Yesterday we showed you the top-selling books of 2019, like we’ve done for 2018, 2017, and 2016. But now that the end of the decade is upon us, we wanted to see which were the bestselling books of the 2010s.
Let’s jump right in. We identified the top-selling titles overall and the top-selling Canadian titles based on print sales volume in Canada from Jan. 4, 2010 to Dec. 1, 2019 (according to BNC SalesData, which tracks print sales in the English-language trade market).
Bestselling books 2010 to 2019
Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James (9780345803481)
Fifty Shades Darker by E. L. James (9780345803498)
Fifty Shades Freed by E. L. James (9780345803504)
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (9780143170099)
Love You Forever by Robert Munsch, illustrated by Sheila McGraw 🇨🇦(9780920668375)
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson (9780062641540)
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (9780439023528)
The Help by Kathryn Stockett (9780425232200)
The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson (9780143170105)
Becoming by Michelle Obama (9781524763138)
You can see all of these titles in this CataList catalogue: Bestselling Titles in Canada 2010 to 2019.
The 2010s are going down in history as the decade of the erotic romance novel. The top three books sold in Canada were the three books in E. L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey series.
Looking at this list might feel a bit like a blast from the past. Well, the past nine years, anyway; most of the top-selling books were published in the first half of the decade (or even earlier in the case of Love You Forever). Only two of the books in the list above were published in the second half of the decade: Mark Manson’s The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck (2016) and Becoming by Michelle Obama (2018).
The top 10 list is also Fiction heavy. Six of the 10 are Fiction titles, plus one Juvenile Fiction title, Love You Forever, and one Young Adult Fiction title, The Hunger Games.
Bestselling Canadian books 2010 to 2019
Love You Forever by Robert Munsch, illustrated by Sheila McGraw 🇨🇦 (9780920668375)
Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda 🇨🇦 (9780061974304)
An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth by Chris Hadfield 🇨🇦 (9780345812704)
The Looneyspoons Collection by Janet Podleski and Greta Podleski 🇨🇦 (9780968063156)
The Oh She Glows Cookbook by Angela Liddon 🇨🇦 (9780143187226)
Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur 🇨🇦 (9781449474256)
The Wealthy Barber Returns by David Chilton 🇨🇦 (9780968394748)
The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur 🇨🇦 (9781501175268)
12 Rules for Life by Jordan B. Peterson 🇨🇦 (9780345816023)
Yum and Yummer by Greta Podleski 🇨🇦 (9781775047001)
You can see all of these titles in this CataList catalogue: Bestselling Canadian Books 2010 to 2019.
What Canadians want from their Canadian-authored books, however, is a very different picture than the overall bestsellers. As it turns out, Canadians want Canadian cookbooks. Three of the top 10 Canadian-authored titles were cookbooks — two by Greta Podleski of Looneyspoons fame.
We also like our Instagram poets: Rupi Kaur has two entries on the top 10 list as well.
Other than cookbooks and poetry, each other genre on the list only appears once: Fiction, Juvenile Fiction, Biography & Autobiography, Business & Economics, and Psychology.
In a surprising reveal, Margaret Atwood didn’t make the top 10 bestselling Canadian authors of the decade.
But like the list of overall bestsellers, the Canadian-authored bestsellers were also mainly from the first half of the decade. Only The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur (2017), 12 Rules for Life by Jordan B. Peterson (2018), and Yum and Yummer by Greta Podleski (2017) were published after 2015.
We can’t wait to see what trends the next decade will bring.
Are you a publisher, retailer, or librarian who wants to see more data like this? Check out SalesData, the sales tracking service for the Canadian English-language trade book market. If you’re already a subscriber, and want to see the top-selling titles for a specific time period or in a certain category (like we did in this post), see how to run a Bestseller Report. If you still have questions, or want SalesData training, contact us!
Highlights from The State of Publishing in Canada 2023.