Friday Mood Recs: My favorite individual ballots from the NYT best books list
Plus additional commentary on the list that has readers enrapt
I am obsessed with the NYT Book Review’s Best Books of the 21st Century project. In addition to simply loving this kind of list for the conversation it starts, I think that the rollout and the companion pieces have been perfectly executed, generating a type of fervor in my bookish corner of the internet that I haven’t seen in a long time. In addition to the list itself, which has been slowly revealed in batches of 20 over the last five days, there’s also been an article on the major literary moments of the century so far and now an invitation from the Times for readers to submit their own top ten books of the 21st century. As I write this we have yet to see the the top 20 and I’m honestly getting nervous. There’s not enough room for all the books I think should be there!!
[Note: I have used gift links here where possible, but I am quickly running out! If you haven’t yet, be sure to check if your public library membership grants you access to the NYT as many do purchase subscriptions for their patrons.]
But my favorite component of the entire project has been seeing individual ballots. It’s fascinating to me to see what some of my favorite authors (or authors I’ve never even heard of!) think are the best books of the last 25 years. It’s also interesting to consider what might have gone through individuals’ minds as they were creating their ballots as some of them seem to be, at least in part, exercises in self-branding.
These ballots have inspired an awesome Instagram trend of bookstagrammers and readers sharing their own top ten ballots. I shared mine here after seeing my reading pals Traci and J.C. share their own, and I have been furiously adding books to my TBR and tracking down readers with similar taste to mine as more and more people share theirs. (P.S. if you want to create your own, my friends Alicia and Kristin both have templates in their IG story highlights).
Today, I wanted to dig deeper into the celebrity and author ballots that the NYT has shared so far. I’m hoping they release more because I’d love to see the ballots of librarians and other non-author, non-celebrity reads, but I’ve still had a blast digging into what they’ve given us so far. This newsletter will feature my five favorite ballots with commentary on the books selected as well as a few additional notes and noticings.
