This week, the New York Times is sharing twenty books a day counting down their top 100 books of the 21st century (NYT gift link). I love these kinds of lists for the conversations they start, so let’s have the conversation!
Here are my questions:
What do you think about the methodology behind this list and big “best-of” lists more broadly? In this instance, the NYT Book Review asked “hundreds of novelists, nonfiction writers, academics, book editors, journalists, critics, publishers, poets, translators, booksellers, librarians and other literary luminaries” to submit their list of 10 best books of the 21st century. How do you feel about these sorts of aggregated lists? Whose book opinions do you care about and whose do you ignore? Are lists of this sort meaningful in your personal reading life?
What would be on your ballot? In your opinion, what are the best books of the 21st century? Please include no more than 10 but it’s fine if you don’t have an even 10! It’s helpful if you put the titles of your books IN ALL CAPS so your fellow readers can easily spot them!
I can’t wait to read your thoughts and I’ll share mine at some point today too!
Here are my thoughts on question one: I LOVE LISTS!! They are so fun and a perfect way to kick off important and joyful and contentious conversations around books. I think this particular methodology is pretty good especially since they are showing us some individual ballots. I am loving learning which authors my taste aligns with! But I’m honestly less interested in authors’ lists than the lists of librarians—show us the librarian lists, NYT!! I would love a list like this with more influence from “regular readers” because I think there is a difference between how writers read and how readers read.
I also think lists are so fun! They sometimes prompt me to prioritize a book I have on my TBR but took forever to get around to or to add something to my TBR if it seems aligned with my taste.
But I disagree about wanting the influence of regular readers. I think the general readership has such a motley assortment of tastes and preferences that the resulting list would end up like a Goodreads best of list, which I generally don’t find compelling and lack a consistent through line or thesis. I’m looking to these lists for excellence of craft, so I like the authors’ takes. I also think authors are way more likely to unearth somewhat lesser-known or forgotten gems for us than an aggregation of the general public’s views.
I'm really enjoying this NYT series and love that they're including nonfiction. Also wild to think we're almost 1/4 of the way into the 21st century. Here is what my list would look like! In no particular order:
1. LIFE AFTER LIFE - Kate Atkinson
2. BEL CANTO - Ann Patchett
3. MIDDLESEX - Jeffrey Eugenides
4. JAMES - Percival Everett
5. DUCKS, NEWBURYPORT - Lucy Ellmann
6. THE YEARS - Annie Ernaux
7. DUCKS: TWO YEARS IN THE OIL SANDS - Kate Beaton (inadvertent duck theme to this list...)
Ok I’ve been thinking about this and I agree! I think this is possibly a problem with methodology and who was asked to submit ballots. Not that everyone wouldn’t benefit from reading more internationally! But I know for me part of what makes a book a best or a favorite is that I feel like I get it contextually. This isn’t always a conscious thing but if I can see the connections to classics or how it’s influenced a genre, the book stands out more. Without knowing who all 500 ballot submissions were, I think I can still say it would have benefited the list (and all of us!) to have more international readers, librarians, academics, writers, etc. submit. This isn’t to say the rest of us shouldn’t work on developing a more robust context, but including ballots from a wider literary community couldn’t have helped so many of us who are on that journey!
Most of my favorite reads are from the 20th century, but then I'm 74 years old. 21st century top books would include (not in any particular order): American Gods by Neil Gaiman; Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles; Mistborn by Brian Sanderson; The Nightengale by Kristin Hannah; Me Before You by Jojo Moyes; The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak; Beach Read by Emily Henry; and All the Light We Cannot See by Anthoney Doerr.
I love a list, I love looking at others' lists, and I love it when authors put their own books on the list! Shout out to Stephen King and Annette Gordon Reed.
ATONEMENT
LOVE SONGS OF WEB DU BOIS
PACHINKO
EMPIRE OF PAIN
THE NICKEL BOYS
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON
HAMNET
PIRANESI
BIRNAM WOOD
WOLF HALL TRILOGY (If I love a list, I also love to cheat the rules of the list)
I don't read broadly enough to make this type of decision...but a few that I think deserve consideration are: Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois by Honore Jeffers, The Incarnations by Susan Barker, Properties of Thirst by Marianne Wiggins
I’ve been loving all the conversation around this list and The Atlantic’s “Great American Novel” list from earlier this year. I actually really like the methodology of simply asking a bunch of folks to submit a ballot, but I agree that I would have liked to see more ballots besides authors— from librarians, teachers, booksellers, even students like college English majors or something.
On one hand it’s cool to see a variety of genres on the list, but I do wish that the NYT had narrowed the focus, and I really loved that the Atlantic list had a clear focus on American novels (what exactly makes a “Great American Novel” was left up for interpretation, but the focus was helpful). I think “best books of the century” is just too broad without other boundaries / specificity, and knowing the audience of the NYT and who they solicited ballots from (all very American-centric), I wish they had just labeled the list “Best American Books of the 21st century” from the get-go.
I love that when I made my selections, I put that boundary on myself, “only American fiction!”, and that when Stacey made her ballot she was like “only translated lit!” 🤣🙌
I definitely don’t read as widely as NYT’s list so mine is skewed towards personal taste but here’s my top ten! (I thought about this last night so thank you for creating this forum to discus!) My list is a balance of enjoyment and what I think is top notch literature
MEN WE REAPED by Jesmyn Ward
GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER by Bernardine Evaristo
ERASURE by Percival Everett
IN THE DREAM HOUSE by Carmen Maria Machado
THE NICKEL BOYS by Colson Whithead
KNOW MY NAME by Chanel Milker
TOMORROW, AND TOMORROW, AND TOMORROW by Gabrielle Zevin
This list is giving me complicated feelings. Many of the titles on it seem very Literature Class-y, in that they might be assigned in a literature class and possibly can only be fully appreciated, or possibly appreciated at all, with the help of a professional scholar. It's not a bad thing for a book to have layers. But it's also not a bad thing for a book to be able to speak strongly to a broader group of people - maybe just a different kind of greatness?
My mental list of "best books" seems to be dominated by works of the 1990s, because I am old. But it is hard for me to anoint, say, Middlesex, when to me it will always be a pale shadow of the adolescence-defining The Virgin Suicides.
Boy, this was so hard! I got to 15ish pretty easily, though I notice a big bias against books I’ve read in the last 5 years. I think nostalgia for books that made me feel such big things really weighs heavily. I can’t be confident that anything I’ve read more recently will make me have strong feelings 5 years later. Then with those 15 I struggled with Best versus Favorite. I can’t remember how technically good or innovative or beautiful or important (all attributes of Best) some of the books that struck just the right chord with me were. I think I pretty randomly ditched some Favorites and probably not Best and ditched some Best because some Favorites were too dear. Also, to some degree this is a list that shouts to other readers, “here is the kind of reader I am”, so I want to be sure I am communicating that in the way I want. So important. Here are mine:
I'M NOT SCARED by Niccolò Ammaniti
WINTER'S BONE by Daniel Woodrell
SHARKS IN THE TIME OF SAVIORS by Kawai Strong Washburn
I love these lists!!! So fascinating and enjoying reading everyone else's selections. Amazing to see Jesmyn Ward has featured 3 times! I had 11 and really struggled to whittle it down to 10 but today:
1. GIRL WOMAN OTHER
2. HOMEGOING
3. PIRANESI
4. LOVE AFTER LOVE
5. A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD
6. TIN MAN
7. A LITTLE LIFE
8. HOME FIRE
9. SEA OF TRANQUILLITY
10. SORROW AND BLISS
With an honourable mention to Lanny by Max Porter.
I've found another top 100 list by a UK publication but 5 years old - a lot of overlap, however I could only see a handful of books published post-2020 on the NYTimes list which is interesting in itself (are there fewer 'best' books being published today?! Or are people nostalgic for books they read a while ago?).
Here are my thoughts on question one: I LOVE LISTS!! They are so fun and a perfect way to kick off important and joyful and contentious conversations around books. I think this particular methodology is pretty good especially since they are showing us some individual ballots. I am loving learning which authors my taste aligns with! But I’m honestly less interested in authors’ lists than the lists of librarians—show us the librarian lists, NYT!! I would love a list like this with more influence from “regular readers” because I think there is a difference between how writers read and how readers read.
I also think lists are so fun! They sometimes prompt me to prioritize a book I have on my TBR but took forever to get around to or to add something to my TBR if it seems aligned with my taste.
But I disagree about wanting the influence of regular readers. I think the general readership has such a motley assortment of tastes and preferences that the resulting list would end up like a Goodreads best of list, which I generally don’t find compelling and lack a consistent through line or thesis. I’m looking to these lists for excellence of craft, so I like the authors’ takes. I also think authors are way more likely to unearth somewhat lesser-known or forgotten gems for us than an aggregation of the general public’s views.
Difficult choices! In no particular order:
JAMES
AMERICANAH
BRAIDING SWEETGRASS
CIRCE
EDUCATED
THE LIBRARY BOOK
PACHINKO
HOMEGOING
HALF THE SKY
DEMON COPPERHEAD
I would have loved to include THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS, but it was published in 1999.
Love this!!
1. BETWEEN TWO KINGDOMS
2. DEMON COPPERHEAD
3. HOMEGOING
4. STATION ELEVEN
5. EVERYTHING SAD IS UNTRUE
6. AMERICANAH
7. A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW
8. THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY
9. CLOUD CUCKOO LAND
10. AS KINGFISHERS CATCH FIRE
Love these lists!! This was difficult!
Great list!!!!!
I love Between Two Kingdoms too! That’s the book that was the catalyst in getting me to write my own memoir—in queue @ the publisher’s :)
Homegoing!
I'm really enjoying this NYT series and love that they're including nonfiction. Also wild to think we're almost 1/4 of the way into the 21st century. Here is what my list would look like! In no particular order:
1. LIFE AFTER LIFE - Kate Atkinson
2. BEL CANTO - Ann Patchett
3. MIDDLESEX - Jeffrey Eugenides
4. JAMES - Percival Everett
5. DUCKS, NEWBURYPORT - Lucy Ellmann
6. THE YEARS - Annie Ernaux
7. DUCKS: TWO YEARS IN THE OIL SANDS - Kate Beaton (inadvertent duck theme to this list...)
8. KNOW MY NAME - Chanel Miller
9. SECONDHAND TIME - Svetlana Alexievich
10. BROOKLYN - Colm Toibin
It hurt my heart to cute LIFE AFTER LIFE from my list. If I made it tomorrow it would be on there 😂
hahah fair!
Honestly, it kind of makes me sad how few books in translation are being mentioned in this conversation (not here specifically, but in general.)
And I’m not faulting anyone - I don’t think I could fill a list work with translated titles either, but I still am disappointed.
Ok I’ve been thinking about this and I agree! I think this is possibly a problem with methodology and who was asked to submit ballots. Not that everyone wouldn’t benefit from reading more internationally! But I know for me part of what makes a book a best or a favorite is that I feel like I get it contextually. This isn’t always a conscious thing but if I can see the connections to classics or how it’s influenced a genre, the book stands out more. Without knowing who all 500 ballot submissions were, I think I can still say it would have benefited the list (and all of us!) to have more international readers, librarians, academics, writers, etc. submit. This isn’t to say the rest of us shouldn’t work on developing a more robust context, but including ballots from a wider literary community couldn’t have helped so many of us who are on that journey!
This is kind of what the Dublin Literary Prize is - books are nominated by libraries all over the world.
I’ll have to check that out!
Actually, it’s not just books in translation I’d like to see more of, but also books written in English not from the US, U.K., Ireland, Canada, etc.
I agree. The list to this point doesn't yet have one?
There are a few on the NYT’s list so far. It’s more the lists that everyone is creating on Bookstagram and elsewhere.
Elena Ferrante’s book THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD is translated from Italian
Most of my favorite reads are from the 20th century, but then I'm 74 years old. 21st century top books would include (not in any particular order): American Gods by Neil Gaiman; Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles; Mistborn by Brian Sanderson; The Nightengale by Kristin Hannah; Me Before You by Jojo Moyes; The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak; Beach Read by Emily Henry; and All the Light We Cannot See by Anthoney Doerr.
Ohhh I love some of these! AMERICAN GODS is a great pick!
I’ve only read two of the first 40 they listed! I’m still catching up on the 20th, 19th, and 18th century 😉
Haha right?! How will we ever catch up?!
This was so hard! As of this is moment, here is my list (in no particular order):
1. EDUCATED by Tara Westover
2. THE COLD MILLIONS by Jess Walter
3. PACHINKO by Min Jin Lee
4. CIRCE by Madeline Miller
5. THE DAYS OF ABANDONMENT by Elena Ferrante
6. AMERICANAH by Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie
7. CHAIN-GANG ALL STARS by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
8. AN AMERICAN MARRIAGE by Tayari Jones
9. THE VANISHING HALF by Brit Bennett
10. HARDY POTTER AND THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE by JK Rowling
I love a list, I love looking at others' lists, and I love it when authors put their own books on the list! Shout out to Stephen King and Annette Gordon Reed.
ATONEMENT
LOVE SONGS OF WEB DU BOIS
PACHINKO
EMPIRE OF PAIN
THE NICKEL BOYS
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON
HAMNET
PIRANESI
BIRNAM WOOD
WOLF HALL TRILOGY (If I love a list, I also love to cheat the rules of the list)
Interesting; I hate it when an author includes his own work on a "best of" list.
I don't read broadly enough to make this type of decision...but a few that I think deserve consideration are: Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois by Honore Jeffers, The Incarnations by Susan Barker, Properties of Thirst by Marianne Wiggins
Great inclusions!
I’ve been loving all the conversation around this list and The Atlantic’s “Great American Novel” list from earlier this year. I actually really like the methodology of simply asking a bunch of folks to submit a ballot, but I agree that I would have liked to see more ballots besides authors— from librarians, teachers, booksellers, even students like college English majors or something.
On one hand it’s cool to see a variety of genres on the list, but I do wish that the NYT had narrowed the focus, and I really loved that the Atlantic list had a clear focus on American novels (what exactly makes a “Great American Novel” was left up for interpretation, but the focus was helpful). I think “best books of the century” is just too broad without other boundaries / specificity, and knowing the audience of the NYT and who they solicited ballots from (all very American-centric), I wish they had just labeled the list “Best American Books of the 21st century” from the get-go.
Yes, I think I would find this whole exercise much less frustrating if they had just limited it to American books.
Totally agree!
I love that when I made my selections, I put that boundary on myself, “only American fiction!”, and that when Stacey made her ballot she was like “only translated lit!” 🤣🙌
Sensible boundaries are a good thing!!!
1. EAST OF EDEN by John Steinbeck
2. SECRET HISTORY by Donna Tartt
3. Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
And I will be back to add to my initial list!
Love these three but I think only GOLDFINCH qualifies for this particular list! It’s all books published after 2000!
Whoops, my bad! I was just naming my favorite books ever lol
I love learning those!
Agree. Too bad. Secret History is an all time favorite.
Really made me think...no particular order
1. HOMEGOING-Yaa Gyasi
2. SALVAGE THE BONES- Jesmyn Ward
3. THE GREAT BELIEVERS-Rebecca Makai
4. THE PATIENCE STONE-Atiq Rahini *
5. THE BREAK-Kathryn Vermette
6. CELESTIAL BODIES-Jokha Alharthi *
7. NEVERLET ME GO-Kazu Ishiguro
8. THE WARMTH OF OTHER SUNS-Isabel Wilkerson
9. FAR FROM THE TREE-Andrew Solomon
10. THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS-Rebecca Skloot
* in translation
I definitely don’t read as widely as NYT’s list so mine is skewed towards personal taste but here’s my top ten! (I thought about this last night so thank you for creating this forum to discus!) My list is a balance of enjoyment and what I think is top notch literature
MEN WE REAPED by Jesmyn Ward
GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER by Bernardine Evaristo
ERASURE by Percival Everett
IN THE DREAM HOUSE by Carmen Maria Machado
THE NICKEL BOYS by Colson Whithead
KNOW MY NAME by Chanel Milker
TOMORROW, AND TOMORROW, AND TOMORROW by Gabrielle Zevin
A CHILDREN’S BIBLE by Lydia Millet
THE MOTHERS by Britt Bennett
GONE GIRL by Gillian Flynn
I can't remember a ton of older books but here's a start of my list....
1. Erasure
2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (yes she's horrible but this was a such a part of the culture in the early aughts)
3. How the Word is Passed
4. The Hate U Give
5. Percy Jackson series(s) (They get kids reading)
6. Empire of Pain
7. Red, White and Royal Blue (not because it's perfect but it's the first gay romance I remember really making a splash in main-stream media)
This list is giving me complicated feelings. Many of the titles on it seem very Literature Class-y, in that they might be assigned in a literature class and possibly can only be fully appreciated, or possibly appreciated at all, with the help of a professional scholar. It's not a bad thing for a book to have layers. But it's also not a bad thing for a book to be able to speak strongly to a broader group of people - maybe just a different kind of greatness?
My mental list of "best books" seems to be dominated by works of the 1990s, because I am old. But it is hard for me to anoint, say, Middlesex, when to me it will always be a pale shadow of the adolescence-defining The Virgin Suicides.
This was so stressful - there are a few repeats on others' ballots that are still on my TBR that might have been included but here we are as of today!
STATION ELEVEN
NORTH WOODS
NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT THIS
CLOUD ATLAS
JONATHAN STRANGE & MR NORRELL
THE BEE STING
A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD
OUR SHARE OF NIGHT
SALVAGE THE BONES
GONE GIRL
Boy, this was so hard! I got to 15ish pretty easily, though I notice a big bias against books I’ve read in the last 5 years. I think nostalgia for books that made me feel such big things really weighs heavily. I can’t be confident that anything I’ve read more recently will make me have strong feelings 5 years later. Then with those 15 I struggled with Best versus Favorite. I can’t remember how technically good or innovative or beautiful or important (all attributes of Best) some of the books that struck just the right chord with me were. I think I pretty randomly ditched some Favorites and probably not Best and ditched some Best because some Favorites were too dear. Also, to some degree this is a list that shouts to other readers, “here is the kind of reader I am”, so I want to be sure I am communicating that in the way I want. So important. Here are mine:
I'M NOT SCARED by Niccolò Ammaniti
WINTER'S BONE by Daniel Woodrell
SHARKS IN THE TIME OF SAVIORS by Kawai Strong Washburn
THE PATIENCE STONE by Atiq Rahimi
A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD by Jennifer Egan
THE BONE CLOCKS by David Mitchell
EXIT WEST by Mohsin Hamid
THERE THERE by Tommy Orange
A PRAYER FOR TRAVELERS by Ruchika Tomar
ERASURE by Percival Everett
Lots of overlap with these other great comments but adding in…
NEVER LET ME GO
LIFE OF PI (2001)
(Already said but my top 3)
CIRCE
CLOUD CUCKOO LAND
DEMON COPPERHEAD
The “Best of “lists are helpful to me in narrowing the best of the best, but I rely on book recs from my friends more.
i've personally had a lot of fun seeing the additions to the list each day this week! here are my picks:
HAMNET by maggie o'farrell
CALL ME BY YOUR NAME by andre aciman
COMMONWEALTH by ann patchett
THE SHADOW OF THE WIND by carlos ruiz zafon
PIRANESI by susanna clarke
PROJECT HAIL MARY by andy weir
MONSTRILIO by gerardo samano cordova
EDUCATED by tara westover
NORMAL PEOPLE by sally rooney
NEVER LET ME GO by kazuo ishiguro
I love these lists!!! So fascinating and enjoying reading everyone else's selections. Amazing to see Jesmyn Ward has featured 3 times! I had 11 and really struggled to whittle it down to 10 but today:
1. GIRL WOMAN OTHER
2. HOMEGOING
3. PIRANESI
4. LOVE AFTER LOVE
5. A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD
6. TIN MAN
7. A LITTLE LIFE
8. HOME FIRE
9. SEA OF TRANQUILLITY
10. SORROW AND BLISS
With an honourable mention to Lanny by Max Porter.
I've found another top 100 list by a UK publication but 5 years old - a lot of overlap, however I could only see a handful of books published post-2020 on the NYTimes list which is interesting in itself (are there fewer 'best' books being published today?! Or are people nostalgic for books they read a while ago?).
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/sep/21/best-books-of-the-21st-century
Rarely named as a favorite. The Weight of Ink. Rachel Kadish. So. So. Good b
And oops! It is Katherena Vermette.
This is an impossible task and would be different tomorrow:
AUSTERLITZ - W G Sebald
TRAIN DREAMS - Denis Johnson
THE SENSE OF AN ENDING - Julian Barnes
ATONEMENT - Ian McEwan
WASHINGTON BLACK - Esi Edugyan
SALVAGE THE BONES - Jesmyn Ward
THE ROUND HOUSE - Louise Erdrich
SEVEN BRIEF LESSONS ON PHYSICS - Carlo Rovelli
ERASURE - Percival Everett
THE SAVAGE DETECTIVES - Roberto Bolano
A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD - Jennifer Egan
Off the top of my head-- 1984, ANIMAL FARM, THE SECRET HISTORY, THE ROAD and DEMON COPPERHEAD would be on my list. I know I'm forgetting many though!
Great list but this particular one is all books published in 2000 or later! It’s a nice limiting factor!
Oh man, I'm obviously not a morning person 😜 So only my last two stand! This is super tricky...
I know!! It’s hard!