The fantasy genre’s strong showing amongst Amazon’s book and author’s of the decade

The final and penultimate books in JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series were the top-selling books of the last decade, according to list released by Amazon. Stephenie Meyer also showed well in the list with three of her vampire romance novels appearing in third, fourth and fifth position.

Rowling was, unsurprisingly, also the best-selling author of the decade, with Stephenie Meyer, Julia Donaldson, Terry Pratchett and Enid Blyton showing the fantasy genre to be as popular as ever.

Enid Blyton, whose books are supposed to have fallen out of fashion, was possibly the biggest surprise in a list of which eight of the ten books were written by women. Blyton’s charming tales, including the Famous Five and Noddy series, remain as popular as ever, bought by parents and grandparents who remember the books fondly from their own childhoods.

The only male to make an appearance is the Afghan-born novelist Khaled Hosseini, whose books The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns.

Top 10 best-selling books of the decade:

  1. Harry Potter and the Deathly HallowsJK Rowling
  2. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – JK Rowling
  3. Breaking Dawn – Stephenie Meyer
  4. Twilight -Stephenie Meyer
  5. Eclipse – Stephenie Meyer
  6. The Tales of Beedle the Bard – JK Rowling
  7. New Moon – Stephenie Meyer
  8. The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
  9. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
  10. A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini

Top 10 best-selling authors of the decade:

  1. JK Rowling
  2. Stephenie Meyer
  3. Julia Donaldson
  4. Terry Pratchett
  5. Jamie Oliver
  6. Dan Brown
  7. Enid Blyton
  8. Bernard Cornwell
  9. Alexander McCall Smith
  10. William Shakespeare

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Posted: December 18th, 2009
Author: Lee
Categories: JK Rowling, Julia Donaldson, Stephenie Meyer, Terry Pratchett

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