The previous decade has almost been talked to death, but before mercifully letting it go, I want to reflect on the positive side of the past 10 years in the city's literary life.

I realized that by the time I included the negative aspects of that era in my New Year's Day assessment, I'd run out of room for the numerous pluses around the Golden Triangle. (Does anybody call it that anymore?)

The region did lose several independent bookstores, but keeping with the decade's trend, it gained a handful of chain outlets, mostly at suburban malls. Barnes & Noble and Borders opened shiny new stores while the smaller Joseph-Beth company installed an attractive shop on East Carson Street in the busy SouthSide Works development.

Headquartered in Ohio, Joseph-Beth's Pittsburgh store regularly sponsors author visits, promotes local books, stocks an impressive array of literary reviews and journals, and educates its staff.

Down the Ohio River in Sewickley, the remodeled Penguin Books is a comfortable well-stocked place that feels like an old-fashioned bookshop.

Up the Allegheny, Mary Alice Gorman and Richard Goldman resolved to make their Mystery Lovers Bookshop an Oakmont destination after withdrawing plans to sell it. The decision paid off when the partners won the Raven Prize last year from the Mystery Writers of America for their dedication to the genre.

Another river town is the site of the independent Aspinwall Bookshop. John Towle, who had worked at Jay's Bookstall and the Bookworks, both closed, opened the pleasant store in 2000 on First Avenue. He knows the territory well.

The decade was a productive one for regional writers, particularly in fiction, and one of them scored a spot on Oprah Winfrey's TV book club.

Indiana, Pa.'s Tawni O'Dell hit the jackpot in 2000 when her first novel, "Back Roads," was featured on the superstar's program, boosting O'Dell's coal-country drama into an international best seller.

Success did not spoil the mother of two, now living in State College. Her fourth novel, "Fragile Beasts," will hit bookstores in March.

In Cambria County, neighbor to Indiana, Jennifer Haigh grew up in similar surroundings of farms and coal towns. Now with a trio of novels -- "Mrs. Kimble," "Baker Towers" and "The Condition" -- she's a well-established fiction writer. Haigh won the PEN/Hemingway Prize for "Mrs. Kimble."

Keith Donohue, Duquesne University grad, received high praise for his second novel, "Angels of Destruction," published last year. His first, "The Stolen Child" (2006), drew similar reactions from reviewers.

A resident of the Washington, D.C., area, Donohue draws on the supernatural world to inspire his prose.

Pittsburgh practitioners of crime fiction surfaced in the previous era:

Kathleen George, drama professor at the University of Pittsburgh, wrote her first puzzler, "Taken," in 2001 and followed up with "Fallen" (2004) and "The Odds" (2009).

Broadway and World War II are the elements of Kathryn Miller Haines, associate director of the Center for American Music at Pitt's Stephen Foster Memorial. The third in Haines' mystery series about performer Rosie Winter, "Winter in June," was published last year.

Heather Terrell, a Sewickley attorney, reaches three novels in March with "Brigid of Kildare," joining "The Map Thief" and "The Chrysalis."

The uncontested champ of Pittsburgh mystery writers, though is Nancy Martin, winner of the 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award from Romance magazine. Writer of nearly 50 titles, she launches a new series with sexy sleuth Roxy Abruzzo in "Our Lady of Immaculate Deception" in March.

Also publishing fiction in the past decade were Pittsburgh residents Sherrie Flick, Lila Shaara, Maggie Loeffler, CJ Lyons, Jane McCafferty, Chuck Kinder, Hilary Masters, Jim Daniels, Randall Silvis and Samuel Hazo.

Poets were not silent during the decade past. Among the contributors to the art were Terrance Hayes, Jan Beatty, Michael Sims, Nancy Krygowski, Judith Vollmer, Ed Ochester, Daniels and Hazo.

The Gist Street Reading Series debuted in 2001, launched by fiction writer Flick and poet Krygowski.

Presenting a poet and prose writer the first Friday of the month in a sculptor's studio, the series has grown in popularity every year. The space was packed Jan. 8 despite snow and cold.

Several reading programs came and went during the decade, held in a variety of venues including a carpenter's shop.

The healthiest, at this point, seems to be the New Yinzer series sponsored by the online literary review and held in Garfield.

The Drue Heinz Lectures acquired the program, American Shorts, started independently by Suzanne Pace and Jeffrey Carpenter.

Originally intended to offer readings from short stories by local "personalities," the series has widened its scope to include the national performance group The Moth, a sell-out last season.

"Bob Hoover's Book Club" is available exclusively at PG+, a members-only web site of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.