The Top 10 books are as follows:
1. Boy in the Striped Pyjamas - John Boyne. Is it the best book of the noughties? probably not but it's still a good read and a worthy choice.
2. Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffennegger. I haven't read it but those I know that have speak very highly of it.
3. Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold. Again, not something that's featured in my to-be-read pile.
4. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson. My favourite rant: I am still at a loss to understand how this book is as successful as it is. The first 150 pages were nothing more than a tedious info dump and the rest of the book became a very obvious mystery that any crime reader worth his salt would have solved very early on. I'm told the other two books in the trilogy are much better but I have no urge to read them after wading through the first one.
5. Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon. Beautifully written, simple story that repays re-reading. Good to see it in the Top 10.
6. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini. I'd have put good money on this one featuring in the Top 10. A regular book-club choice, it was inevitable.
7. The Book Thief - Marcus Zusak. Is it any good? No idea. I got thirty pages in before I gave up. I just didn't get it (and there are very few books I don't actually finish).
8. A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini again. As No. 6.
9. The Road - Cormac McCarthy. Marvellous, if depressing and gritty novel from one of America's finest writers. Good that it figured in the Top 10 too.
10. Atonement - Ian McEwan. I like McEwan's books, I just haven't gotten around to this one yet.
The rest of the Top 50 is a bit less predictable and eclectic although I was hugely disappointed but not surprised to see the vastly overrated The Sea creep in at 44.
The full Top 50 can be found here.
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