Deathly Hallows named top book of past decade

As we move toward 2010, The Telegraph is taking a look back at the top 100 books of the past decade. Coming in at No. 1 is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The entry reads:

If you don’t know what a Muggle is by now, you’re either Rip van Winkle or enormously stubborn. This is the seventh and final instalment in Rowling’s record-breaking series about Harry Potter, the world’s most famous lightning-scarred boy wizard and his tribulations with Lord Voldemort. We’ve seen Harry grow from a spindly, messy-haired 11-year-old into a heroic young adult. Children have grown up with him, finding in his battles metaphors for their own. This volume alone sold 15 million copies in the first 24 hours after it was published. Whether wickedly skewering suburbia, or bringing Harry, Ron and Hermione into mortal danger, Rowling is never less than absorbing. Some may sneer at her books, but they are triumphant sagas about the defeat of evil that tap into our basic hunger for stories. Most importantly, she makes reading a 700-page book seem easy. This one even has a quotation from Aeschylus as its epigraph. It stands as a cornerstone of the decade, a melding of high and low culture that appeals to all ages and nations.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone came in at No. 41 on the top 100 films of the past decade list. Do you think Deathly Hallows deserves the top spot?

Thanks to Leaky!

Posted by Micah on Nov 24th | 41 Comments