10 Books Turning 10 This Year

Some of the Best Books from 2013

The popular culture of an era often says something about the character of the time it inhabits. Over the past month, we've explored books and movies that came out fifty years ago, as well as books turning 100 this year. Here, we commemorate ten of the most notable titles published a decade ago.

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

The Dickensian figure at the center of this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is Theo Decker, a 13-year-old boy who survives a horrifying terrorist attack that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, he is taken in by a wealthy family. Obsessed by the one thing that reminds him of her—a painting—he is drawn into a narrow, insular world. A film adaptation came out in 2019.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl. As he sits by the pond behind the ramshackle old house where she once lived, terrifying shadowy memories come flooding back.

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Ifemelu and Obinze are young and in love when they depart military-ruled Nigeria for the West. Self-assured and beautiful, Ifemelu heads for America where, for the first time, she grapples with what it means to be Black. Quiet, thoughtful Obinze had hoped to join her, but, in the wake of 9/11, he must settle for London. Fifteen years later, they reunite in their newly democratic homeland.

Tenth of December by George Saunders

The unforgettable characters and stories in this collection are lovingly infused with a blend of exuberant prose, deep humanity, and stylistic innovation. Tackling themes of class, sex, love, loss, work, despair, and war, these tales explore the fault lines of our own morality, delving into the questions of what makes us good and what makes us human.

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

What if you could live again and again, until you got it right? On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born to an English banker and his wife. She dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, lets out a lusty wail, and embarks on a life in which she dies, repeatedly, as she experiences a multitude of alternate destinies.

The Good Lord Bird by James McBride

Heralded as a 21st-century Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, this National Book Award winner follows the adventures of Henry, a young boy, born a slave, who gets caught up with legendary abolitionist John Brown. Passing as a girl in order to survive, Henry is swept into the historic raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859. Adapted into a 2020 miniseries starring Ethan Hawke.

A Delicate Truth by John le Carré

This prescient thriller from the master spy novelist was released just two months before Edward Snowden's NSA revelations. The story centers on a government employee who risks everything as a whistleblower after an antiterrorism operation in Gibraltar goes terribly wrong. The central question: In the face of evil, how can good men stay silent?

The Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward

In five years, Ward lost five young men in her life—to drugs, accidents, suicide, and the bad luck that can follow people who live in poverty, particularly black men. In her memoir, the two-time National Book Award winner writes powerfully about her experiences growing up poor in rural Mississippi and the fatal impact of this environment on her brother and her friends.

Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

This hilarious, heartwarming bestseller inspired a blockbuster 2018 movie with a star-studded cast. When New Yorker Rachel Chu agrees to spend the summer in Singapore with her boyfriend, Nicholas Young, she doesn't realize that she is embarking on a treacherous obstacle course of extreme wealth—old money, new money, nosy relatives, and scheming social climbers.

MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood

The final volume in the dystopian trilogy that starts with Oryx and Crake brings everything together in a fitting and joyous conclusion, an epic not only of an imagined future, but of our own past. A pandemic has wiped out most of the population. Toby is part of a small band of survivors who will inherit this new earth. Her account emerges as a luminous oral history.

Whether these books are new to you or favorites from your not-so-distant past, please join us in celebrating their continued relevance and resonance after ten years! How many have you read?

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Read more by Ashly Moore Sheldon