'm now creating one shelf of 'Erik's Recommendations' in Goodreads

[@EricKarlAnderson]

Hope you find some new favourite reads! 😊📚

[@Gianzhg]

As I watch your video, I guess correctly 6 out 10 of your winners using my knowledge as one of your long time audiences 😂 congratulations on the 10 year mark and for many years to come 🎉🎉🎉

[@EricKarlAnderson]

Well done! I should have sorted out a prize. And thank you! 😊📚

[@christinaalvarez332]

Congratulations! That was a ton of fun! 🥳

[@EricKarlAnderson]

Thanks! 😊📚

[@teneshaanderson4761]

Thank you for the mother load of book recommendations

[@EricKarlAnderson]

😊📚📚📚

[@qinlkpah]

I read Ghost Wall and Dinosaurs on Other Planets after you recommended them and will always be thankful - they have become two all-time favorites.

[@alanscheer2137]

Mazel tov Eric,you’ve been doing a great job.Here’s to another ten years of happy reading.

[@EricKarlAnderson]

Thank you! 😊📚

[@NovelFindsByKassi]

I really love your enthusiasm in going through these books. I also really love your reading tastes! Thanks for sharing! : )

[@EricKarlAnderson]

Thank you! 😊📚

[@scottboyd3838]

If it makes you cry, instant 4 Star Novel...My most emotional is Bewilderment by Richard Powers. Very moving story between a Father and his autistic son

[@mariecarroll2079]

Thanks for this Karl. So many of my favourite writers are on your list. Ie Sarah waters. Sarah Moss. Claire Keegan. Claire Fuller. And Emma Donahue. I am going to read Artic Summer. So thank you again A belated Happy Birthday

[@HannahGreendale]

Congrats on your 10 year anniversary, Eric! This was a really fun video to watch. What a wealth of incredible literature. Thanks for sharing. ☺

[@EricKarlAnderson]

Thanks so much, Hannah! That’s very kind of you to say. 😊📚📚📚

[@RSelcov]

So many good books to add to my ever-expanding TBR list. Here's my list, 5 non-fiction and 10 fiction. Not one for each year, just taken from my 5 star rated books. Notes from No Man's Land: American Essays - Eula Bliss Say Nothing - Patrick Radden Keefe What You Have Heard is True - Carolyn Forche Braiding Sweetgrass - Robin Wall Kimmerer Democracy in Chains - Nancy MacLean We Have Always Lived in the Castle - Shirley Jackson Milkman - Anna Burns The Lost Children Archive - Valeria Luiselli Flood of Fire - Amitav Ghosh Homegoing - Yaa Gyasi Metropolis - Philip Kerr Rebellion - Joseph Roth Hamnet - Maggie O'Farrell The Good Lord Bird - James McBride The Promise - Damon Galgut

[@barbaralemon4170]

Just loved Washington Black. What a wonderful creative story.

[@estafresquinho]

Congrats! i'm a huge fan of your videos!

[@EricKarlAnderson]

Thanks so much! 🤗📚

[@wavaleebranch]

I absolutely loved this! Thank you so much!

[@EricKarlAnderson]

Thanks! 😊

[@larissawilson51]

fascinating...tell me, how do you fall or follow on to the next book....how do you get your idea for the next read?? Fantastic Passion. XX

[@TheLeniverse]

Well, that has added to my tbr which is already longer than a human lifetime. lol And I've moved some books already on my tbr up the list. I was very pleased to see This One Sky Day as one of your runners up. It was on my personal shortlist for the Women's Prize that year, along with Creatures of Passage (I seem to always have a two book discrepancy with the Women's Prize judges). Congratulations on your 10th book blog anniversary! I can't put together a top ten list, but I do have a recommendation for you. It's an older book, from 1956: The Roots of Heaven by Gary Romain. It's set in French Equatorial Africa and deals with colonialism, idealism, dignity, animal rights, different ways of life. It can be a bit difficult to get hold of, but it is worth the hunt.

[@debbieinlondon]

Happy Anniversary! What a great video. Thank you for the recommendations 🎉

[@EricKarlAnderson]

Thanks so much! 😊📚

[@DrSmak]

Wow, what a fantastic list of books to read! Thank you for all of the great recommendations. Apparently I need to try Joyce Carol Oates.

[@EricKarlAnderson]

Thanks! I’d definitely recommend trying her books.

[@EllenLury]

Oh how wonderful! Happy Anniversary, what a great video. I have to say I loved “Demon Copperhead “ it was such a great book but not my favorite. My favorite last year was “Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies.” I work with cancer patients and it hit home…

[@EricKarlAnderson]

Thank you! And I loved Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies too.

[@karenmoore4430]

I am starting The Gustav Sonata tonight. Love Rose Tremain.

[@darrylchristopherdguerra4227]

Then you will have a lovely evening. I absolutely adored Gustav Sonata!

[@EricKarlAnderson]

Ah great, it’s so good!

[@jamesduggan7200]

This year I read Nights of Plague and Demon Copperhead, both of which I enjoyed; and both on your recommendation, so thx.

[@marciaalbaum2597]

congrads I love your videos. I would have missed in memoriam, which I loved, without following you.

[@EricKarlAnderson]

Thank you! I hope In Memoriam wins even more prizes. ⭐️

[@KierTheScrivener]

Happy 10 Years!

[@EricKarlAnderson]

Thank you! 😊📚

[@RubenDario-hr4iq]

I’ve read and loved eight of those books . I shall read the other two : Ghost Wall and The Luminaries.

[@EricKarlAnderson]

Great! Hope you enjoy them.

[@benreadsgood]

This was fun! I was rooting so hard for Richard Powers in 2021 😅

[@EricKarlAnderson]

Bewilderment still has a special place in my heart! 💚

[@scottboyd3838]

We love you too Eric. ( Edited due to me spelling 'live' instead of 'Love'.

[@JojoJojo-bd6dz]

I haven't read a single book from the books you mentioned 😅

[@ianp9086]

I really enjoyed this video Eric and felt compelled to do the same. Amazingly we agree on 4! I didn’t always read them in the same year as you though. So here’s my list: 2013 A Girl is a half-formed Thing by Eimear McBride 2014 How to be Both by Ali Smith 2015 The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth 2016 Autumn by Ali Smith 2017 Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders 2018 The Gallows Pole by Benjamin Myers 2019 Milkman by Anna Burns 2020 Ducks Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann 2021 The Man who saw Everything by Deborah Levy 2022 Elena Knows by Claudia Pineiro And I think 2023 is going to be Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield. But mine is all based on a smaller sample size and one or two of your best I still need to read.

[@EricKarlAnderson]

Ah great! I still need to read The Gallows Pole and I’m hoping to read Armfield’s novel soon.

[@meretgross6517]

Congratulations 🎉🎉🎉

[@EricKarlAnderson]

Thank you! 😊📚

[@scottboyd3838]

Mine, not actually in sync with the timeline, just my best IN the last ten years. The Sellout - Paul Beatty 4 3 2 1 - Paul Auster Who They Are - Gabriel Krauze Hark - Sam Lipsyte The Overstory - Richard Powers Station Eleven - Emily St John Mandel Shuggie Bain - Douglas Stuart Missionaries - Phil Klay Exhaltion - Ted Chiang (a)Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead & (b) Flights - Olga Tokarczuk & Finally, & to the man, and legend, my version of Hemingway, Cormac McCarthy and his series of two, the final novels The Passenger & its night cap Stella Maris. Even in the latter, he couldn't of come with a more - ode to cinema - perfect name for his swan song. Mind the grammar, my vision has turned to shite. Apologies.

[@bianquita1]

Happy 10th KZbin birthday.

[@EricKarlAnderson]

Thank you! 😊📚

[@meghbanerjeemusic]

Thanks for thi video

[@EricKarlAnderson]

😊📚

[@haveaniceday2208]

Your channel is so good and so inspiring I may never watch KZbin again

[@EricKarlAnderson]

Thank you! 😊

[@nadiadixon5805]

my car is the same age as your book blog..2013😊

[@EricKarlAnderson]

I wonder which of us will break down first 😅

[@marciaalbaum2597]

I recommend I am radar, lincoln highway and 4 3 2 1

[@garylevine5698]

I have to agree with you about Donna Tart but " The Waves" was probably the most torturous reading experience of my entire life & that's only 30 pages.I care for Dalloway either.I did like " Lighthouse" I'm certain this says more about me than Wolfe.My 20th cen. intellectual his.prof.did his P.H.D. thesis on Wolfe.

[@stephencarroll230]

Different Woolf! I too find The Waves to be absolute torture, and I’ve read Joyce, Beckett, Cela, ,Stein, etc. l found Mrs. Dalloway to be the most enjoyable of Woolf’s books.

[@garylevine5698]

@@stephencarroll230 I didn't like Dalloway either.I liked "Lighthouse" though.Do you ever think when you read a book like that " What am I missing?" I've read Joyce too & I rather liked "Ulysses"

[@stephencarroll230]

@@garylevine5698 Sometimes I've just had to stop reading! Something like Joyce really requires study because without certain background info or commentaries you cant really comprehend what is going on. it isn't a book you read casually on the beach, like many others. (Although I suppose To the Lighthouse would be appropriate for the beach!)

[@ht6743]

Which book is your #1?

[@jacquelinemcmenamin8204]

My top books from your lists The Green Road by Ann Enright The Gustav Sonata Tin Man Women Talking Circe You Will Be Safe Here Shuggie Bain Love After Love The Pull of the Stars Small Things Like These Unsettled Ground Bewilderment The Colony The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida Demon Copperhead Elena Knows 🍀👋☘️📚📖📕☕️

[@shruthikrishna6548]

Your accent suddenly seems different now

[@EricKarlAnderson]

Or maybe your hearing has changed

[@prezidentasplastakius6340]

Sorry but i hate Ali Smith books..

[@EricKarlAnderson]

😭😭😭

[@paulelliott3220]

What a delight finding such a lovely host and a clutch of interesting books to be sure Some of my highlights are: Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry; I started this then stopped, then picked up again during Covid19. What an incredible book, beautifully written with amazing characters, a rattling good story and a fair amount of tragic things on an epic cattle drive. The Narrow Road to the Deep North - Richard Flannigan; this is an incredibly harrowing, beautiful and dark story of suffering endured in a Japanese internment camp. It’s an astonishing book deep with character, shared grief and the inhumanities of man, but also with amazing acts of courage and reflection. Freedom - Jonathan Frantzan; this dense and complex story charts the breakdown of the Bergland family, and it’s beautifully and artfully written, pulling you effortlessly in to the tortured minds of the family. The subject matter on all three of these, doesn’t sound like everyone’s cup of tea, but the writing, the prose, ideas, the plotting, the characters are a veritable tour de force. One non fiction for you: The Inconvenient Indian - Thomas King; this is a look at the awful treatment of the First Nation Tribes of Canada and the American Indians. It’s wonderfully written with a light touch but staggering content, with atrocity after broken agreement, after forced migration and back again. Thomas is an academic but his writing burns with passion, and plenty of self depreciating humour. Congrats on 10 years Here’s to the next 10 Subscribed !

[@EricKarlAnderson]

Thanks so much! Was a fan of Freedom as well and I know I really ought to read Lonesome Dove.