- NPD BookScan appears to be the least biased source for Top 10 fiction books because they base their numbers on the sales from a wide variety of companies.
- NPD BookScan does have its flaws since they only keep track of printed books. Ebooks or books borrowed from the library are not counted.
- There is a definite trend to the Top 10 Fiction Books of 2010-2019. They are the ones that have movies made from them during the same decade.
If you ask any avid reader, the Top 10 Best Fiction Books of the last decade vary from person to person. Let’s face it, everyone has a particular genre that they go for, and what the Times declare as the best of 2010 to 2019 is not the same as what Amazon shows, nor is it reflected in the ratings and reviews provided by Goodreads. If this is the case, what source can be considered to be the least biased when it comes to listing the Top 10 Best Fiction Books of the 2010s? NPD BookScan comes to the rescue. It has provided a top 10 list for every year and every decade since it came into being and is considered to be the “gold standard in POS tracking for the publishing market.” Mind you, even they will admit that they are not flawless. They state that they cover only about 85% of the trade printed books that are sold from companies such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Walmart, Target, and other sources. As such, they don’t cover books that are borrowed from the library or any ebooks sold online.
Given the information provided to them, NPD BookScan has arrived with this list of the Top 10 Best Fiction Books of the last decade:
- Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L James (15.2 million copies sold)
- Fifty Shades Darker by E.L James (10.4 million copies sold)
- Fifty Shades Free by E.L James (9.3 million copies sold)
- The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (8.7 million copies sold)
- The Help by Kathryn Stockett (8.7 million copies sold)
- The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins (8.2 million copies sold)
- Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (8.1 million copies sold)
- The Fault in our Stars by John Green (8 million copies sold)
- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (7.9 million sold)
- Divergent by Veronica Roth (6.6 million copies sold)
If all these titles seem to sound familiar, that is because each one has had a movie made about them in the same decade. It is important to note that bestselling books and their movie counterpart go hand in hand in this feast or famine type industry. Many people will buy the book after going to see the movie, and those that have read the book first will most likely go to see the movie.
Once again, it is important to note that this list does vary from the top 10 yearly list from Amazon or those books that have spent time on the NY Times Bestsellers list. This ranking comes directly from the sales of a hard copy book and from no other sources. However, I am inclined to agree that these are the top 10 best fiction books of the last decade simply based on the fact that I have enjoyed reading each and every one of them.