# Which are the best 5 novels you have read in the last 5 years? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 29, 2014, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-the-best-5-novels-you-have-read-in-the-last-5-years/691915 "2014-06-29T04:34:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Cartesian\_Rationalist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c89c15/32.png) [@Cartesian\_Rationalist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartesian_Rationalist)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2014, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-the-best-5-novels-you-have-read-in-the-last-5-years/691915/1 "2014-06-29T04:34:03Z")
I’m starting this thread mainly for the fun of it, and perhaps to learn a thing or two as well. So fellow dopers, which 5 books have lingered in your memory during the last 5 years? I’ll start: 1. 2666 by Roberto Bolaño 2. The Gone-Away World by Nick Harckway 3. Buddha’s Little Finger by Victor Pelevin 4. Night Film by Marisha Pessl 5. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami All these books I can remember quite vivdly, and to deny they’ve had an impact on me would be an understatement. So fellow Dopers, which 5 novels (in 5 years), would you say have been the most impressive or best for you? ---
**Author:** ![epbrown01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ba0ec/32.png) [@epbrown01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epbrown01)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2014, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-the-best-5-novels-you-have-read-in-the-last-5-years/691915/2 "2014-06-29T05:19:49Z")
Ready Player One - Ernest Cline The Rook - David O’Malley Child of Fire - Harry Connoly Hounded - Kevin Hearne Under Heaven - Guy Gavriel Kay ---
**Author:** ![danhanegan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/eb9ed0/32.png) [@danhanegan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/danhanegan)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2014, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-the-best-5-novels-you-have-read-in-the-last-5-years/691915/3 "2014-06-29T07:03:00Z")
Brother to Dragons - Charles Sheffield Speaker for the Dead- Orson Scott Card Mother of Demons - Eric Flint Inside Job - Connie Willis Singularity Sky - Charles Stross ---
**Author:** ![chiroptera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@chiroptera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chiroptera)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2014, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-the-best-5-novels-you-have-read-in-the-last-5-years/691915/4 "2014-06-29T07:25:25Z")
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (also The Kite Runner, and The Mountains Echoed by the same author.) House of Sand and Fog - Andre Dubus III The Odds - Stewart O’Nan The Headhunters - Jo Nesbo Sunset Park - Paul Auster ---
**Author:** ![koeeoaddi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/koeeoaddi/32/408_2.png) [@koeeoaddi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/koeeoaddi)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2014, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-the-best-5-novels-you-have-read-in-the-last-5-years/691915/5 "2014-06-29T15:39:57Z")
Life After Life, Kate Atkinson Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Susannah Clarke The Plague of Doves, Louise Erdrich The Terror, Dan Simmons The Son, Philipp Meyer …Cinnamon & Gunpowder, by Eli Brown is rising in the Best Books of the Last Five Years firmament, but I’m not quite finished reading it yet, so I can’t say for sure. ---
**Author:** ![Gordon\_Urquhart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/db5fbb/32.png) [@Gordon\_Urquhart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gordon_Urquhart)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2014, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-the-best-5-novels-you-have-read-in-the-last-5-years/691915/6 "2014-06-29T17:14:40Z")
_The Goldfinch_, by Donna Tartt _Telegraph Avenue_, by Michael Chabon _The Count of Monte Cristo_, by Alexandre Dumas _Freedom_, by Jonathan Franzen _The Story of Edgar Sawtelle_, by David Wroblewski ---
**Author:** ![chiroptera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@chiroptera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chiroptera)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2014, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-the-best-5-novels-you-have-read-in-the-last-5-years/691915/7 "2014-06-29T17:24:47Z")
> [@Gordon\_Urquhart](#): > > _The Goldfinch_, by Donna Tartt > _Telegraph Avenue_, by Michael Chabon > _The Count of Monte Cristo_, by Alexandre Dumas > _Freedom_, by Jonathan Franzen > _The Story of Edgar Sawtelle_, by David Wroblewski Oh, forgot _The Story of Edgar Sawtelle_. That was indeed amazing, and sad, and triumphant. I’m only a little way into Greg Ile’s _Natchez Burning_ and I am utterly hooked. Apparently it’s the first in a [planned trilogy](http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/with-natchez-burning-greg-iles-is-back-better-than-ever/2014/05/01/6de64da4-c023-11e3-b574-f8748871856a_story.html). I went through a phase of reading black authors earlier this year (Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Maya Angelou, Alex Hailey, Walter Mosely) and this book fits that same theme very well. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2014, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-the-best-5-novels-you-have-read-in-the-last-5-years/691915/8 "2014-06-29T18:02:39Z")
_ **Master of Hestviken** _ Sigrid Undset \*\*\*Independent People Halldor \*\*\*Laxness _ **Gunnar’s Daughter** _ Sigrid Undset _ **Our Mutual Friend** _ Charles Dickens _ **The Dwarf** _ Par Lagerkvist ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2014, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-the-best-5-novels-you-have-read-in-the-last-5-years/691915/9 "2014-06-29T23:44:14Z")
_Cloud Atlas_ by David Mitchell (Didn’t see the movie) _Cutting for Stone_ by Abraham Verghese _Children of God_ by Maria Doria Russell _A Thread of Grace_ by Mary Doria Russell And I just finished _The Golem and the Jinni_ by Helen Wecker and I absolutely loved it. It’s got some magical realism going on, so if you don’t like that kind of thing, avoid it. But otherwise, very unusual story and characters. I hated for it to end. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2014, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-are-the-best-5-novels-you-have-read-in-the-last-5-years/691915/10 "2014-06-30T01:49:43Z")
The last 5 years? Oy. I need to do two genre lists for this. Fiction Nicholson Baker: The Anthologist Michael Cunningham: Specimen Days E. L. Doctorow: Homer and Langley Jonathan Safran Foer: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close David Mitchell: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet F&SF Margaret Atwood: Oryx and Crake Paolo Bacigalupi: The Windup Girl Lois McMaster Bujold: The Curse of Chalion Michael Flynn: Eifelheim Jeanette Winterson: The Stone Gods