As the 2000s turn into the 2010s, we look back at the biggest films, records, books and TV shows of the decade. By Mark Savage Entertainment reporter, BBC News |
  Clockwise from top left: JK Rowling, Dan Brown, Zadie Smith, Jamie Oliver |
You will not be surprised to learn that one author dominated the book industry this decade - but the extent of JK Rowling's success may still take your breath away. The seven Harry Potter novels sold 27.6 million copies over the last 10 years. That is more than double Rowling's nearest rival, Dan Brown. Despite that, Brown snatched the honour for biggest-selling book of the decade from under Rowling's nose. The Da Vinci Code, the rip-roaring, church-bothering thriller, sold a staggering 5.2m copies in the UK, far more than the most popular Potter novel, The Deathly Hallows, on 4.37m.
Both Rowling and Brown exemplified a noughties phenomenon in literature, whereby the boundaries between adult and children's books slowly blurred. It was not uncommon to see adults clasping the latest Harry Potter on the bus into work - but children were equally at home reading Mark Haddon's Whitbread-winning mystery novel The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time.  Life Of Pi was the biggest-selling Booker Prize-winner of the decade |
The era of the "blockbuster" 1,500+ page novel seemed to have come to a sudden halt, with portable fables like The Life Of Pi and the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency the handbag books of the decade. Book shops, meanwhile, cleared shelf space for a new genre - the "misery memoir". The trend was kickstarted by David Pelzer's harrowing tale of abuse at the hands of his mother in A Boy Called It, but faltered somewhat when it emerged that James Frey's account of his time in rehab, A Million Little Pieces, was largely fabricated. Frey was confronted over the inaccuracies in his book by none other than Oprah Winfrey - whose book club had helped him and many other authors to literary stardom in the US. On this side of the pond, TV double act Richard and Judy made a similar impact on the charts with their own reading circle. The success of Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones and Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns are due, at least in part, to endorsements on their show. The book club's curator, Amanda Ross, is planning to launch a new show on Channel 4 in 2010. Discount dilemma Like every strand of the entertainment industry, the book trade was irreversibly affected by the rise of the internet in the 2000s. Google launched an ambitious, if controversial, plan to digitise the world's libraries; while online book stores, with a little help from the supermarkets, spearheaded an era of heavy discounting. Tumbling book prices spelt the end of many independent retailers and, by the end of the decade, big chains like Woolworths and Borders had gone the same way. The internet provided some succour for the publishers, however, with blogs becoming ripe sources of material - from Belle Du Jour's diaries of a call girl to stocking filler fare drawn from sites like PostSecret and Stuff On My Cat.  Katie Price put her name to several chart-topping novels |
Meanwhile, Ben Schott's Miscellany series, which started out as a way of enlivening the author's Christmas cards, became a trivia phenomenon to rival the Guinness Book Of Records. The related, and peculiarly British, appetite for nit-picking also reared its head with Lynne Truss's bad grammar diatribe Eats, Shoots and Leaves. Outside the best-seller lists, authors still managed to illuminate and reflect on the social trends and political upheavals of the decade. Zadie Smith's White Teeth was an incisive, funny examination of multicultural Britain; Naomi Klein defined the anti-globalisation movement with No Logo; and Cormac McCarthy tapped into post-millennial angst in The Road, earning himself a Pulitzer Prize in the process. But perhaps the biggest social phenomenon of the noughties was the rise of celebrity culture, and the world of literature was not immune. Jamie Oliver became the second-highest earner in the book world with his recipe collections, while memoirs from Peter Kay, Paul O'Grady and Jeremy Clarkson all feature in The Bookseller's top 100 books of the decade. Meanwhile Katie Price sold 2.8m books in the noughties. Imagine what would have happened if she'd married Harry Potter instead of Peter Andre? | BEST-SELLERS OF THE DECADE | | | FICTION | NON-FICTION | CHILDREN'S | | 1. | The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown (5.2m) | A Short History Of Nearly Everything Bill Bryson (1.75m) | Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows JK Rowling (4.37m) | | 2. | Angels and Demons Dan Brown (3.17m) | Dr Atkins' New Diet Revolution Robert Atkins (1.66m) | Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix JK Rowling (4.25m) | | 3. | The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time Mark Haddon (2.06m) | The World According To Clarkson Jeremy Clarkson (1.48m) | Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince JK Rowling (4.14m) | | 4. | Deception Point Dan Brown (1.98m) | The Sound Of Laughter Peter Kay (1.29m) | Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire JK Rowling (3.54m) | | 5. | Digital Fortress Dan Brown (1.85m) | The Highway Code - 2001 Edition (1.28m) | Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone JK Rowling (3.42m) | | 6. | The Lovely Bones Alice Sebold (1.60m) | Billy Pamela Stephenson (1.23m) | Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban JK Rowling (2.96m) | | 7. | Atonement Ian McEwan (1.52m) | A Child Called It Dave Pelzer (1.21m) | Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets JK Rowling (2.90m) | | 8. | The Kite Runner Khaled Hosseini (1.51m) | Eats, Shoots and Leaves Lynne Truss (1.18m) | The Very Hungry Caterpillar Eric Carle (1.56m) | | 9. | A Thousand Splendid Suns Khaled Hosseini (1.43m) | You Are What You Eat Gillian McKeith (1.14m) | Northern Lights Phillip Pullman (1.55m) | | 10. | The Time Traveller's Wife Audrey Niffenegger (1.34m) | Stupid White Men Michael Moore (0.97m) | Twilight Stephanie Meyer (1.33m) | Source: The Bookseller / Nielsen Figures in brackets indicate copies sold in the UK |
| LITERARY PRIZES | | | YEAR | BOOKER PRIZE | BOOK OF THE YEAR | | 2009 | Wolf Hall Hilary Mantel | The Suspicions of Mr Whicher Kate Summerscale | | 2008 | White Tiger Aravind Adiga | On Chesil Beach Ian McEwan | | 2007 | The Gathering Anne Enright | The Dangerous Book for Boys Conn and Hal Iggulden | | 2006 | The Inheritance of Loss Kiran Desai | Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince JK Rowling | | 2005 | The Sea John Banville | The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown | | 2004 | The Line Of Beauty Alan Hollinghurst | Eats, Shoots and Leaves Lynne Truss | | 2003 | Vernon God Little DBC Pierre | Stupid White Men Michael Moore | | 2002 | The Life of Pi Yann Martel | Billy Pamela Stephenson | | 2001 | True History of the Kelly Gang Peter Carey | Man and Boy Tony Parsons | | 2000 | The Blind Assassin Margaret Atwood | Managing My Life Alex Ferguson | |
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