100 Best Books of the 21st Century by New York Times
and how they stack up against the ghosts of the past...
This post is the first of a two-part series on 21st-century literature ranking.
Intro:
A New York Times Bestseller is music to the ears of many readers. For up-and-coming authors, the label alone is enough to headline in local talks, meetings, seminars, and webinars; and even get paid subscribers to their newsletter. In non-native English-speaking countries, a weary wayfarer is likely to dote on the roadside books with this distinctive tagline. So eyeballs started rolling last week when the New York Times dropped the list of the top 100 books of the 21st century.
Rankings like these are nothing new. The Guardian published a similar list in 2019, that included genre books like Harry Potter, Gone Girl, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and others in fiction. It also included viral non-fiction titles like Sapiens, The Tipping Point, Thinking, Fast and Slow, etc. The NYT list put these on the sidelines. The same can be said for the similar list rolled out by Sunday Times in 2019. Although always controversial, these lists have quite a few ubiquitous names. For instance, Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel is in the top 3.
The consolidated list is mentioned at end.
The Authors:
Upon mindful deliberation, the NYT list appears to be a set of critics-choice selections, rather than a public vote. That is because it was created by more than five hundred literary luminaries. It is the same term used by NYT; yes, it includes some heavyweights like Stephen King, James Patterson, Sarah Jessica Parker, etc. A public list of famous authors who contributed is here. According to NYT-
We let them each define “best” in their own way. For some, this simply meant “favorite.” For others, it meant books that would endure for generations.
The only rules: Any book chosen had to be published in the United States, in English, on or after Jan. 1, 2000. (Yes, translations counted!)
After casting their ballots, respondents were given the option to answer a series of prompts where they chose their preferred book between two randomly selected titles. We combined data from these prompts with the vote tallies to create the list of the top 100 books.
That’s the methodology at play here. And surely, many authors put their own books on the ballot. Some of them won, too. (But not really the headliners: Stephen King, James Patterson, Sarah Jessica Parker).
The Numbers:
The rule permits only English books for consideration. It serves as a cap for the popularity of books in other languages outside their region. The list included 13 translated versions, including 3 in the Top 10.
Elena Ferrante topped the list with her 2012 book, translated by Ann Goldstein, My Brilliant Friend. We see two other books from Elena on the list—a rare affair. Generally, these tight lists (like The Guardian’s) follow one entry per author rule. Combined with the fact that Elena Ferrante is a pseudonymous Italian writer, it is clear that luminaries at NYT are fans of her work. Further, we see 3 books each from George Saunders and Jesmyn Ward; and a couple from Hilary Mantel, Roberto Bolaño, Edward P. Jones, Zadie Smith, Alice Munro, and Philip Roth.
This ambitious project from NYT marks the first 25 years of this century, determining the most important, influential books of the era. However, the final call has no entries from 2023 or 2024. Many noteworthy titles of the 2000s like The Book Thief by Markus Zusak or The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini—books that are already considered modern classics by an average reader. The same can be said for genres of Surrealism, and Magical Realism portrayed in the books 1Q84 and Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami.
Outro:
It is no fiction but a fact that new additions to literature are always under fire. The sheer number of independent writers and publications makes it especially challenging for impacting works to reach global audiences. At the cusp of completion, the first quarter of the 21st century is far from being saturated by sad stories and revelations. But that has been the case with the last century as well. For many writers and readers (who don’t read for merely entertainment value), the classics may seem more alluring and worthwhile. So let’s draw parallels from two of the most influential authors from a century back…
Ryūnosuke Akutagawa was a Japanese writer, active in the first quarter of the 20th century. He is regarded as the "father of the Japanese short story", and Japan's premier literary award, the Akutagawa Prize, is named after him. His magnum opus Rashōmon was published in 1915. The Life of Stupid Man was published after he died in 1927. It is one of the few translated autobiographical pieces of Akutagawa's past. His works are now adored by critics around the globe, similar to current-era Asian authors like Kazuo Ishiguro, Haruki Murakami, etc. Would his stories be considered in the top 100 of the first quarter of the 20th century?
If I had put my money on one author from the same period for the top spot…
European+influential+compelling+inventive+translated = Franz Kafka
If you like what you read check out this follow-up article.
The Complete List
My Brilliant Friend
Elena Ferrante; translated by Ann Goldstein 2012The Warmth of Other Suns
Isabel Wilkerson 2010Wolf Hall
Hilary Mantel 2009The Known World
Edward P. Jones 2003The Corrections
Jonathan Franzen 20012666
Roberto Bolaño; translated by Natasha Wimmer 2008The Underground Railroad
Colson Whitehead 2016Austerlitz
W.G. Sebald; translated by Anthea Bell 2001Never Let Me Go
Kazuo Ishiguro 2005Gilead
Marilynne Robinson 2004The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Junot Díaz 2007The Year of Magical Thinking
Joan Didion 2005The Road
Cormac McCarthy 2006Outline
Rachel Cusk 2015Pachinko
Min Jin Lee 2017The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Michael Chabon 2000The Sellout
Paul Beatty 2015Lincoln in the Bardo
George Saunders 2017Say Nothing
Patrick Radden Keefe 2019Erasure
Percival Everett 2001Evicted
Matthew Desmond 2016Behind the Beautiful Forevers
Katherine Boo 2012Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage
Alice Munro 2001The Overstory
Richard Powers 2018Random Family
Adrian Nicole LeBlanc 2003Atonement
Ian McEwan 2002Americanah
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 2013Cloud Atlas
David Mitchell 2004The Last Samurai
Helen DeWitt 2000Sing, Unburied, Sing
Jesmyn Ward 2017White Teeth
Zadie Smith 2000The Line of Beauty
Alan Hollinghurst 2004Salvage the Bones
Jesmyn Ward 2011Citizen
Claudia Rankine 2014Fun Home
Alison Bechdel 2006Between the World and Me
Ta-Nehisi Coates 2015The Years
Annie Ernaux; translated by Alison L. Strayer 2018The Savage Detectives
Roberto Bolaño; translated by Natasha Wimmer 2007A Visit From the Goon Squad
Jennifer Egan 2010H Is for Hawk
Helen Macdonald 2015Small Things Like These
Claire Keegan 2021A Brief History of Seven Killings
Marlon James 2014Postwar
Tony Judt 2005The Fifth Season
N.K. Jemisin 2015The Argonauts
Maggie Nelson 2015The Goldfinch
Donna Tartt 2013A Mercy
Toni Morrison 2008Persepolis
Marjane Satrapi 2003The Vegetarian
Han Kang; translated by Deborah Smith 2016Trust
Hernan Diaz 2022Life After Life
Kate Atkinson 2013Train Dreams
Denis Johnson 2011Runaway
Alice Munro 2004Tenth of December
George Saunders 2013The Looming Tower
Lawrence Wright 2006The Flamethrowers
Rachel Kushner 2013Nickel and Dimed
Barbara Ehrenreich 2001Stay True
Hua Hsu 2022Middlesex
Jeffrey Eugenides 2002Heavy
Kiese Laymon 2018Demon Copperhead
Barbara Kingsolver 202210:04
Ben Lerner 2014Veronica
Mary Gaitskill 2005The Great Believers
Rebecca Makkai 2018The Plot Against America
Philip Roth 2004We the Animals
Justin Torres 2011Far From the Tree
Andrew Solomon 2012The Friend
Sigrid Nunez 2018The New Jim Crow
Michelle Alexander 2010All Aunt Hagar’s Children
Edward P. Jones 2006The Copenhagen Trilogy
Tove Ditlevsen; translated by Tiina Nunnally and Michael Favala Goldman 2021Secondhand Time
Svetlana Alexievich; translated by Bela Shayevich 2016The Passage of Power
Robert Caro 2012Olive Kitteridge
Elizabeth Strout 2008Exit West
Mohsin Hamid 2017Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Gabrielle Zevin 2022An American Marriage
Tayari Jones 2018Septology
Jon Fosse; translated by Damion Searls 2022A Manual for Cleaning Women
Lucia Berlin 2015The Story of the Lost Child
Elena Ferrante; translated by Ann Goldstein 2015Pulphead
John Jeremiah Sullivan 2011Hurricane Season
Fernanda Melchor; translated by Sophie Hughes 2020When We Cease to Understand the World
Benjamín Labatut; translated by Adrian Nathan West 2021The Emperor of All Maladies
Siddhartha Mukherjee 2010Pastoralia
George Saunders 2000Frederick Douglass
David W. Blight 2018Detransition, Baby
Torrey Peters 2021The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis
2010The Return
Hisham Matar 2016The Sympathizer
Viet Thanh Nguyen 2015The Human Stain
Philip Roth 2000The Days of Abandonment
Elena Ferrante; translated by Ann Goldstein 2005Station Eleven
Emily St. John Mandel 2014On Beauty
Zadie Smith 2005Bring Up the Bodies
Hilary Mantel 2012Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments
Saidiya Hartman 2019Men We Reaped
Jesmyn Ward 2013Bel Canto
Ann Patchett 2001How to Be Both
Ali Smith 2014Tree of Smoke
Denis Johnson 2007