The New York Times' 100 Best Books of the 21st Century explained
The New York Times 100 Best Books of the 21st Century is a ranked list of the 100 best novels published in the English language since January 1, 2000. The list was compiled by The New York Times, with the input of 503 writers and academics.[1]
The highest-ranked book on the list was the Elena Ferrante novel My Brilliant Friend published in 2012. Authors Ferrante, Jesmyn Ward, and George Saunders each had three books on the list, the most of any author. The following authors were listed twice: Roberto Bolaño, Edward P. Jones, Denis Johnson, Alice Munro, Hilary Mantel, Zadie Smith and Philip Roth.[2]
List
| Rank | Title | Author | Year |
|---|
| 1 | My Brilliant Friend | | 2012 |
| 2 | The Warmth of Other Suns | | 2010 |
| 3 | Wolf Hall | | 2009 |
| 4 | The Known World | | 2003 |
| 5 | The Corrections | | 2001 |
| 6 | 2666 | | 2008 |
| 7 | The Underground Railroad | | 2016 |
| 8 | Austerlitz | | 2001 |
| 9 | Never Let Me Go | | 2005 |
| 10 | Gilead | | 2004 |
| 11 | The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao | | 2007 |
| 12 | The Year of Magical Thinking | | 2005 |
| 13 | The Road | | 2006 |
| 14 | Outline | | 2015 |
| 15 | Pachinko | | 2017 |
| 16 | The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay | | 2000 |
| 17 | The Sellout | | 2015 |
| 18 | Lincoln in the Bardo | | 2017 |
| 19 | Say Nothing | | 2019 |
| 20 | Erasure | | 2001 |
| 21 | Evicted | | 2016 |
| 22 | Behind the Beautiful Forevers | | 2012 |
| 23 | Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage | | 2001 |
| 24 | The Overstory | | 2018 |
| 25 | Random Family | | 2003 |
| 26 | Atonement | | 2002 |
| 27 | Americanah | | 2013 |
| 28 | Cloud Atlas | | 2004 |
| 29 | The Last Samurai | | 2000 |
| 30 | Sing, Unburied, Sing | | 2017 |
| 31 | White Teeth | | 2000 |
| 32 | The Line of Beauty | | 2004 |
| 33 | Salvage the Bones | | 2011 |
| 34 | Citizen | | 2014 |
| 35 | Fun Home | | 2006 |
| 36 | Between the World and Me | | 2015 |
| 37 | The Years | | 2018 |
| 38 | The Savage Detectives | | 2007 |
| 39 | A Visit From the Goon Squad | | 2010 |
| 40 | H Is for Hawk | | 2015 |
| 41 | Small Things Like These | | 2021 |
| 42 | A Brief History of Seven Killings | | 2014 |
| 43 | Postwar | | 2005 |
| 44 | The Fifth Season | | 2015 |
| 45 | The Argonauts | | 2015 |
| 46 | The Goldfinch | | 2013 |
| 47 | A Mercy | | 2008 |
| 48 | Persepolis | | 2003 |
| 49 | The Vegetarian | | 2016 |
| 50 | Trust | | 2022 |
| 51 | Life After Life | | 2013 |
| 52 | Train Dreams | | 2011 |
| 53 | Runaway | | 2004 |
| 54 | Tenth of December | | 2013 |
| 55 | The Looming Tower | | 2006 |
| 56 | The Flamethrowers | | 2013 |
| 57 | Nickel and Dimed | | 2001 |
| 58 | Stay True | | 2022 |
| 59 | Middlesex | | 2002 |
| 60 | Heavy | | 2018 |
| 61 | Demon Copperhead | | 2022 |
| 62 | 10:42 | | 2014 |
| 63 | Veronica | | 2005 |
| 64 | The Great Believers | | 2018 |
| 65 | The Plot Against America | | 2004 |
| 66 | We the Animals | | 2011 |
| 67 | Far From the Tree | | 2012 |
| 68 | The Friend | | 2018 |
| 69 | The New Jim Crow | | 2010 |
| 70 | All Aunt Hagar's Children | | 2006 |
| 71 | The Copenhagen Trilogy | | 2021 |
| 72 | Secondhand Time | | 2016 |
| 73 | The Passage of Power | | 2012 |
| 74 | Olive Kitteridge | | 2008 |
| 75 | Exit West | | 2017 |
| 76 | Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow | | 2022 |
| 77 | An American Marriage | | 2018 |
| 78 | Septology | | 2022 |
| 79 | A Manual for Cleaning Women | | 2015 |
| 80 | The Story of the Lost Child | | 2015 |
| 81 | Pulphead | | 2011 |
| 82 | Hurricane Season | | 2020 |
| 83 | When We Cease to Understand the World | | 2021 |
| 84 | The Emperor of All Maladies | | 2010 |
| 85 | Pastoralia | | 2000 |
| 86 | Frederick Douglass | | 2018 |
| 87 | Detransition, Baby | | 2021 |
| 88 | The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis | | 2010 |
| 89 | The Return | | 2016 |
| 90 | The Sympathizer | | 2015 |
| 91 | The Human Stain | | 2000 |
| 92 | The Days of Abandonment | | 2005 |
| 93 | Station Eleven | | 2014 |
| 94 | On Beauty | | 2005 |
| 95 | Bring Up the Bodies | | 2012 |
| 96 | Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments | | 2019 |
| 97 | Men We Reaped | | 2013 |
| 98 | Bel Canto | | 2001 |
| 99 | How to Be Both | | 2014 |
| 100 | Tree of Smoke | | 2007 |
|
Criticism
The list was criticized for its perceived bias towards English-language books, particularly those published by American authors.[3] Nigerian academic Ainehi Edoro criticized the lack of literature by African authors and the predominance of American literature on the list and called the list "an act of cultural erasure".[4] The list was also criticized for its lack of genres such as graphic fiction, science fiction, fantasy, and children's literature.[5] Indian publication Scroll.in wrote of the list "How much, and for how long, is America going to obsess over reading and dissecting itself? Why do reading lists emerging from the West claim authority on culture with such hyperbole?"[6]
Notes and References
- Web site: 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. The New York Times. July 13, 2024.
- Web site: Our Critic's Take on the 100 List: Books That 'Cast a Sustained Spell'. The New York Times. July 13, 2024.
- News: Schmitt . Amandine . Le « New York Times » a listé les 100 meilleurs livres du XXIᵉ siècle et franchement ça se discute . 5 August 2024 . Le Nouvel Obs . 20 July 2024 . fr.
- Web site: Edoro-Glines . Ainehi . The New York Times’ “Best Books of the Century” List Was an Unforgivable Erasure of African Literature . . 5 August 2024 . 26 July 2024.
- News: Jiménez . Marisol . Todo lo que omitió la lista de los 100 mejores libros del siglo XXI de ‘The New York Times’ . Everything that was ommitted from the list of the 100 best books of the 21st century by The New York Times . 5 August 2024 . El País US . 17 July 2024 . es-us.
- News: Not the NYT list: 100 fine books from around the world (and not just the USA) of the 21st century . 5 August 2024 . Scroll.in . 21 July 2024 . en.
