This isn't a list of the best books of the decade — I've already made it clear how I feel about those. It's just a selection of especially awesome books by women, all published in the '00s.

At their New Yorker Festival reading on Friday, Junot Diaz and recent MacArthur Genius Grant winner Edwidge Danticat talked about writing with kids, being marginalized as a "nerd of color," and why it's so hard to change the world.