Decade of Books: Wizardry Increases Readership

Tulsa World

Vote on the biggest stories of   the decade and leave your predictions for the coming decade.

Wizards-in-training, love-sick teenage vampires and killer albino monks.

Oh my.

These were the things Americans most wanted to read about in this decade that had all the zeroes in the middle.

The phenomenon known as Harry Potter really began to take off with the 2000 publication of "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," the fourth in the seven-book series that has sold upwards of 400 million copies.

In 2003, a one-time teacher who was having trouble giving his books away, much less selling them, cobbled together a twist on the Holy Grail legend and suddenly Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" was on its way to selling more than 80 million copies.

That same year, a Mormon mom had a dream that she then turned into a novel about love-sick teenage vampires, and Stephenie Meyer was on her way to dominating book sales with her "Twilight" series for the rest of the decade, with some 85 million books sold.

The obvious question is: "Why?" Why -- of all the 3 million or so books that have been published over the last 10 years -- are these the most popular?

Search me. But for millions of people these stories were the reason to step into a book store -- or actually stroll down the "Books and Magazines" aisle at the local Walmart or log on to Amazon.com.

But it wasn't all fantasy and escapism. This might also be thought of as the Decade of the Memoir -- or the Decade that the Memoir was Revealed to Be Just Another Kind of Fiction.

Actually, memoirs have always employed a measure of fantasy. After all, no two people remember the same event the same way, much less every word of every conversation. But every so often someone comes along who goes a little too far in making his or her life seem less ordinary.

The most egregious was James Frey. Frey couldn't get a publisher to look at what he called "A Million Little Pieces" when it was shopped around as a novel. Once he said it was a memoir, it received the Oprah Seal of Approval -- until it came out that all the really good stuff was made up.

Oprah was embarrassed, her book club lost some of its cachet -- and Frey's book continued to sell.

Some people found new ways to say obvious things and make piles of money doing it, as typified by Malcolm Gladwell, whose books include "The Tipping Point" and "Blink."

People also found new ways to perform the act of reading a book, from Stephen King lending validity to the concept of the "e-book" with his "Riding the Bullet," to the development of gadgets such as the Sony Reader, Amazon's Kindle and the most unfortunately named Nook from Barnes & Noble.

There may come a time when pixels will completely replace pages, but not any time soon.

This decade also produced a unique work of literature that one hopes will never have a sequel: "The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States," a government document that read like a thriller and was nominated for the National Book Award.  

National Book award   winners

Fiction

2000: Susan Sontag for "In  America"
2001: Jonathan Franzen for  "The Corrections"
2002: Julia Glass for "Three  Junes"
2003: Shirley Hazzard for "The  Great Fire"
2004: Lily Tuck for "The News  from Paraguay"
2005: William T. Vollmann for  "Europe Central"
2006: Richard Powers for "The  Echo Maker"
2007: Denis Johnson for "Tree  of Smoke"
2008: Peter Matthiessen for  "Shadow Country"
2009: Colum McCann for "Let  the Great World Spin"

Nonfiction

2000: Nathaniel Philbrick for  "In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex"
2001: Andrew Solomon for  "Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression"
2002: Robert A. Caro for  "Master of the Senate: The Years  of Lyndon Johnson"
2003: Carlos Eire for "Waiting  for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy"
2004: Kevin Boyle for "Arc  of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights and Murder in the Jazz  Age"
2005: Joan Didion for "The  Year of Magical Thinking"
2006: Timothy Egan for "The  Worst Hard Time: The Untold  Story of Those Who Survived the  Great American Dust Bowl"
2007: Tim Weiner for "Legacy  of Ashes: The History of the CIA"
2008: Annette Gordon-Reed  for "The Hemingses of Monticello:  An American Family"
2009: T.J. Stiles for "The First  Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius  Vanderbilt"

Best-selling books: Publisher's Weekly

2000

Fiction: "The Brethren," by John  Grisham
Nonfiction: "Who Moved My  Cheese?," by Spencer Johnson

2001

Fiction: "Desecration (Left Behind  series No. 12)," by Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim La Haye
Nonfiction: "The Prayer of Jabez,"  by Bruce Wilkinson

2002

Fiction: "The Summons," by  John Grisham
Nonfiction: "Self Matters," by  Dr. Phil McGraw

2003

Fiction: "The Da Vinci Code," by  Dan Brown
Nonfiction: "The Purpose-Driven  Life," by Rick Warren

2004

Fiction: "The Da Vinci Code," by  Dan Brown
Nonfiction: "The Purpose-Driven  Life," by Rick Warren

2005

Fiction: "The Broker," by John  Grisham
Nonfiction: "Natural Cures  'They' Don't Want You to Know About," by Kevin Trudeau

2006

Fiction: "For One More Day," by  Mitch Albom
Nonfiction: "The Innocent  Man," by John Grisham

2007

Fiction: "A Thousand Splendid  Suns," by Khaled Hosseini
Nonfiction: "The Secret," by  Rhonda Byrne

2008

Fiction: "The Appeal," John  Grisham. Doubleday
Nonfiction: "The Last Lecture,"  Randy Pausch

NOTE: The Harry Potter and "Twilight"  series are not included in these lists, as  they are marketed as "Young Adult" fiction,  which has its own category on most bestseller  lists.  

Pulitzer Prize   Winners

Fiction

2000: "Interpreter of Maladies,"  by Jhumpa Lahiri
2001: "The Amazing Adventures  of Kavalier & Clay," by Michael Chabon
2002: "Empire Falls," by Richard  Russo
2003: "Middlesex," by Jeffrey  Eugenides
2004: "The Known World,"  by Edward P. Jones
2005: "Gilead," by Marilynne  Robinson
2006: "March," by Geraldine  Brooks
2007: "The Road," by Cormac  McCarthy
2008: "The Brief Wondrous  Life of Oscar Wao," by Junot  Diaz
2009: "Olivia Kitteridge," by  Elizabeth Strout

Bio/autobiography

2000: Stacy Schiff for "Vera  (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov)"
2001: David Levering Lewis  for "W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for   Equality and the American Century,  1919-1963"
2002: David McCullough for  "John Adams"
2003: Robert A. Caro for  "Master of the Senate"
2004: William Taubman for  "Khrushchev: The Man and His  Era"
2005: Mark Stevens and Annalyn  Swan for "de Koonig: An  American Master"
2006: Kai Bird and Martin  J. Sherwin for "American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy  of J. Robert Oppenheimer"
2007: Debby Applegate  for "The Most Famous Man in  America: The Biography of Henry  Ward Beecher"
2008: John Matteson for  "Eden's Outcasts: The Story  of Louisa May Alcott and Her  Father"
2009: Jon Meacham for  "American Lion: Andrew Jackson  in the White House"

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