10 bestsellers of the decade: Sex and money lead the book list

Never in the history of the world have three books sold so fast, and to such happy customers. But there were other books that made the top 10 list of the decade.

Take a look at the Top 10 bestsellers over the past ten years and what do you find?

Sex and money!

Money and sex!

Yes, I’m laughing, too. It’s cause for celebration.

The top three places, according to Nielsen Bookscan, have been taken by the Fifty Shades trilogy. Maybe you’re cringing a little, remembering how much you loved them. Maybe you’re thinking, hmmm, I should go get them out again …

Never in the history of the world have three books sold so fast, and to such happy customers. They were mostly read by women, who couldn’t get enough of the billionaire Christian Grey and his Red Room of Pain.

How to explain the popularity of three books about bondage?!

Australian women are fun-loving? But of course we already knew that, and now we know they’ve got a healthy attitude to their own sex life, too, and let’s hope their boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands and lovers reaped the benefits.

Of course, there will be people who say: but those books were awful. Badly written. Repetitive.

50 Shades Of Grey by El James

The Barefoot Investor by Scott Pape.

To them, let’s just say: don’t be such a grinch. Anything that makes consenting adults happier has to be a good thing. Fifty Shades put a spring in people’s steps. More power to the trilogy.

Also in the Top Ten, you’ll find Scott Pape’s The Barefoot Investor, which broke the model for finance books. Pape’s breezy guide to managing your money gives people the confidence they need to take control of their futures. He wants you to enjoy your life, and not get taken for a ride, and that’s what everyone wants, really.

The book recommends reducing debut and building a nest-egg. It has tips to help your children get into the habit of saving money and living within their means.

Like Fifty Shades, it’s saved some people’s marriages! It’s certainly saved them from crushing credit card debt, and bankruptcy, and that in turn saves people’s lives.

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

Richard Flanagan's novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North.

So, we’re playful, but we’re also sensible! And we’re loyal to Australian writers, telling Australian stories. You won’t find Trent Dalton’s debut novel, Boy Swallows Universe, on the Top 10 for the decade, but it’s been the best-and-fastest selling book of the past two years, and why wouldn’t it be? It’s a hopeful book, set not in New York or London, but in the suburbs of Brisbane. It doesn’t gloss over the realities. It’s got people behaving badly and trying to do better. It’s not Lifestyle of the Rich and Famous. It’s poverty, as so many Australian families either know, or remember it, and local readers have just loved it.

They love Liane Moriarty, too. Two of her books – The Husband’s Secret, and Big Little Lies – made the Top Ten for Australian fiction, as did a local Booker Prize winner, The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Tasmania’s Richard Flanagan; as did Craig Silvey’s sublime coming of age book, Jasper Jones; as did Graeme Simsion’s The Rosie Project.

In non-fiction, who isn’t amused to see “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F@ck” ? Because of course everyone does. Also Jamie’s Fifteen Minute Meals, because nobody can ever think what to serve for dinner.

But let’s look now at some of the books that didn’t make the Top Ten lists, but really should be read by everyone: Maria Tumarkin’s Axiomatic is a collection of essays by a Melbourne writer who has a heart the size of a house. Each piece is built around an aphorism - “Time heals all wounds”, for example – but what can time do about the suicide of your sister?

It can’t do anything. Nobody can. You have to try to deal with that over the course of your lifetime. Oh, this book is absolutely gorgeous.

The most exciting young writer to emerge over the past few years was surely Sally Rooney, who published Normal People, and Conversations with Friends, each of which you’ll devour in an afternoon, maybe two.

A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin.

'The Rosie Project' by Graeme Simsion.

Nobody ever asks you what you’re reading anymore, only what you’re watching.

Game of Thrones, for example. It was a book!

The Handmaid’s Tale. It was a book!

Big Little Lies was a book before it was a series, starring Nicole Kidman.

But don’t get stuck behind the screen this summer. If there’s nothing in the Ten Year Top Ten that turns you on (see what I did there?) you could maybe try one of this year’s best novels: Ann Patchett’s The Dutch House – it’s about two children, expelled from their home by their step-mother, after their father dies – or else, if you can bear it, try Fleischmann is in Trouble, by Taffy Brodesser-Akner, about the dissolution of a marriage, from the confused husband’s point of view.

Lisa Taddeo’s Three Women is an examination of the sex-and-love lives of three women over eight years, by a writer from the New Yorker. You’ll recognize yourself in one of the three, probably. Then there’s Lucy Ellmann’s Ducks, Newburyport, which I haven’t yet opened, because it’s apparently only eight sentences, yet 1000 pages long. Who’d have thought anyone would be up for that, in the age of two-screening and 140-character Tweets? But readers adore it, and there’s plenty of long days ahead. Dive in. That’s what books are for.

Caroline Overington’s new book, Missing William Tyrrell, will be available from February 24, 2020

One if our Favourite reads for the year has been the thrilling The Andromeda Evolution, our December Book Of The Month. You can get this cracking read for 30 per cent off by using the code BCBT19 at Booktopia. And remember to let us know what else you are reading these summer holidays by joining the chat at the Sunday Book Club Facebook group.

Originally published as 10 bestsellers of the decade: Sex and money lead the book list