Thanks to the thousands of you who answered our call to vote for the best novel of the decade. The race was closer than we could have imagined – office pundits couldn't confidently predict the winner until just a few hours before the polling stations closed. The top vote-getter managed only 38 more votes than the runner-up!

The winner is
The English Patient
by Michael Ondaatje
 
The runner-up
The Shipping News
by E. Annie Proulx
 
And finishing a close third
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
by Rebecca Wells

 
Rounding out the Top Ten

4. Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
5. Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison
6. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
7. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
8. The Alienist by Caleb Carr
9. A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines
10. All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy

And fifteen more candidates worthy of mention . . .

11-15
Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman
Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg
Underworld by Don DeLillo
Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh
A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley

16-20
Stones from the River by Ursula Hegi
Leviathan by Paul Auster
Corelli's Mandolin by Louis De Bernieres
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle

21-25
Who Will Run the Frog Hospital by Lorrie Moore
Mallory's Oracle by Carol O'Connell
The Giant's House by Elizabeth McCracken
Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson
Enduring Love by Ian McEwan

 

Come back this time next decade for
Powell's Books Best Novels of the '00s!

Powell's Books:
Keeping Ideas in Circulation

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