Best books of the current century

That Times list thing

Hey, I meant to do a normal weekend roundup thing, but then I just kept going on this topic, plenty of linky-links though, have a good weekend.

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This Times project to select the 100 best books of the current century is pure clickbait…and yes, I clicked. I’ll spare the aggregation, and just send you to the link (paywall free).

A few questions—

• Why right now?

• And why a mix of fiction and non-fiction?

What’s nice about this list is the interactive part. You can check the ones you’ve read and the ones you want to read.

Personally, I read 20/100 and I want to read 15 of them, and I didn’t know what to do with a few others that have sat on my shelves forever but I never picked them up or got very far (here’s looking at Life after Life by Kate Atkinson, The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, Wolf Hall by Hilary Mandel, 2666, and Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders).

The 20 I’ve Read

The Known World The Corrections The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao The Year of Magical Thinking The Road The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay The Sellout White Teeth A Visit From the Goon Squad Persepolis Trust Nickel and Dimed Stay True Middlesex 10:04 The Plot Against America Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow Pulphead Station Eleven On Beauty

The 16 I Want to Read

2666 Never Let Me Go Gilead Outline Lincoln in the Bardo Say Nothing Behind the Beautiful Forevers The Overstory The Last Samurai Small Things Like These The Goldfinch Train Dreams The Flamethrowers Heavy Tree of Smoke The Warmth of Other Suns

Of note…

• What’s a bit astounding are the authors who placed more than 1 book on here — Jesmyn Ward, Zadie Smith, Elena Ferrante, Hilary Mantel.

Placing one book on a list like this is quite an accomplishment, but it also could reveal a tidy bias towards certain types of books of course, the ones that the NYTimes likes, compared to the ones it doesn’t.

• That Hernan Diaz book Trust was at #50? I got lost

• I always see this nonfiction murder mystery book about Northern Ireland on the bookstore tables and I tried the audiobook once, maybe this is the push to finally get me to bite

• Lots of Ferrante! Did I already say that? Well, there are a lot.

• I like Ben Lerner’s writing a lot, but I was surprised to see 10:04 on here, instead of Leaving Atocha Station, which generally seems more well-regarded. 10:04 is a very New York book, and it’s one I’ve kept through the years, maybe it’s time to give it another go, it’s one of my few regular re-reads

• The Warmth of Other Suns is the highest ranking non-fiction book at #2, the next highest ranking one is #12 with The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

Personal Ballots

The Times asked more than 500 people to contribute (mine must have landed in spam!) but one of the small joys of this is to review the individual ballots. They’re way more nteresting

• Karl Ove Knausgaard’s list was good, (Flame Alphabet by Ben Marcus, deep cut!)

• I admire Nick Hornby for putting Pictures at A Revolution by Mark Harris on his list. It’s one of my favorite film books, and I feel like I’m always looking for a book like that—there just aren’t many

• Shoutout to the people who listed their own books, lol like Stephen King and this guy Michael Robbins, which I’ve heard of his book and heard it was good, but I haven’t read any of it

• Gone Girl got several votes but didn’t make the final list like this ballot by James Patterson, who also listed Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain

Twitter

Too much Twitter commentary on this, but I’ll flag this one from Aaron Burch who said there should be an indie publisher list and so then I asked him what would be on his list, and he hit back with a good one:

What would be on my list?

I’m going to think about this. I’d definitely put 2 from Aaron’s list on there, The Cult of Loretta by Kevin Maloney and The Sarah Book by Scott McClanahan. 2 great ones. Probably 10:04, Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Fate and Furies by Lauren Groff (recent read!), On Beauty by Zadie Smith, House of Leaves by Danielewski (2000 though?) the first Knausgaard one, Liveblog by Megan Boyle, Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, all of these are skewing fiction, memoir-y, hmmmm…I do read non-fiction, really…

Okay, what would be on yours? Best books of the 21st century so far?

Keep going-

Josh Spilker