Books of the decade

As 2019 winds down, inspired by the collection of “best of the decade” book lists at LitHub, and so many other of our favorite reading resources, the Mercantile librarians decided to take a stab at our narrowing down our favorite reads of the decade.

We think Al said it best when he declared, “This is impossible!”

But we tried our best and came up with a collection of books that have stuck with us through a decade of reading.

CEDRIC

• Swing Time by Zadie Smith
• Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (We all loved this one!)
• Pulphead by John Jeremiah Sullivan
• The Unsettlers by Mark Sundeen
• Atlas of a Lost World–Travels in Ice Age America

CHRIS

• Beatlebone by Kevin Berry
• Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes (seconded by Hillary!)
• Golden Hill by Francis Spufford
• A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
• They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib (another second from Hillary!)
• Open City by Teju Cole
• The Roundhouse by Louise Erdrich
• Trouble Boys by Bob Mehr

HILLARY

• Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward
• Tenth of December by George Saunders
• Alif The Unseen by G Willow Wilson
• Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Book Store by Robin Sloan
• Boy Snow Bird by Helen Oyeyemi
• Speak by Louisa Hall
• Redeployment by Phil Klay
• The Philosophical Breakfast Club by Laura Snyder
• Just Kids by Patti Smith
• Rise of The Warrior Cop by Radley Balko

AMY

• Pachinko Min Jin Lee (We have all loved this one, and wow! was Lee amazing when she spoke at the Library.)
• The Line That Held Us by David Joy
• Pictures at an Exhibition by Sara Houghteling
• A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson (We all love this one, especially John.)
• Once Upon a River by Bonnie Jo Campbell
• The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman
• How to Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran
• The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
• The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
• In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson (Our 2020 Niehoff lecturer!)
• Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo
• Provence, 1970 by Luke Barr
• Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys. by Viv Albertine

AL

• The Bully Pulpit by Doris Kearns Goodwin (Our 2016 Niehoff lecturer!)
• The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf (another Mercantile speaker!)
• Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
• Wonder by R.J. Palacio
• Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra (seconded by Hillary!)
• The Library Book by Susan Orlean (another Mercantile speaker!)
• The Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (and another!)
• The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (and another!)

JASMINE

• The Changeling by Victor LaValle (Seconded by Hillary!)
• Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
• Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
• Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman
• Light the Dark: Writers on Creativity, Inspiration, and the Artistic Process by Joe Fassler
• Black Ink: Literary Legends on the Peril, Power, and Pleasure of Reading and Writing by Stephanie Stokes Oliver