I’m a sucker for lists like the NYT’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century (also archived here), though the list may be a bit premature given that the century is barely one-quarter over. The article notes that the list was compiled by “votes from 503 novelists, nonfiction writers, poets, critics, and other book lovers—with a little help from the staff of the New York Times book review.”
From the intro:
Many of us find joy in looking back and taking stock of our reading lives, which is why we here at The New York Times Book Review decided to mark the first 25 years of this century with an ambitious project: to take a first swing at determining the most important, influential books of the era. In collaboration with the Upshot, we sent a survey to hundreds of literary luminaries, asking them to name the 10 best books published since Jan. 1, 2000.
Stephen King took part. So did Bonnie Garmus, Claudia Rankine, James Patterson, Sarah Jessica Parker, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Elin Hilderbrand, Thomas Chatterton Williams, Roxane Gay, Marlon James, Sarah MacLean, Min Jin Lee, Jonathan Lethem and Jenna Bush Hager, to name just a few. And you can also take part! Vote here and let us know what your top 10 books of the century are.
Sarah Jessica Parker? Jenna Bush Hager? Are those literary luminaries? I don’t think so. Well, there were many real luminiaries and real critics, so we’ll let it pass.
Is it a good list? Well, I’ve heard of many of the books, and the 18 I’ve read (see below) have been good ones. But seriously, there’s no mention of All the Light We Cannot See? (2014; it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and is perhaps the best book I’ve read written in this century). Or A Little Life (2015)? Where is Hamnet (2020)? And for medically related nonfiction, I’d add Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup (2018), about Elizabeth Holmes and the Theranos scam, and Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty,(2021), about the Sackler family’s relentless pushing of opioids. And where, oh where is Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2010), a book I enthusiastically reviewed?
I’d also kvetch because there’s only one nonfiction book about science (The Emperor of All Maladies; 2010), though two others are tangentially related to science. This likely reflects the NYT’s general neglect of the wonders of science.
But I’m sure everyone will find lacunae, and if I thought hard I’d find others. But it doesn’t matter: use the list for suggestions of books to investigate. At least you can tick off the books you’ve read and the paper conveniently compiles a list—and a photo—of the ones you’ve read. Here’s my own list:
I’ve read 18 books on the list. . . .
The Warmth of Other Suns ● The Known World ● Austerlitz ● Never Let Me Go ● The Year of Magical Thinking ● The Road ● The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay ● The Overstory ● Atonement ● H Is for Hawk ● A Brief History of Seven Killings ● The Vegetarian ● The Looming Tower ● Demon Copperhead ● The New Jim Crow ● The Passage of Power ● The Emperor of All Maladies ● The Sympathizer
Again, it biggest gap on their list is “All the Light We Cannot See,” a masterpiece of a book.
And it makes a photo you can use for bragging rights, though I don’t have many:
Some of the best books I’ve read have hyst missed this century, including A Gesture Life (1999) and Troubles (1970). As always, recommend books you like written recently, particularly ones not on this list.
My fast-thinking process (D. Kahneman) suggested this quote :
“Be careful, however, lest this reading of many authors and books of every sort may tend to make you discursive and unsteady. You must linger among a limited number of master-thinkers, and digest their works, if you would derive ideas which shall win firm hold in your mind.”
-Seneca (4 BC – 65 AD)
Moral letters to Lucilius (Epistulae morales ad Lucilium), letter no. 2
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_2
… corollary I add is that yes, more reading like this is an unalloyed good – but I think what I’m looking for are through that process are those that get dog-eared and worn by continual reference – the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly 🤠
E.g, in order :
George Orwell
Paulo Friere
Gayle Rubin
God, An Anatomy by Francesca Stavrakopoulou
Here in the UK, Helen Joyce’s Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality made The Times‘s list of the top 25 non-fiction books of the 21st Century. I’m not sure why newspapers are rolling out these lists so prematurely. https://x.com/HJoyceGender/status/2048325421213651000
Hmm, it does seem very US-centric and race-centric, even by US standards.
I’ve read three, Wolf Hall, Bring up the Bodies and Cloud Atlas.
There’s been a load of excellent non-fiction over the last 25 years, off the top of my head:
War in Civilisation – Azar Gat
Why Nations Fail – Acemoglu and Robinson
HIlary Mantel’s trilogy is wonderful!
Oh, book lists, yay! I read 25. I was a little surprised to see several authors with multiple books. Granted, the two of Jesmyn Ward that I read are fantastic. But still. And indeed, few science books
Science (and history and biography; non-fiction) books I’d add (I am sure I am missing some from my reading:
The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes
Hiroshima by MG Sheftall
Trilobite! by Richard Fortey
1491 by Charles C Mann
The Tiger by John Vaillant
The fourth part of the world by Toby Lester
Beethoven : anguish and triumph by Jan Swafford
Catching Fire by Richard Wrangham
The Burgundians by Bart van Loo
Other fiction:
A fraction of the whole by Steve Toltz
The white tiger by Aravind Adiga
I want my hat back by Jon Klassen (an excellent picture book!)
The true history of the Kelley gang by Peter Carey (2000 so it can make the list?)
The book thief by Markus Zusak
Jimmy Corrigan the smartest kid on Earth by Chris Ware. Also 2000.
Joe Speedboat by Tommy Wieringa
I should stop here.
Loved Trilobyte!
I have just finished 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami and didn’t want it to end, even though it was over 1000 pages. I am surprised that there is nothing by him on the list, although I can imagine he might not be to everyone’s taste.
I also recently read Ravelstein by Saul Bellow which I found both irritating and boring; and Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. I am mystified as to what people see in the latter; at one point, I went over a couple of chapters and counted how many times the characters walked down the road to a bar and had a drink – it was a lot! As usual, I suspect this says more about me than it does about Hemingway. As a result, I asked a friend who studied English as Oxford if he would suggest something I could read about literary criticism which might enhance my enjoyment of literature. He came back with a suggestion but also said that he wasn’t sure it would make much difference to how much I enjoyed novels.
I usually like Murakami, but got tired about halfway through 1Q84. I can’t remember if it got too mystical for my taste.??
The amount of drinking that people do in some novels written around the middle of the last century destroys my liver just from just reading about it. I enjoy alcohol, myself, but I literally find it hard to believe that people who weren’t in the terminal stages of alcoholism could drink that much. I find myself mentally emending the number of drinks the characters are described as imbibing in a single day in order to be more compatible with the fact they’re still functioning, since I would otherwise find it too implausible to be believable.
Loved The Known World, Emperor of All Maladies, Seven Killings, The Sympathizer, H is for Hawk, Warmth of Other Suns.
Hated All the Light We Cannot See, A Little Life, and The Vegetarian.
Books Do Furnish a Life – Richard Dawkins
THe Colony of Unrequited Dreams (Newfoundland) – Wayne Johnston
THe Heartbeat of the Wild – David Quammen
I’ve read 46 on the list.
I’ve read 13 of the books: Wolf Hall ● The Corrections ● Never Let Me Go ● The Year of Magical Thinking ● The Road ● Erasure ● The Looming Tower ● Middlesex ● The Plot Against America ● Far From the Tree ● The Emperor of All Maladies ● Bring Up the Bodies ● Bel Canto
While all those books were worth reading, the only books that I would put on my personal top 100 list are The Corrections and Middlesex.
I compared the list of the top 100 books, per critics, with the list of top 100 books, per readers. Interestingly, only 39 of the critics’ picks also appeared on the readers’ list.
Among the books that readers included, but not critics, were several popular-selling books, including The Hunger Games, Cutting for Stone, The Covenant for Water, Gone Girl, and Project Hail Mary, all of which I read and enjoyed. At the same time, I agree that none of those books are exactly literary masterpieces. Also, critics showed their discernment by entirely excluding A Little Life from their list, which was 11th on the reader’s list. It was trauma porn. The fact it was well-written can’t rescue an absurd plot.
I’d like to see these lists revisited 25 or 50 years from now, to see which books are still being printed (e-booked?) and widely read, and which books have disappeared from memory.