"Outside a dog a book is man's best friend, inside a dog it is too dark to read!" -Groucho Marx========="The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid." -Jane Austen========="I don’t believe in the kind of magic in my books. But I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book."-JK Rowling========"I spend a lot of time reading." -Bill Gates=========“Ahhh. Bed, book, kitten, sandwich. All one needed in life, really.” -Jacqueline Kelly=========

Wednesday, July 31, 2024

NYT -- Readers' Picks -- 100 Best Books

NYT Readers Pick
Their 100 Best Books
of the 21st Century

When The New York Times Book Review published a list of the 100 best books of the century a few weeks ago, they knew they’d hear from readers who were incensed or sad their favorite books didn't make the list. After giving these readers a chance to vote on their favorites, the NYT published a list of the Readers Picks: The 100 Best Books of the Century this week. The Book Review voters (list 1) and the Readers (list 2) overlap on 39 choices, noted in the comment column below. "As for the 61 new entries here, what stands out most is that they’re the books that captured cultural moments and sparked lively literary conversations."


No.

Title / Author

Comments

Read?

1

Demon Copperhead / Kingsolver

#61 NYT Book Review’s list

Yes

2

All the Light We Cannot See / Doerr

 

Yes

3

A Gentleman in Moscow / Towles

 

Yes

4

The Goldfinch / Tartt

#46 NYT Book Review’s list

Yes

5

Pachinko / Lee

#15 NYT Book Review’s list

Yes

6

Educated / Westover

 

Yes

7

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow / Zevin

 

Yes

8

My Brilliant Friend / Ferrante

#1 on NYT Book Review’s list

Yes

9

Never Let Me Go / Ishiguro

#9 on NYT Book Review’s list

Yes

10

Station Eleven / St. John Mandel

#93 NYT Book Review’s list

Yes

11

A Little Life / Yanagihara

 

No

12

The Overstory / Powers

#24 NYT Book Review’s list

Yes

13

The Underground Railroad / Whitehead

#7 on NYT Book Review’s list

Yes

14

Wolf Hall / Mantel

#3 on NYT Book Review’s list

Yes

15

The Road / McCarthy

#13 NYT Book Review’s list

Yes

16

Lincoln in the Bardo / Saunders

#18 NYT Book Review’s list

Yes

17

Atonement / McEwan

#26 NYT Book Review’s list

Yes

18

Middlesex / Eugenides

#59 NYT Book Review’s list

Yes

19

Americanah / Adichie

#27 NYT Book Review’s list

No

20

Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay / Chabon

#16 on NYT Book Review’s list

Yes

21

Homegoing / Gyasi

 

Yes

22

Hamnet / O’Farrell

 

Yes

23

The Warmth of Other Suns / Wilkerson

#2 on NYT Book Review’s list

No

24

Bel Canto / Patchett

#98 NYT Book Review’s list

No

25

Gilead / Robinson

#10 NYT Book Review’s list

Yes



No.

Title / Author

Comments

Read?

26

The Corrections / Franzen

#5 NYT Book Review’s list

No

27

Normal People / Rooney

 

Yes

28

Cutting for Stone / Verghese

 

Yes

29

Say Nothing / Keefe

#19 NYT Book Review’s list

No

30

A Visit from the Goon Squad / Egan

#39 NYT Book Review’s list

Yes

31

Circe / Miller

 

Yes

32

Cloud Cuckoo Land / Doerr

 

Yes

33

The Book Thief / Zusak

 

Yes

34

Cloud Atlas / Mitchell

#28 NYT Book Review’s list

No

35

The Covenant of Water / Verghese

 

Yes

36

The Year of Magical Thinking

#12 NYT Book Review’s list

Yes

37

The Nickel Boys / Whitehead

 

Yes

38

The Great Believers / Makkai

#64 NYT Book Review’s list

Yes

39

Olive Kitteridge / Strout

#74 NYT Book Review’s list

Yes

40

The Kite Runner / Hosseini

 

Yes

41

Life After Life / Atkinson

#51 NYT Book Review’s list

Yes

42

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao /Junot

#11 NYT Book Review’s list

Yes

43

Between the World and Me / Coates

#36 NYT Book Review’s list

Yes

44

The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store / McBride

 

Yes

45

There There / Orange

 

Yes

46

The Song of Achilles / Miller

 

Yes

47

Lessons in Chemistry / Garmus

 

Yes

48

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous / Vuong

 

Yes

49

Gone Girl / Flynn

 

Yes

50

James / Everett

 

No



No.

Title / Author

Comments

Read?

51

Caste / Wilkerson

 

No

52

The Nightingale / Hannah

 

Yes

53

Trust / Diaz

#50 NYT Book Review’s list

Yes

54

11/22/63 / King

 

No

55

Braiding Sweetgrass / Kimmerer

 

Yes

56

The Hunger Games / Collins

 

Yes

57

Small Things Like These / Keegan

#41 NYT Book Review’s list

Yes

58

White Teeth / Smith

#31 NYT Book Review’s list

DNF

59

Where the Crawdads Sing / Owens

 

Yes

60

The Dutch House / Patchett

 

Yes

61

North Woods / Mason

 

Yes

62

The Sympathizer / Nguyen

#90 NYT Book Review’s list

Yes

63

The Fifth Season / Jemisin

#44 NYT Book Review’s list

No

64

2666 / Bolano

#6 on NYT Book Review’s list

No

65

Evicted / Desmond

#21 NYT Book Review’s list

No

66

Just Kids / Smith

 

No

67

Piranesi / Clarke

 

No

68

The Devil in the White City / Larson

 

Yes

69

Killers of the Flower Moon / Grann

 

Yes

70

Know My Name / Miller

 

No

71

Sing, Unburied, Sing / Ward

#30 NYT Book Review’s list

Yes

72

Crying in the H Mart

 

Yes

73

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

 

Yes

74

Klara and the Sun / Ishiguro

 

Yes

75

The Lincoln Highway / Towles

 

Yes



No.

Title / Author

Comments

Read?

76

Just Mercy / Stevenson

 

Yes

77

Sapiens / Harari

 

No

78

Kafka on the Shore / Murakami

 

No

79

1Q84 / Murakami

 

No

80

Deacon King Kong / McBride

 

Yes

81

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks / Skloot

 

Yes

82

Tom Lake / Patchett

 

Yes

83

Let the Great World Spin / McCann

 

Yes

84

Tenth of December / Saunders

#54 NYT Book Review’s list

Yes

85

When Breath Becomes Air / Kalanithi

 

Yes

86

Life of Pi / Martel

 

Yes

87

Girl, Woman, Other / Evaristo

 

No

88

The Plot Against America / Roth

#65 NYT Book Review’s list

Yes

89

The Glass Castle / Walls

 

Yes

90

In the Dream House / Machado

 

No

91

Project Hail Mary / Weir

 

Yes

92

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead / Tokarczuk

 

No

93

Remarkably Bright Creatures / Van Pelt

 

Yes

94

The Bee Sting / Murray

 

DNF

95

A Thousand Splendid Suns / Hosseini

 

Yes

96

The Vanishing Half / Bennett

 

Yes

97

My Year of Rest and Relaxation / Moshfegh

 

No

98

Shuggie Bain / Stuart

 

No

99

Empire of Pain / Keefe

 

No

100

A Man Called Ove / Backman

 

Yes


My analysis and commentary:
     After the Best Books of the 21st Century Book Review List was published in mid-July, I wrote a quick post highlighting the top 20 books . I also included images of the 36 books I've read from their top 100 list and another image of the books I'd like to read. At the time I was was pretty shocked by how many books on the list I'd never even heard of before, 29, since I am the kind of gal who pays attention to books and book lists. To my mind the best books of the century shouldn't be made up of books no one has read, even if they are well written. If you can't get through the paywall at the NYT to see their list, Deb Nance at Reader Buzz created a google doc of all 100 books. Find it here.
     In my post I also identified a few book titles which I thought were shockingly absent in the Book Review list: The Lincoln Highway or A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles; All the Light We Cannot See or Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr; Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann; There There by Tommy Orange or La Rose by Louise Erdrich. Those were just a few titles I quickly thought of as I was typing up the post. All of them are fiction. I didn't even give pause at the time to reflect on nonfiction titles. I wish I had continued to pay attention to the NYT days following the publication of their Book Review list. If I had I would have noticed that they created a space for their readers to share their ten favorites. The list above is the product of the synthesis of readers suggestions. 39 titles are on both lists. 
      I thought the readers' picks are skewed a bit too heavy toward recent books, ignoring excellent books published at the beginning of the century, but after analyzing publication dates I found that both lists weren't that different. The Book Review list averaged a publication date in 2011 and the Readers' Picks in 2013. So both averages demonstrate that selections were made over the spectrum of the century so far. I am still skeptical about books which were published this year or last and questions their staying power. It seems to me readers may have just finished a book like James, which was published this year, liked it and so added it to their list of ten favorites. Only time will tell if a book has staying power.
      So what did I like about the Readers' picks? Many of my favorite books published in this century made the list. In fact, I've read 78 81 of them and had another ten on my TBR. I was especially happy to see books by Amor Towles, Anthony Doerr, and Tommy Orange among the 100 favorites. I smiled to see three middle grade/YA titles: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, The Hunger Games, and The Book Thief. Leaving YA lit off the initial list was a big error. Think of what Harry Potter did for publishing in the late 20th and early 21st Centuries. The Hunger Games spawned a whole new genre of futuristic dystopian YA novels. And The Book Thief is just wonderful, great literature. I like it that nonfiction books made both lists -- twenty-one on the first and seventeen on the second.
      So what did I NOT like about the Readers' picks? For one thing, I think there were too many popular books without a lot of literary merit. Don't get me wrong. I love Lessons in Chemistry, Normal People, and Where the Crawdads Sing, I'm just not sure they are the best the century has to offer. Popular, yes. Literary umph, no. I was really glad to see some of my favorite authors made the list: Ann Patchett (3 books?!); Barbara Kingsolver (in the #1 spot, but what about her other books?); James McBride; and Abraham Verghese. But I still notice voids like no Louise Erdrich, Arundhati Roy, and Salman Rushdie. Also missing were works by these nonfiction writers: Timothy Egan (The Worst Hard Times); Laura Hillenbrand (Unbroken); Elizabeth Kolbert (The Sixth Extinction); and Daniel James Brown (The Boys in the Boat.) These books are so excellent it is hard to imagine how they could possibly be left off both lists. I bet readers like me when I was jotting off my last post on the subject, thought about their favorite novels, forgetting about the excellent examples of 21st century nonfiction titles.
      Because I am nerd about book awards I thought I'd analyze the two lists for major award winners/finalists. Let's see how they match up:

Award

Book Review List

Readers’ Picks

Pulitzer Prize or finalist

24

17

National Book Award or on short list

14

11

Women’s Prize (Orange Prize)

9

9

Booker Prize or finalist

11

6

Nobel

3

0


Note: since there are 39 books in common on the two lists, these numbers aren't as dramatically different as I first suspected. Awards have changed names over the years and I may have inadvertently missed one or two, not knowing the previous name of an awards.  I realized, as I was making this chart, how few fantasy/sci-fi/mystery titles are on the lists, but there was was one Hugo Award winner, and several Edgar Award winners or finalists. There were also a ton of other book awards represented, among them Goodreads Awards, which are purely based on popularity.

So what about you? What do you think of the various between the two lists? What books do you think are missing? How do you feel about book lists in general? Let's discuss. Leave your comments below and I will reply to your thoughts.

Hosts: Feed My Fiction Addiction // It Starts at Midnight


    
-Anne