TORONTO - It was the decade of Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code," J.K. Rowling's walloping wizard series "Harry Potter," and Stephenie Meyer's smash vampire saga "Twilight."
Other bestsellers included the shipwreck story "Life of Pi" by Montreal's Yann Martel, which won the Man Booker Prize; Alice Sebold's haunting teenage tale "The Lovely Bones"; and the post-apocalyptic, Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy.
The Canadian Press surveyed homegrown authors on which books made an impression on them in the first decade of the 21st century.
Writer-broadcaster Erika Ritter named 2000's hit corporation critique "No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies" by Toronto-based journalist and activist Naomi Klein.
"It seems to me that a lot of important seeds were planted by 'No Logo,' not just in Canada but abroad," said Toronto-based Ritter, a recent finalist for the Writers' Trust non-fiction prize for "The Dog by the Cradle, The Serpent Beneath: Some Paradoxes of Human-Animal Relationships."
"The fact that a relatively young (30 at the time of the book's publication) Canadian woman took such square aim on issues of capitalism, globalization, the flight of jobs, brand-name tyranny and much more in a way that put those issues on the agenda of the 21st century, right at the dawn of that century, is, to me, convincing evidence of how influential this book was and continues to be."
Klein herself was struck by Burlington, Ont.-based author Lawrence Hill's 2007 historical novel "The Book of Negroes," which won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize.
"Hill's masterpiece encompasses the sweep of the transatlantic slave trade, from capture through emancipation to resettlement on two continents," said Klein, who recently re-released "No Logo" with an updated introduction.
"While never once feeling like a history lesson, Hill goes after not just the cruel traders and owners but also some of the supposed liberators, forcing us to re-examine cherished Canadian myths."
The year before Hill's book came out, "The Road" by U.S.-based McCarthy stunned legions of readers, including mystery novelist and screenwriter Giles Blunt of North Bay, Ont.
With its "spare, almost surgical style" of writing, the 2006 novel -- which is now a major motion picture -- has hit Blunt harder than any other book he's read in the past 10 years, he said.
"It's one of the few novels ever written that I would describe as truly visionary," said Blunt, who released his latest book, "Breaking Lorca," earlier this year.
For Lori Lansens -- a Chatham, Ont., native known for her acclaimed conjoined-twin tale "The Girls" -- it was the 2002 Canada/U.S. western "Last Crossing" by Saskatoon's Guy Vanderhaeghe that haunted.
The story, about the search for a lost man in the late 1800s, is one Lansens will "never forget."
"The descriptions of the landscape, the wildlife and the uncertain and cruel weather are breathtaking," said Lansens, who now lives in California and recently released "The Wife's Tale."
"The characters are deftly drawn and the story both horrific, funny and moving."
Released in 2004, Michael Winter's historical novel "The Big Why" -- inspired by New York artist Rockwell Kent's time in Newfoundland in the early 20th century -- is "brilliant," said author Michael Crummey.
Crummey called it his "favourite reading experience of the new century."
"Vividly evocative, subtly plotted, bawdy, compulsively readable, 'The Big Why' asks big questions about love and art and sex and belonging without lecturing or condescending," said Crummey, whose novel "Galore" was recently nominated for the Governor General's Literary Award.
Toronto novelist John Bemrose, who released "The Last Woman" in September, chose 2001's "Selected Essays" by English-born art critic John Berger.
The vast collection of Berger's explorations of some of the world's finest painters and sculptors has been "a necessary book" for Bemrose, he said.
"It sits within reach of my reading chair, and in certain moods I take it down in the spirit of visiting a close friend -- one who challenges you to think more clearly," added Bemrose, whose first novel, "The Island Walkers," was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and a long-list nominee for the Man Booker Prize.
The 2008 release "Good to a Fault" by Edmonton-based Marina Endicott -- which was in the running for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and the Scotiabank Giller Prize -- touched Winnipeg's Miriam Toews.
"It's fabulous and well-written and she's amazing and everybody should be reading her. That's it," said Toews, who won the Governor General's Award for Fiction for "A Complicated Kindness" and the Writers' Trust fiction prize for "The Flying Troutmans."
Annabel Lyon of New Westminster, B.C., made a huge impact at the end of the decade with her debut novel "The Golden Mean," which nabbed the 2009 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and was shortlisted for the Governor General's Award and the Giller.
The ancient Greek Aristotle tale was the only novel to be shortlisted for all three awards, and Toronto doctor Vincent Lam -- who won the Giller for "Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures" -- said it was one of his favourites of the 2000s.
"I think that people would be remiss if they didn't read Annabel Lyon's recent novel," said Lam, who also picked Joseph Boyden's 2005 hit "Three Day Road," calling it "incredible."
Lyon, meanwhile, loved 2008's "The Man Game," the debut offering from Lee Henderson that focuses on 19th-century Vancouver and was shortlisted for the Writers' Trust fiction prize.
"It's a book that is so many things all at once: It's a historical novel except that it's not because it sort of distorts what a historical novel should be," said Lyon.
"It's intelligent, it's funny it's incredibly beautifully written and it really made me think in a different way about Vancouver, about the place where I come from, and I think that's what has stayed with me for so long."
With files from Canadian Press reporters Andrea Baillie and Cassandra Szklarski.
