Best book of the decade?

I got a little tired of seeing that claim on the back of Twilight, so I thought I would ask all of you what you thought was the best book published in this decade. I realize I'm a few months late, but better late than never.

My favorite book of this decade was The Children of Hurin by J.R.R Tolkien. Written in 1910, it was published in April 2007.
It was highly acclaimed with critics likening it to a Greek Tragedy. I loved the depressing tone to it. Tragedies are some of the best novels.

I'll have to go with "The Elegance of the Hedgehog". It is fun to read, it draws the reader in, and yet it is intellectually very challenging. I love every bit of it.

For me it's "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy. McCarthy is a contemporary writer, but I very much believe his works will be considered "classic literature" a hundred years from now.

"The Road" is actually good, but it was so bleak. You share a lot with my brother, Paul, in your love for bleak tragedies. (I like'm too, but not ALL that much) You'll probably get along famously.

{in an alternate universe}

Paul: And then, after realizing {insert terrifying, plot changing, clause that ruins the characters' lives}, he throws himself off a cliff...
Nolo: Awesome! And they all died ...
Both: horribly ever after!
{they both go on discussing books where everyone dies in various exotic ways}

Sorry, guys, I mean no disrespect. Just couldn't pass it up.

Lillian wrote:

{in an alternate universe}

Paul: And then, after realizing {insert terrifying, plot changing, clause that ruins the characters' lives}, he throws himself off a cliff...
Nolo: Awesome! And they all died ...
Both: horribly ever after!
{they both go on discussing books where everyone dies in various exotic ways}

Sorry, guys, I mean no disrespect. Just couldn't pass it up.

Yeah, sure, uh huh!

Actually, you're probably right.

You're right, "The Road" was very bleak. So are most of McCarthy's other works. I think what got to me the most with "The Road" was the fact that I am a father. The father in this book struggling to keep himself and his son alive, all the while saving one bullet in his gun to give his son a quick death if worse came to worse, had a profound effect on me. I could not help but wonder what I would do in the same situation. If I didn't have children it wouldn't have bothered me nearly as much. That emotional catharsis, plus McCarthy's singular writing style, is what caused me to consider this book a future classic.

It is undoubtedly a future classic. I always think books that tackle morals and hard situations where the reader is forced to draw conclusions and look inside themselves for answers - those books are going to be remembered.

I would have to vote for Heather O'Neil's "Lullabies for Little Criminals." It is also very bleak, but captivating. A beautifully written, highly literary text about lower class children and adolescents moving through social services and foster care in Montreal that has been loved by literary and popular readers alike (which is, I think, part of its merit). I read a lot (all the time, and usually multiple books at once), and this is the book that I always remember as both beautiful and sad, literary, challenging, and also engaging in a way that any reader will enjoy when someone asks a question such as this.