The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century: (according to NY Times Book Review)
Commentary; My Lists - Your List?
Lists of Best Books in 2024. List of Best Books (thus far) in 21st Century. List of Best Books - ever. You love those lists. You hate those lists. Who creates the lists? And how do they measure up to your perspective of “best books”?
Sometimes you just wonder how many books you have missed along the way - that other people swear by and gush great accolades as though one could not have lived fully until you had read x, y, or z titles by a, b, and c authors. I got that feeling (again) after going through The York Times Book Review compliation of the “100 Best Books of the 21st Century". The website allows you to “check off” in an interactive format which ones you have read, or to “check off” which ones you would like to read - and you can compile your own “lists” based on the lists provided by the NYT Book Review staff.
I noted above list of “Best Books” as thus far - here we are in July of 2024 - not even a quarter of a century in the timeline and you get the impression that this could be a rolling process as we move along through Time such that some books will “stick” and stay on the list (but maybe the ranking may improve or slip back). I was curious to see if any other websites had their “best book” list going and I found one (as example) at Vulture that was published back in September of 2018. There was several books on that list (Vulture, 2018) that showed up on the NYT Book Review list in 2024. There is another list offered by - The Greatest Books.org website, which also has a list for the Greatest Books of All Time (!). {Wait…The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is #1 ?…but then Ulysses shows up as # 2 so there is that; and Moby-Dick at # 10, but that is a topic in a previous posting here). Goodreads (Listopia) has a list going as well and changing as people vote (interactively) and the list is re-scored every 5 minutes. And then (finally!) - NPR has their 100 best novels of the past 100 years which was published online back in 2009 - with A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce as # 1.
The NY Times Book Review list (2024) in the 21st Century is, of course, it is informative as it allows one to go through the 100 Best and to see what happens as you review the list of 100 best within an interactive online site, and then…it is also instructive:
Whoa - I have read not even 25 of the books that appear in the list of 100…actually only twenty-two (it says - “please take a screenshot to share”)
And then as I reached the end, I had only wanted to read 2 other books that I had not read on NY Times list.
What was the point of doing a best books list of the century at quarter century mark (almost)? “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.”
And the methodology? “As voted on by 503 novelists, nonfiction writers, poets, critics and other book lovers — with a little help from the staff of The New York Times Book Review.”
Dwight Garner, Book Critic for the NYT (July 12, 2024) submitted in his “critique” of the 100 best books by elaborating on the context for the results: “What do we mean by “best?” We left that to the respondents. Most appeared to agree with E.M. Forster, who wrote that “the final test for a novel will be our affection for it, as it is the test of our friends, and of anything else which we cannot define.” The only criterion for eligibility was publication in English on or after Jan. 1, 2000…The best of the best, Nos. 1 through 10, are linked for sure by sensitive intelligence and achieved ambition. But other connections can be made. Most are historical novels or narrative histories, as if readers, weary of the vacuity and smash-and-grab belligerence that dominate much of American political and social discourse, desired either to escape or to gaze backward, to better understand how we arrived here. Memory and identity are especially strong concerns in the top 10. Readers seemed to want a break from contemporary social reportage; they wanted immersive and unfractured narratives that cast a sustained spell…Fiction dominates, by a three-to-one ratio. Two graphic novels appear. One of the biggest literary trends of the past 25 years — the boom in memoirs and books of essays — is reflected far less than I expected. I was disappointed to find no poetry save Claudia Rankine’s “Citizen.”…We hope that this list surprises and delights you as much as it did us. “A great book should leave you with many experiences,” William Styron wrote, “and slightly exhausted at the end.” Putting together this project left us the same.”
Some of the books I have read in the 100 best are very memorable for me, and as example, Bring Up the Bodies, Hilary Mantel, Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver; Train Dreams, Denis Johnson, The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt; H Is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald; The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño; translated by Natasha Wimmer; Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell; The Overstory, Richard Powers; The Road, Cormac McCarthy; The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion; 2666, Roberto Bolaño; translated by Natasha Wimmer; The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen; and Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel.
As you can see, Hilary Mantel and Roberto Bolaño are two authors who I think are great writers and (in my opinion) and each had two books in the list of NYT Book Review 100 best books. I also would have had Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch, and Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver in my top ten books in the 21st century (first 24 and 1/2 years). So: Hilary Mantel, Roberto Bolaño, Donna Tartt, Barbara Kingsolver, and then Cormac McCarthy, but not for The Road (although a powerful novel and receiving the Putlitzer Prize for fiction), but I would have placed the following in the top 100 as well (thus perhaps bumping out several other authors): No Country for Old Men, The Passenger, Stella Maris. Cormac McCarthy’s writing (the oeuvre) is incandescent, provocative, and visceral. But then again that is my perspective on this style of literature.
As far as publications in 2024, I have two fiction books, James by Percival Everett, and
Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange that I think (and hope) will come to represent additional titles in the 100 best for the 21st Century. You can see the NY Times Book Review best titles (thus far for 2024 here.
If you wish, I would be curious to hear back from you what authors/books (fiction and non-fiction) you have discovered that would be in your list in the 21st Century - thus far.
So many great books, so little time.