But if it looks like a glaring omission ten years from now, it almost by definition is the defining book of that decade, not the last one.

It would not even surprise me if Yang, if asked, would name some work that came before his book to be more deserving of distinction. Because while he is a very effective promoter of UBI and why it's needed, it isn't exactly his idea.

Obviously that sort of bias is not unique to The Guardian, but I'd prefer a list that genuinely sheds light on the times we are in.

Every article from the Guardian, the NYT, or really any other large publisher gets this comment, and it's often voted to the top.

It adds nothing. Everyone knows half of the population doesn't trust any newspaper to get the date on the front page right.

So the Guardian thinks #metoo and the financial crisis were among the topics of salience on the last year? I would actually bet both Bernie Sanders and Rupert Murdoch would agree the financial crisis mattered. And even Harvey Weinstein would agree #metoo had some sort of impact.

Because we might no longer have a shared truth, but there's still quite a lot of agreement on what to disagree about,

There is no "bias-free" book that shaped the decade. Unless you go by print run, and it's the leaflet that comes with every new iPhone. Or go by sales figures, in which case it's 50 Shades of Gray. Which is obviously wrong, but kind of fitting. After all, this seems to be the decade were anything but black and white disappeared.

I don't think there's another UK paper without a sugar daddy, and suffering in reporting as a consequence.

That's not the same as not having a position -- everyone has a position. It's just made rather more overt than the hidden whims of an owner. I would love for a UK paper of the right, or The Times, once a great independent and mostly apolitical source, to be funded on a similar basis. Our media would be much the better for it.

"legalistic wrangling of irreality"

I can decode no meaning from this.

Bias is an unfair or dishonest prejudice, or attempt to distort one way or another. That someone happens not to be agreeing with me, or you, is not bias. Out of interest, among the UK sources, who do you consider unbiased?

The FT has a financial worldview whilst aiming to be free of bias. The Guardian has a left of centre liberal worldview. The Telegraph used to have an honest worldview of the Conservative right. The Times used to be an independent source, with a small c conservative worldview of the establishment, rather than party or left / right. In 1980 I would probably view all of these as unbiased honest reportage, outside opinion columns, whilst they all had a very clear and obvious perspective on the world.

The Guardian pretty much represents what they did 40 years ago. The Telegraph transformed themselves to something unrecognisable 15 years ago when the Barclay brothers bought them and they went from honest right of centre paper to Sunday Sport with multi syllable words, almost overnight. The fall of The Times under Murdoch has been as dramatic, just a little slower.

p.s. Saying they "are free from the usual bias of the major newspapers" is not claiming them perfect, "free of bias" or immune to poor reporting. I know of no source that manages that perfectly.

I'm done here.

It is impossible for anything written in an article to be bias in the sense of the word clearly intended. What you are labelling bias could possibly be the outcome of bias. It could be evidence of bias. But since you bring no new argument, your logic is just circular: "this is biased because it's from the Guardian. And the Guardian is clearly biased, becaue they wrote this."

That's why reminders of its very skewed perspective are needed.

The effects of the financial crisis (austerity) or the complete lack of accountability in the UK don't seem to be represented in the list as I pointed out - despite being of profound importance, instead The Big Short (excellent, but describing the venality of the previous decade) is.

Apart from that, I acknowledged the difficulty in finding a bias free source, but I don't think there are as many places in the supposedly "serious" press that the tone leaps out so regularly.

As for Gone Girl itself, I'm struggling to see it's importance.

Granted, this is of importance to the publishing industry and the novel reading public rather than, say, the economy or politics.

For the record I haven't read either nor seen their movies, but I see the influence of Gone Girl around way more than I see 50 Shades.

There's winter and summer, so every decade sees five and your top-10 is half full. Personally, I think the Soccer World is at least as important, and that, considering their singular relevance for the fate of the world, some tournaments surely see two books written about them, the list is full. So maybe that "book" about some regional independence in a has-been empire, which isn't even independent, just didn't make the cut.

By the way: half a million people died in Syria this decade.

Agreed football is generally more important there and if a home team ever win the world cup again, it will be of decade defining importance.

I'd agree Syria/ISIS etc is appalling and is notable by it's omission from The Guardian list, there have been plenty of books written about it, event/issue or no.

As for your jab at the UK's irrelevance now, that's a significant factor in the discussion about its identity, which you would think a British publication would have acknowledged.

Austerity is a policy choice, so any exploration will be deeply and inherently political. Economically, there have been wider views of the current cargo cults in economics, such as Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century, or Keen's Debunking Economics. I'm a little surprised to see mention of neither.

better, but different.