Sure, the New York Times released its 100 Best Books of the 21st Century list. But the list we’re really excited about is Phinney Books’ 100 bestselling books from their first ten years.
From Phinney Books, Seattle, WA:
You can see the top 10 displayed here, and the full top 100 on our website. Such lists, by their nature, are not exactly full of surprises—these are the most popular books, after all. Starting with #1, which was just boosted back ahead of #2 and #3 by last year’s movie adaptation, these are the books that “everybody” has read (although I must admit I’ve only read four of the top 10—how about you?): big bestsellers, especially novels, often award-winning ones. But wait—what’s that odd item at #4? A little Australian novel from 1993 that was only available in an imported Aussie edition for our first few years until a U.S. publisher brought it out here in 2020 (we like to think because of our vast influence)? We still recommend Madeleine St. John’s The Women in Black to readers every week, and if you haven’t tried it yet, you should. We’d love if it was in the top 10 for our second ten years too!
Those odder entries are the ones we’re most fond of, and they include what’s likely my favorite book I’ve discovered since we opened: Tarjei Vessas’s tiny, haunting Norwegian gem of a novel, The Ice Palace, from 1963, which came in at #33 and would have been even higher if it hadn’t often been impossible to get from the publisher—as, sadly, it is right now, so you’ll just have to take my word for it until we can get more. You can also include in that category Ronan Hession’s Leonard and Hungry Paul (#44), a bestseller in Ireland and the U.K. but still not-quite-viral in the U.S., except among our customers; another Aussie import that’s been a favorite recommendation, Joan London’s The Golden Age (#53); another Norwegian gem, Roy Jacobsen’s The Unseen (#67); and a wonderful lineup of Seattle-area authors, starting with Daniel James Brown and Ijeoma Oluo in the top 10, and including David B. Williams (#21 and #79), Bonnie Garmus (#23), Robin DiAngelo (#26), your humble correspondent (#45, right ahead of the 44th POTUS, I not-so-humbly note), Frank Herbert (#55), Dav Pilkey (#57), Erik Larson (#61), Octavia Butler (#81, though she wrote her best-known books before moving here), Hannah Viano (#86), Susanna Ryan (#89), Kenji Lopez-Alt (#90), Timothy Egan (#91), Karl Marlantes (#92), Lindy West (#95), and finally, wonderfully, the self-published bus driver Nathan Vass at #98. (More locals nearly made the list, including Kazu Kibuishi, Nicola Griffith, Nina Laden, Maria Semple, and Renee Erickson.)
Our intrepid local historian, David B. Williams, wasn’t the only author appearing more than once on the list: you’ll also find double entries for Anthony Doerr, Amor Towles, Fredrik Backman, Madeline Miller, David Grann, and Andy Weir. But only one author appears three times: Raina Telgemeier, who pioneered the genre that has exploded the most during our decade in business, graphic novels for kids. Of her five written-and-illustrated books, three (Guts, Ghosts, and Smile) made our top 100, and the other two (Sisters and Drama) finished just outside the list, at #102 and #107.
Can’t get enough of these lists and expert analysis? There’s plenty more to come in future installments, including our own bookseller ten-year top 10s. We encourage you to start thinking of what would be on your own lists….
