The original list: 100. Denis Johnson: Tree of Smoke 99. Ali Smith: How to Be Both 98. Ann Patchett: Bel Canto 97. Jesmyn Ward: Men We Reaped 96. Saidiya Hartman: Wayward Lives Beautiful Experiments 95. Hilary Mantel: Bring Up the Bodies 94. Zadie Smith: On Beauty 93. Emily St. John Mandel: Station Eleven 92. Elena Ferrante: The Days of Abandonment 91. Philip Roth: The Human Stain 90. Viet Thanh Nguyen: The Sympathizer 89. Hisham Matar: The Return 88. Lydia Davis: The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis 87. Torrey Peters: Detransition, Baby 86. David W. Blight: Frederick Douglass 85. George Saunders: Pastoralia 84. Siddhartha Mukherjee: The Emperor of All Maladies 83. Benjamin Labatut: When We Cease to Understand the World 82. Fernanda Melchor: Hurricane Season 81. John Jeremiah Sullivan: Pulphead 80. Elena Ferrante: The Story of the Lost Child 79. Lucia Berlin: A Manual for Cleaning Women 78. Jon Fosse: Septology 77. Tayari Jones: An American Marriage 76. Gabrielle Zevin: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow 75. Mohsin Hamid: Exit West 74. Elizabeth Strout: Olive Kitteridge 73. Robert A. Caro: The Passage of Power 72. Svetlana Alexievitch: Secondhand Time 71. Tove Ditlevsen: The Copenhagen Trilogy 70. Edward P. Jones: All Aunt Hagar’s Children 69. Michelle Alexander: The New Jim Crow 68. Sigrid Nunez: The Friend 67. Andrew Solomon: Far from the Tree 66. Justin Torres: We the Animals 65. Philip Roth: The Plot Against America 64. Rebecca Makkai: The Great Believers 63. Mary Gaitskill: Veronica 62. Ben Lerner: 10:04 61. Barbara Kingsolver: Demon Copperhead 60. Kiese Laymon: Heavy 59. Jeffrey Eugenides: Middlesex 58. Hua Hsu: Stay True 57. Barbara Ehrenreich: Nickel and Dimed 56. Rachel Kushner: The Flame Throwers 55. Lawrence Wright: The Looming Tower 54. George Saunders: Tenth of December 53. Alice Munro: Runaway 52. Denis Johnson: Train Dreams 51. Kate Atkinson: Life After Life 50. Hernan Diaz: Trust 49. Han Kang: The Vegetarian 48. Marjane Satrapi: Perseopolis 47. Toni Morrison: A Mercy 46. Donna Tartt: The Goldfinch 45. Maggie Nelson: The Argonauts 44. N. K. Jemisin: The Fifth Season 43. Tony Judt: Postwar 42. Marlon James: A Brief History of Seven Killings 41. Claire Keegan: Small Things Like These 40. Helen Macdonald: H Is for Hawk 39. Jennifer Egan: A Visit from the Goon Squad 38. Roberto Bolano: The Savage Detectives 37. Annie Ernaux: The Years 36. Ta-Nehisi Coates: Between the World and Me 35. Alison Bechdel: Fun Home 34. Claudia Rankine: Citizen 33. Jesmyn Ward: Salvage the Bones 32. Alan Hollinghurst: The Line of Beauty 31. Zadie Smith: White Teeth 30. Jesmyn Ward: Sing, Unburied, Sing 29. Helen DeWitt: The Last Samurai 28. David Mitchell: Cloud Atlas 27. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Americanah 26. Ian McEwan: Atonement 25. Adrian Nicole LeBlanc: Random Family 24. Richard Powers: The Overstory 23. Alice Munro: Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage 22. Katherine Boo: Behind the Beautiful Forevers 21. Matthew Desmond: Evicted 20. Percival Everett: Erasure 19. Patrick Radden Keefe: Say Nothing 18. George Saunders: Lincoln in the Bardo 17. Paul Beatty: The Sellout 16. Michael Chabon: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay 15. Min Jin Lee: Pachinko 14. Rachael Cusk: Outline 13. Cormac McCarthy: The Road 12. Joan Didion: The Year of Magical Thinking 11. Junot Diaz: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao 10. Marilynne Robinson: Gilead 9. Kazuo Ishiguro: Never Let Me Go 8. W. G. Sebald: Austerlitz 7. Colson Whitehead: The Underground Railroad 6. Roberto Bolano: 2666 5. Jonathan Franzen: The Corrections 4. Edward P. Jones: The Known World 3. Hilary Mantel: Wolf Hall 2. Isabel Wilkerson: The Warmth of Other Suns 1. Elena Ferrante: My Brilliant Friend
so happy i was recommended y'all's combined social feeds, quality of life has increased ten times over and coming away with so many new books for my TBR!!!
I consider myself well read but have only finished 28% of this list. I urge people to read Persepolis, a graphic work of nonfiction, not simply because it tells an often unheard or misunderstood story - essentially about life in modern Iran but also about life as an Iranian woman in Europe - but because it is hilarious, brutal, and tragic in equal measure. You'll be wiser for having read it. In terms of fiction, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Erasure, and The Last Samurai are all modern classics - boldly imaginative, confidently handled, and funny.
Fantastic video! I’ve added a few more books to my TBR list. I haven’t read many of the books in the original list, as I read a lot of literature in translation (or in its original form, if I can) but I was very glad to find some of my favourite authors there, (Bolaño, Sebald…)and I’m pretty sure they will outlast many others who I didn’t care about so much. I also missed Krasznahorkai, Houellebecq and Cartarescu, but as you pointed, it was a list heavily influenced by American literature and big publishers.
I was sad when the video ended. This is such a great video. There are a lot of books in it that I never heard about. I shared this video in my book club. Thank you so much for the recommendations. Greetz from Belgium.
@@booksieman well good news, we have a back catalog of 20+ episodes, and we have new shows out every Friday! Very glad you enjoyed it, thank you for watching 🙏
@@Lifeonbooks War Trash, Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming, The Anarchist Who Shared My Name, Same Bed Different Dreams:, I also got The brother and Rainbow stories from last weeks podcast
I found Tony on Tik Tok a while ago and have been a fan of his content since then. I always appreciate your thoughts on books even if they differ from mine. Your thoughts and opinions are always well put and informative.
My understanding is that The Pale King was a posthumous nominee for the Pulitzer. There was no winner in that year. (2012). Other contenders were Swamplandia!, and Train Dreams by Denis Johnson
just stumbled across this vid and really enjoyed! curious if y’all read 2666 by Roberto Bolano? ite a translated work and it’s gotta be one of my all time fave books. also the Vegetarian by Han Kang was super enjoyable. cool to see she made your list!
For me some books that would be my list would be, The Good Women of China - Xinran, Almond - Sohn Won-Pyung, The Death of Vivek Oji - Akwaeke Emezi, Transcendent Kingdom - Yaa Gyasi, Piranesi - Susanna Clarke, Ring Shout P, Djeli Clark
Thanks for the conversation and the presentation of your personal selections (and of course my TBR has expanded) - this is my first encounter with your channel, but I will definitely be watching more! Any attempt to create a "Best Of" is doomed to failure. As far as I can tell, this is an inbuilt feature of the application of any methodology. The first obstacle is subjectivity: what is meant by 'best'? "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 second obstacle is statistics: when you ask 500 people what the 10 best books are, what you ultimately get is a popularity contest. I think it's safe to say that "The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century" is a list of pretty good popular books. Are they the "best" books? No. Are they pretty good though? I think so. The ones I read, at least. I enjoyed all 25 of the books I've read from the list and, while I don't agree with their specific ranking, only one of them feels undeserving of being included - Nickel and Dimed, though I did still enjoy it. In addition to these 25, I own 22 of the others but have yet to read them - and there are a few more that I am interested in that I don't own yet. If you haven't already, I would recommend The Book Review podcast episode in which some of the editors discuss this project. They acknowledge many of the challenges in constructing something of this nature - the definition of best, recency bias, anti-recency bias (that is, not voting for newer books to see if they stand the test of time), literary snobbery (the limited representation of genre fiction), fiction v. non-fiction, translation. Of course, none of this 'improves' the list, but it is an interesting discussion (at least, it was to me). [If anyone's curious, these are the ones I've read: (95) Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel, (93) Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, (91) The Human Stain by Philip Roth, (87) Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters, (85) Pastoralia by George Saunders, (82) Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor, (57) Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich, (54) Tenth of December by George Saunders, (50) Trust by Hernan Diaz, (49) The Vegetarian by Han Kang, (44) The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin, (41) Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan, (39) A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, (35) Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, (28) Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, (24) The Overstory by Richard Powers, (21) Evicted by Matthew Desmond, (20) Erasure by Percival Everett, (18) Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders, (17) The Sellout by Paul Beatty, (16) The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, (13) The Road by Cormac McCarthy, (11) The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, (10) Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, and (3) Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel.]
The New York Times did their usual half-fast job on the list. I think those surveyed were asked to do a Top Ten without ranking. Yes, contemporary writing has gone down in quality. No writer on the list should have been mentioned more than once.
Well, if you lay down a law that no writer can be on the list more than once, that's automatically using some criteria other than just the quality of the writing.
Great episode. Really enjoy the attention to quality literature you guys are putting out into the world. Also, I work in a bookstore, and one of the perks is advanced copies of books. Herscht 07769 reads really well for being a continuous sentence. You hardly notice by the time you get 40-50 pages in, except for when you occasionally need to put it down and don't know where to stop. One of my favorite reads of the year so far for sure!
I love your content guys, I have been reading a lot due to a back injury while serving. But dam, the cost to get some of these books to Australia is eye watering. The manifold of destiny is like $51 before shipping costs.
It’s a bit serendipitous that this came across my suggested videos, after trying to post on Reddit looking for recommendations. Mostly reading “literary” fiction myself, I find most of my favorite books are works by Hemingway, Henry Miller, Philip Roth, Bukowski, Nabokov, etc. I was trying to find some newer books that scratch that desire for literature without feeling like I’m reading a modern day novel written for entertainment only. I think the last book I read that was newer that resonated with me was by David Foster Wallace. So this list will do me some good in searching for my next read. That said, a number of these are definitely not from the 21st century. Nevertheless, great list. I’ve subscribed.
Maybe you could make an episode on how you guys find books to read, or select which ones to read. I am not on tiktok or instagram, and I would think most of those recommended book are the ones pushed by large mainstream publishers and fall in the whipped-cream, marshmallow fluff mind. Same with "best books ever" sorts of list on the various good reads lists. While those lists may be decent for choosing classic novels, the newer stuff that is truly good is overwhelmed by the mindless dribble with the same dull topics and tropes, with snazzy flowery covers. So, where do you find your books?
Here are my top reads: My Struggle Vol. 1 by Karl Ove Knausgaard Austerlitz by WG Sebald Inventory of Losses by Judith Schalansky Disgrace by JM Coetzee Homer and Langley by EL Doctorow Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson A Chronology of Water by Lydia Luknavitch Outline by Rachel Cusk Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon Pocket Atlas of Remote Islands by Judith Schalansky American Prometheus by Kai Bird An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Artist by Cesar Aira Artforum by Cesar Aira Conversations by Cesar Aira
No one ever mentions Benioff and City of Thieves. I was happily surprised by it and read it before GoT. This is a fantastic book. Great pick! And imho I feel there are authors that wrote their novels without going into it saying “I’m going to write a book without punctuation”. Like Joyce. Or Proust who wrote very long running sentences. So a reader sees the story play out as they read and don’t find themselves hung up on “missing” punctuation. If I can’t understand the point, and find myself feeling the meaning or the point of the story is lost - it’s a poor choice and a gimmick. But that’s me. lol. Everything I’m about to write is what Andy is saying right now. 😂
I added a lot of new books to my 'want to read' pile, thank you for the recommendations! I'm especially interested in the Sympathizer and Same Bed Different Dreams. Unfortunately, the only book within your top tens that I've read was The Road by Cormac McCarthy, and it was a big let down for me. I felt like it didn't hold up compared to other dystopians that dive into the cruelty of humanity, and that it was gratuitous to the point of senselessness. I kept comparing it to The Parable of the Sower/The Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler, which I thought held a lot more meaning within it. (Butler is one of my favorite authors of all time, and I love to hear your thoughts on her work if any of it interests you). I'm nowhere near well-read enough to try and pick out the best books of the 21st century, but I want to give a shout-out to A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. I read this in middle school, actually. My friends all passed it among each other at our lunch table, and we came together to gush and cry about it to each other. Its story of the plights of women, and the bonds they form in spite of their pain resonated with us. Because of how it brought me and my friends together as young girls in a time when we were learning what it meant to be women, it was a foundational book to me, and thus it has to be among my personal best.
Hey guys if you want a quick thriller and translated work, you should check out "Tommorow they won't dare to murder us" by Joseph Andras. It was tied for the Prix Goncourt. It is amazing. Keep up the work, I love your podcast and reels. My top 3 from 21st century is : Against the day - Thomas Pynchon, Tommorow they won't dare to muder us, and 4 3 2 1 - Paul Auster/ Stella Maris - Cormac McCarthy, also your list clears NYT.
Not for me. After that first book, I stopped reading. I have some of her other books and will try to give "her" another chance, but as far as post WWII Naples is concerned, this is it.
@@danicadabic9789 the first is alot of setup and is also my least favorite, but from he second on it really picks up storywise. I would recommend you give it another shot or if not, at least the 'Lost Daughter' is seen as the precursor for her Neopolitan novels
This IS a hard list to put together so I commend you two on it. I was not expecting "The Pale King" but I would have added it as my pick. Have either of you discussed this book? I much prefer it to Infinite Jest. Much funnier and sadder, in my opinion.
@Lifeonbooks It's smoother than "Infinite Jest." It can see that it would have been much longer but it does work as a book "as is." It feels more complete that people make it sound (to me, at least).
Hi! I actually don't like the "Best sth of all time" tag in aynthing. Anyway, I would like to recommend a book called "Death and the dervish" by Mesa Selimovic. Not many people know about it and I think it is right up your alley. Best regards 😊
@@myriam8190 don't read too much into it (pun intended). We didn't do any kind of thorough analysis of every 21st century book we've read, and then ranked them accordingly. Even Andy said in the episode there was a book he intended to put on his list, and then when he actually grabbed the books to bring over for the recording, forgot to include it. This is very much a couple of friends who like to read, talking about a trending topic in the book world. Without having any actual data in front of me, I'll venture to say that maybe 30-40% of my reading are from women authors, however I'm very against book counting, as well as quotas. There are some fantastic women writers past and present, and I hope people are reading those books because they are great books that bring people joy when they read them, not because they feel they have to hit a certain amount of books written by women. With all of that said, our 2nd pick for our book club (which is only on its 3rd book), was written by a woman. We have an episode coming out in two weeks about women in translation, as well as an episode about our favorite books written by women. So I hope you stick around for those, and I appreciate you watching and taking the time to comment!
@@Lifeonbooks Thanks for taking the time to reply. I really appreciated the discussion and I definitely plan on sticking around! I agree with a lot of what you just mentioned. It's definitely not about quotas. Sometimes it's just about exposure and going out of one's confort zone. It's just that sometimes it's disheartening because I feel some people (not saying you guys) seem to have a bias (even if unconscious) against books written by women. So I was curious after watching the video seeing as there weren't that many mentioned. :)
@@myriam8190 I totally agree with you about exposure and subconscious bias. There's absolutely no doubt that women haven't been given the same opportunities as men in publishing (and so many other arenas), and as someone that really enjoys finding the hidden gems of books, there's certainly a lot to pick from from women, because there have been fantastic writers that weren't given an opportunity or their due over the years. I also need to do a better job of remembering that when someone stumbles upon something we've posted, this may be the first thing they ever see from us!
I’ve read 3 books (really good imo) and only want to read 3 from the list. Wasn’t really a fan of the list as you can tell but then again I don’t really get tempted to read contemporary literature in general.
Love this guys. Ive been reading classics with a smattering of modern lit, but looking to get into more of these. Also, bearded bros with books is a great corner of the internet i need to join.
Pirate Divers actually jives with a Fictional story I'm working on! I was looking for something like this for research purposes and inspiration, especially non fiction! Thanks 🙏
I'm more familiar with The Guardian but it's basically interchangeable with the NYT. I would say pretty much any review or list they do of anything doesn't use 'quality' or 'how good' as the primary unit of analysis, but rather 'how Guardian/NYT' it is, or 'how good it is within a progressive liberal framework'. I'm not some rabib, culture war mongering type, but this is just inescapable when you read their reviews. Anything that can be seen to be giving a voice to some form of minority group or individual is immediately elevated in its consideration, for example
I think it's great that publishers and other media outlets are taking notice of books written from members of communities that normally wouldn't even have a shot. It doesn't necessarily mean that the work isn't deserving of publication or praise. I think for me it's more bothersome to be afraid to give praise to someone because they don't check a specific box. But alas, you can't really blame the NYT for catering to their readership. It's a sensible business practice.
Heavy on the lack of diversity and American/English centered books cause damn, I feel like some of the books are really underwhelming and there are good translated books not in the list. But again, it's subjective I guess? One thing for sure, one good thing about the list is that i got to see this kind of video and lots of book recommendation 😂
Oh God . . . 🤦♂️ Let's base the merit of a book based on the sex and skin pigmentation of the person pictured on the back cover flap? Cmon. I'm so tired of identity politics
The lack of punctuation is hard for me to get behind... I understand it on an artistic level. In Sam Selvon's Lonely Londoners he does it for a chapter and it helps to portray the hot and frenetic buzz of the London grind, but with Joyce I just ended up having to use an audio companion to figure out WHERE THE PUNCTUATION SHOULD BE. lol. So, just include the punctuation?
A lot of the books on the list seemed like weird choices. There wasn’t a lot of diversity, mainly literary fiction and some nonfiction, which was disappointing. I have very mixed feelings about the list itself because the ranking is weird, but several of my favourite books (The Goldfinch, Station Eleven, The Road, Gilead) were on there, and several on my imminent tbr (Trust, Kavalier and Clay, Atonement, Cloud Atlas, The Overstory, Lincoln in the Bardo). On the other hand, two dnf’s - Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow; and A Visit from the Goon Squad - were also on there. The NYT did also just release a top 100 list based on reader submissions and I think it’s better. More diverse genres and better selection overall. Can’t wait for them to do it again in the 2048 lmao
No way was a fan, it is like they took 100 book agents, authors, some celebrity I did not know. Smashed the people into their top 10 books and published it. I did not see any books that were great in my book. One of my books was an African American author but the books they chose authors in this ethnicity was so obscure, that I had to even think. I think it was a lot of list of being PC with political topics or political angst of the other side of the aisle, that I rolled my eyes at about first 25 books. Then I just rolled my eyes, and being the completist in me… I continued to read this list. Waste of my time to finish the list. If they were going to be so PC there are more minorities in the literary sphere that I expected at least one. As for Woke, I quit watching at this point… 7:02
The first year of the 1st century was 1 AD. Therefore, if you add 100 years to it, the start of the 2nd century would be 101 AD. Each century begins with a year ending in 01 and ends with a year ending in 00. For example, the 2nd century starts in 101 AD and ends in 200 AD.
@@xrxsux3204 I wasn’t aware of that until I just looked it up. Seems like the wrong way to count something but I guess that’s historically what we’ve done
@@MadMaxFuryRose the 2000s do start with the year 2000, but the 21ST CENTURY didn't technically start until the year 2001, because the first recorded year of AD was year 1, not year 0. That means when we got to year 100. The first century was years 1-100. The 2nd century was years 101-200, and so on.
Vegetarian and Convencience Store Woman are the only two books I've read in this century that even crack my top 100. I also think the list was reader voted though? That makes it slightly more understandable about the placements but it does seems a weak century overall so far.
Shalom from Israel 👋 Just stumbled on your podcast, it's an instant sub for me 💯 When you refused to use the Word "diversity" I felt that 😂 I feel like the word is tainted or highjacked, like many other words. It's too bad reality got so twisted these days, this specific instance is just a daily reminder. Can't wait to check out your content.
K guys..really wanted to give y’all a shot but 16 mins in we’re talking about sharon stone and MIA kahlifa.. and really almost 20 mins in before the actual topic began.. why do white guys all think every last thing they have to say is important enough to be on a podcast.. anyway.
@@Lifeonbooks yet here you are responding claiming to not care.. responding the same day of my initial comment mind you.. doesn’t quite add up to not caring ://
The Hebrew Bible doesn't have ANY Punctuation and the sentences go loooong usually, which is where the Author of Blood Meridian got his stylistic inspiration. Blood Meridian is a master work in terms of Craft no doubt, but the Gnostic ideaology it preaches is poison to Western Culture, which ruins the entire work for me.
![ทุกครั้งที่หลับตา (Lucid Dream) - AYLA's [ Official MV ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/4i1OBAQyv58/mqdefault.jpg)
The original list:
100. Denis Johnson: Tree of Smoke
99. Ali Smith: How to Be Both
98. Ann Patchett: Bel Canto
97. Jesmyn Ward: Men We Reaped
96. Saidiya Hartman: Wayward Lives Beautiful Experiments
95. Hilary Mantel: Bring Up the Bodies
94. Zadie Smith: On Beauty
93. Emily St. John Mandel: Station Eleven
92. Elena Ferrante: The Days of Abandonment
91. Philip Roth: The Human Stain
90. Viet Thanh Nguyen: The Sympathizer
89. Hisham Matar: The Return
88. Lydia Davis: The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis
87. Torrey Peters: Detransition, Baby
86. David W. Blight: Frederick Douglass
85. George Saunders: Pastoralia
84. Siddhartha Mukherjee: The Emperor of All Maladies
83. Benjamin Labatut: When We Cease to Understand the World
82. Fernanda Melchor: Hurricane Season
81. John Jeremiah Sullivan: Pulphead
80. Elena Ferrante: The Story of the Lost Child
79. Lucia Berlin: A Manual for Cleaning Women
78. Jon Fosse: Septology
77. Tayari Jones: An American Marriage
76. Gabrielle Zevin: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
75. Mohsin Hamid: Exit West
74. Elizabeth Strout: Olive Kitteridge
73. Robert A. Caro: The Passage of Power
72. Svetlana Alexievitch: Secondhand Time
71. Tove Ditlevsen: The Copenhagen Trilogy
70. Edward P. Jones: All Aunt Hagar’s Children
69. Michelle Alexander: The New Jim Crow
68. Sigrid Nunez: The Friend
67. Andrew Solomon: Far from the Tree
66. Justin Torres: We the Animals
65. Philip Roth: The Plot Against America
64. Rebecca Makkai: The Great Believers
63. Mary Gaitskill: Veronica
62. Ben Lerner: 10:04
61. Barbara Kingsolver: Demon Copperhead
60. Kiese Laymon: Heavy
59. Jeffrey Eugenides: Middlesex
58. Hua Hsu: Stay True
57. Barbara Ehrenreich: Nickel and Dimed
56. Rachel Kushner: The Flame Throwers
55. Lawrence Wright: The Looming Tower
54. George Saunders: Tenth of December
53. Alice Munro: Runaway
52. Denis Johnson: Train Dreams
51. Kate Atkinson: Life After Life
50. Hernan Diaz: Trust
49. Han Kang: The Vegetarian
48. Marjane Satrapi: Perseopolis
47. Toni Morrison: A Mercy
46. Donna Tartt: The Goldfinch
45. Maggie Nelson: The Argonauts
44. N. K. Jemisin: The Fifth Season
43. Tony Judt: Postwar
42. Marlon James: A Brief History of Seven Killings
41. Claire Keegan: Small Things Like These
40. Helen Macdonald: H Is for Hawk
39. Jennifer Egan: A Visit from the Goon Squad
38. Roberto Bolano: The Savage Detectives
37. Annie Ernaux: The Years
36. Ta-Nehisi Coates: Between the World and Me
35. Alison Bechdel: Fun Home
34. Claudia Rankine: Citizen
33. Jesmyn Ward: Salvage the Bones
32. Alan Hollinghurst: The Line of Beauty
31. Zadie Smith: White Teeth
30. Jesmyn Ward: Sing, Unburied, Sing
29. Helen DeWitt: The Last Samurai
28. David Mitchell: Cloud Atlas
27. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Americanah
26. Ian McEwan: Atonement
25. Adrian Nicole LeBlanc: Random Family
24. Richard Powers: The Overstory
23. Alice Munro: Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage
22. Katherine Boo: Behind the Beautiful Forevers
21. Matthew Desmond: Evicted
20. Percival Everett: Erasure
19. Patrick Radden Keefe: Say Nothing
18. George Saunders: Lincoln in the Bardo
17. Paul Beatty: The Sellout
16. Michael Chabon: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
15. Min Jin Lee: Pachinko
14. Rachael Cusk: Outline
13. Cormac McCarthy: The Road
12. Joan Didion: The Year of Magical Thinking
11. Junot Diaz: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
10. Marilynne Robinson: Gilead
9. Kazuo Ishiguro: Never Let Me Go
8. W. G. Sebald: Austerlitz
7. Colson Whitehead: The Underground Railroad
6. Roberto Bolano: 2666
5. Jonathan Franzen: The Corrections
4. Edward P. Jones: The Known World
3. Hilary Mantel: Wolf Hall
2. Isabel Wilkerson: The Warmth of Other Suns
1. Elena Ferrante: My Brilliant Friend
Not the here we deserve, but the hero we need!
so happy i was recommended y'all's combined social feeds, quality of life has increased ten times over and coming away with so many new books for my TBR!!!
Glad to have you here!
I consider myself well read but have only finished 28% of this list. I urge people to read Persepolis, a graphic work of nonfiction, not simply because it tells an often unheard or misunderstood story - essentially about life in modern Iran but also about life as an Iranian woman in Europe - but because it is hilarious, brutal, and tragic in equal measure. You'll be wiser for having read it. In terms of fiction, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Erasure, and The Last Samurai are all modern classics - boldly imaginative, confidently handled, and funny.
Thank you for the recommendations!
@@Lifeonbooks yes Persepolis is fantastic!
Fantastic video! I’ve added a few more books to my TBR list.
I haven’t read many of the books in the original list, as I read a lot of literature in translation (or in its original form, if I can) but I was very glad to find some of my favourite authors there, (Bolaño, Sebald…)and I’m pretty sure they will outlast many others who I didn’t care about so much. I also missed Krasznahorkai, Houellebecq and Cartarescu, but as you pointed, it was a list heavily influenced by American literature and big publishers.
So cool that you are trying to read a book from every country.
I was sad when the video ended. This is such a great video. There are a lot of books in it that I never heard about. I shared this video in my book club. Thank you so much for the recommendations. Greetz from Belgium.
@@booksieman well good news, we have a back catalog of 20+ episodes, and we have new shows out every Friday!
Very glad you enjoyed it, thank you for watching 🙏
Bought 5 of the books on your lists. I can say I think you guys did a great job
@@melissaaugust7016 which ones did you get?
@@Lifeonbooks War Trash, Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming, The Anarchist Who Shared My Name, Same Bed Different Dreams:, I also got The brother and Rainbow stories from last weeks podcast
@@melissaaugust7016 Great choices! Andy loves Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming. I haven't read it yet, but just got a copy this week.
@@Lifeonbooks Andy's book picks scare me I'm difinitly not smart enough for 90% of the books he reads but I am enjoying Rainbow stories so far
@@melissaaugust7016 nobody's smart enough for them, I think that's part of the fun 😂
I found Tony on Tik Tok a while ago and have been a fan of his content since then. I always appreciate your thoughts on books even if they differ from mine. Your thoughts and opinions are always well put and informative.
Love the episode! Thank you for all your gear recommendations
My understanding is that The Pale King was a posthumous nominee for the Pulitzer. There was no winner in that year. (2012). Other contenders were Swamplandia!, and Train Dreams by Denis Johnson
Great lists and discussion! Glad I stumbled on this channel
@@user-mc9sg9fw3w great to have you here!
just stumbled across this vid and really enjoyed! curious if y’all read 2666 by Roberto Bolano? ite a translated work and it’s gotta be one of my all time fave books. also the Vegetarian by Han Kang was super enjoyable. cool to see she made your list!
I haven't read 2666 yet!
For me some books that would be my list would be, The Good Women of China - Xinran, Almond - Sohn Won-Pyung, The Death of Vivek Oji - Akwaeke Emezi, Transcendent Kingdom - Yaa Gyasi, Piranesi - Susanna Clarke, Ring Shout P, Djeli Clark
Thanks for the conversation and the presentation of your personal selections (and of course my TBR has expanded) - this is my first encounter with your channel, but I will definitely be watching more!
Any attempt to create a "Best Of" is doomed to failure. As far as I can tell, this is an inbuilt feature of the application of any methodology.
The first obstacle is subjectivity: what is meant by 'best'? "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 second obstacle is statistics: when you ask 500 people what the 10 best books are, what you ultimately get is a popularity contest.
I think it's safe to say that "The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century" is a list of pretty good popular books. Are they the "best" books? No. Are they pretty good though? I think so. The ones I read, at least.
I enjoyed all 25 of the books I've read from the list and, while I don't agree with their specific ranking, only one of them feels undeserving of being included - Nickel and Dimed, though I did still enjoy it. In addition to these 25, I own 22 of the others but have yet to read them - and there are a few more that I am interested in that I don't own yet.
If you haven't already, I would recommend The Book Review podcast episode in which some of the editors discuss this project. They acknowledge many of the challenges in constructing something of this nature - the definition of best, recency bias, anti-recency bias (that is, not voting for newer books to see if they stand the test of time), literary snobbery (the limited representation of genre fiction), fiction v. non-fiction, translation. Of course, none of this 'improves' the list, but it is an interesting discussion (at least, it was to me).
[If anyone's curious, these are the ones I've read: (95) Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel, (93) Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, (91) The Human Stain by Philip Roth, (87) Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters, (85) Pastoralia by George Saunders, (82) Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor, (57) Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich, (54) Tenth of December by George Saunders, (50) Trust by Hernan Diaz, (49) The Vegetarian by Han Kang, (44) The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin, (41) Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan, (39) A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, (35) Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, (28) Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, (24) The Overstory by Richard Powers, (21) Evicted by Matthew Desmond, (20) Erasure by Percival Everett, (18) Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders, (17) The Sellout by Paul Beatty, (16) The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, (13) The Road by Cormac McCarthy, (11) The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, (10) Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, and (3) Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel.]
@@dylansbooknook3544 thanks for the pod recommendation, I'll check it out!
City of Theives. Fantastic. It prompted me to read The Siege of Leningrad which Benioff used as a resource. So glad to see this on your list.
The New York Times did their usual half-fast job on the list. I think those surveyed were asked to do a Top Ten without ranking. Yes, contemporary writing has gone down in quality. No writer on the list should have been mentioned more than once.
Completely concur
Well, if you lay down a law that no writer can be on the list more than once, that's automatically using some criteria other than just the quality of the writing.
How can you claim that writing quality has decreased but suggest that the best of the best writers cannot be on the list multiple times?
Great episode. Really enjoy the attention to quality literature you guys are putting out into the world. Also, I work in a bookstore, and one of the perks is advanced copies of books. Herscht 07769 reads really well for being a continuous sentence. You hardly notice by the time you get 40-50 pages in, except for when you occasionally need to put it down and don't know where to stop. One of my favorite reads of the year so far for sure!
Thank you!
I love your content guys, I have been reading a lot due to a back injury while serving. But dam, the cost to get some of these books to Australia is eye watering. The manifold of destiny is like $51 before shipping costs.
Holy shit…you guys are amazing…please keep it up. That quote from Tinker’s gonna haunt me.
No plan on stopping. Thanks for being here!
It’s a bit serendipitous that this came across my suggested videos, after trying to post on Reddit looking for recommendations. Mostly reading “literary” fiction myself, I find most of my favorite books are works by Hemingway, Henry Miller, Philip Roth, Bukowski, Nabokov, etc. I was trying to find some newer books that scratch that desire for literature without feeling like I’m reading a modern day novel written for entertainment only. I think the last book I read that was newer that resonated with me was by David Foster Wallace. So this list will do me some good in searching for my next read. That said, a number of these are definitely not from the 21st century. Nevertheless, great list. I’ve subscribed.
Wild that you picked pachinko out of all those books to say it doesn't belong on there lol especially with cavilier and klay right next to it
I don't think it belongs in the top 15.
@@Lifeonbooks Well since I've read so few of the top 15 I wouldn't know.
Maybe you could make an episode on how you guys find books to read, or select which ones to read. I am not on tiktok or instagram, and I would think most of those recommended book are the ones pushed by large mainstream publishers and fall in the whipped-cream, marshmallow fluff mind. Same with "best books ever" sorts of list on the various good reads lists. While those lists may be decent for choosing classic novels, the newer stuff that is truly good is overwhelmed by the mindless dribble with the same dull topics and tropes, with snazzy flowery covers. So, where do you find your books?
Well, I should clarify. How does Tony pick his books? Because it looks like Andy picks them by weight.
@@kurtfox4944 that's a great idea for a podcast topic
Here are my top reads:
My Struggle Vol. 1 by Karl Ove Knausgaard
Austerlitz by WG Sebald
Inventory of Losses by Judith Schalansky
Disgrace by JM Coetzee
Homer and Langley by EL Doctorow
Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson
A Chronology of Water by Lydia Luknavitch
Outline by Rachel Cusk
Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon
Pocket Atlas of Remote Islands by Judith Schalansky
American Prometheus by Kai Bird
An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Artist by Cesar Aira
Artforum by Cesar Aira
Conversations by Cesar Aira
I just picked up Jesus' Son!
Damn actually found another Homer and Langley fan in the wild. I love EL Doctorow. Nice list.
No one ever mentions Benioff and City of Thieves. I was happily surprised by it and read it before GoT. This is a fantastic book. Great pick!
And imho I feel there are authors that wrote their novels without going into it saying “I’m going to write a book without punctuation”. Like Joyce. Or Proust who wrote very long running sentences.
So a reader sees the story play out as they read and don’t find themselves hung up on “missing” punctuation.
If I can’t understand the point, and find myself feeling the meaning or the point of the story is lost - it’s a poor choice and a gimmick. But that’s me.
lol. Everything I’m about to write is what Andy is saying right now. 😂
José Saramago does this so so well, you never notice that the sentece you reading started 4 pages ago, hehe. 💖
Have you read Tove Ditlevsen’s The Copenhagen Trilogy? It was number 71 in the nyt list hehe. Beautiful read, if you haven’t already read it.
I added a lot of new books to my 'want to read' pile, thank you for the recommendations! I'm especially interested in the Sympathizer and Same Bed Different Dreams. Unfortunately, the only book within your top tens that I've read was The Road by Cormac McCarthy, and it was a big let down for me. I felt like it didn't hold up compared to other dystopians that dive into the cruelty of humanity, and that it was gratuitous to the point of senselessness. I kept comparing it to The Parable of the Sower/The Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler, which I thought held a lot more meaning within it. (Butler is one of my favorite authors of all time, and I love to hear your thoughts on her work if any of it interests you).
I'm nowhere near well-read enough to try and pick out the best books of the 21st century, but I want to give a shout-out to A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. I read this in middle school, actually. My friends all passed it among each other at our lunch table, and we came together to gush and cry about it to each other. Its story of the plights of women, and the bonds they form in spite of their pain resonated with us. Because of how it brought me and my friends together as young girls in a time when we were learning what it meant to be women, it was a foundational book to me, and thus it has to be among my personal best.
I've heard great things about A Thousand Splendid Suns and I plan on reading it!
Hey guys if you want a quick thriller and translated work, you should check out "Tommorow they won't dare to murder us" by Joseph Andras. It was tied for the Prix Goncourt. It is amazing. Keep up the work, I love your podcast and reels. My top 3 from 21st century is : Against the day - Thomas Pynchon, Tommorow they won't dare to muder us, and 4 3 2 1 - Paul Auster/ Stella Maris - Cormac McCarthy, also your list clears NYT.
pretty much the only thing they got right in the list was Elena Ferrante in my opinion.
Not for me. After that first book, I stopped reading. I have some of her other books and will try to give "her" another chance, but as far as post WWII Naples is concerned, this is it.
@@danicadabic9789 the first is alot of setup and is also my least favorite, but from he second on it really picks up storywise. I would recommend you give it another shot or if not, at least the 'Lost Daughter' is seen as the precursor for her Neopolitan novels
Check out “Solenoid” by Mircea Cartarescu.
I’m about 3/4 through! Probably would’ve cracked my list had I not gotten distracted by other books and finished in time
This IS a hard list to put together so I commend you two on it. I was not expecting "The Pale King" but I would have added it as my pick.
Have either of you discussed this book? I much prefer it to Infinite Jest. Much funnier and sadder, in my opinion.
I only just got a copy a few days ago. I don't believe Andy has read it yet.
@Lifeonbooks It's smoother than "Infinite Jest." It can see that it would have been much longer but it does work as a book "as is." It feels more complete that people make it sound (to me, at least).
Hi! I actually don't like the "Best sth of all time" tag in aynthing. Anyway, I would like to recommend a book called "Death and the dervish" by Mesa Selimovic. Not many people know about it and I think it is right up your alley. Best regards 😊
I’m new here, so I don’t want to assume. But is it fair to say you guys don’t read that much stuff written by women?
No
@@Lifeonbooks That's good to hear. Still sad that only one - I think - seems to have made it on your combined top 20.
@@myriam8190 don't read too much into it (pun intended).
We didn't do any kind of thorough analysis of every 21st century book we've read, and then ranked them accordingly. Even Andy said in the episode there was a book he intended to put on his list, and then when he actually grabbed the books to bring over for the recording, forgot to include it.
This is very much a couple of friends who like to read, talking about a trending topic in the book world.
Without having any actual data in front of me, I'll venture to say that maybe 30-40% of my reading are from women authors, however I'm very against book counting, as well as quotas. There are some fantastic women writers past and present, and I hope people are reading those books because they are great books that bring people joy when they read them, not because they feel they have to hit a certain amount of books written by women.
With all of that said, our 2nd pick for our book club (which is only on its 3rd book), was written by a woman. We have an episode coming out in two weeks about women in translation, as well as an episode about our favorite books written by women. So I hope you stick around for those, and I appreciate you watching and taking the time to comment!
@@Lifeonbooks Thanks for taking the time to reply. I really appreciated the discussion and I definitely plan on sticking around!
I agree with a lot of what you just mentioned. It's definitely not about quotas. Sometimes it's just about exposure and going out of one's confort zone. It's just that sometimes it's disheartening because I feel some people (not saying you guys) seem to have a bias (even if unconscious) against books written by women.
So I was curious after watching the video seeing as there weren't that many mentioned. :)
@@myriam8190 I totally agree with you about exposure and subconscious bias. There's absolutely no doubt that women haven't been given the same opportunities as men in publishing (and so many other arenas), and as someone that really enjoys finding the hidden gems of books, there's certainly a lot to pick from from women, because there have been fantastic writers that weren't given an opportunity or their due over the years.
I also need to do a better job of remembering that when someone stumbles upon something we've posted, this may be the first thing they ever see from us!
Didn't know majority of the books that you've mentioned but checking them out. Thank you, guys! Great conversation on books. Just subscribed ❤
@@qnMeanne thank you 🙏
Love the grey matter books shirt (I have my own)! Is that the CT or the MA location?
I've been to both, but the MA location is a bit closer to me, and is where this shirt is from.
@@Lifeonbooks hell yea! I want to college around there and it’s my favorite used bookstore ever
I think that if you met the individuals on the judges panel you would totally understand the results.
Tony, one to recommend for your Non-fiction pile in 21st century: Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
Sounds morbid!
I’ve read 3 books (really good imo) and only want to read 3 from the list.
Wasn’t really a fan of the list as you can tell but then again I don’t really get tempted to read contemporary literature in general.
Books are no longer admired or published because they’re the best, but because the author ticks certain boxes.
I think to a certain extent that's true, but the box most publishers want checked is that they already have a social media following.
Books have never been published just because they're good. We just remember the good literature of the past rather than the bad.
Love this guys. Ive been reading classics with a smattering of modern lit, but looking to get into more of these. Also, bearded bros with books is a great corner of the internet i need to join.
@@clothbound.connoisseur welcome!
Pirate Divers actually jives with a Fictional story I'm working on! I was looking for something like this for research purposes and inspiration, especially non fiction! Thanks 🙏
I loved Piranesi... I also read a few other's on the list which i found pretty mediocre
I've not read any of the books in the Times list. Hmm?
The surname Nguyen is pronounced 'win'. Great video, added some more books to my mounting tbr list!
I'm more familiar with The Guardian but it's basically interchangeable with the NYT. I would say pretty much any review or list they do of anything doesn't use 'quality' or 'how good' as the primary unit of analysis, but rather 'how Guardian/NYT' it is, or 'how good it is within a progressive liberal framework'. I'm not some rabib, culture war mongering type, but this is just inescapable when you read their reviews. Anything that can be seen to be giving a voice to some form of minority group or individual is immediately elevated in its consideration, for example
I think it's great that publishers and other media outlets are taking notice of books written from members of communities that normally wouldn't even have a shot. It doesn't necessarily mean that the work isn't deserving of publication or praise.
I think for me it's more bothersome to be afraid to give praise to someone because they don't check a specific box.
But alas, you can't really blame the NYT for catering to their readership. It's a sensible business practice.
Heavy on the lack of diversity and American/English centered books cause damn, I feel like some of the books are really underwhelming and there are good translated books not in the list. But again, it's subjective I guess?
One thing for sure, one good thing about the list is that i got to see this kind of video and lots of book recommendation 😂
Loved the conversation but a little disappointed to see pretty much only male authors in your picks
Then recommend something that would fit the list instead of starting a controversy about it.
Strange comment
Oh God . . . 🤦♂️ Let's base the merit of a book based on the sex and skin pigmentation of the person pictured on the back cover flap? Cmon. I'm so tired of identity politics
Well it is a best of list…
@@brockeldon444 Exactly
The lack of punctuation is hard for me to get behind... I understand it on an artistic level. In Sam Selvon's Lonely Londoners he does it for a chapter and it helps to portray the hot and frenetic buzz of the London grind, but with Joyce I just ended up having to use an audio companion to figure out WHERE THE PUNCTUATION SHOULD BE. lol. So, just include the punctuation?
A lot of the books on the list seemed like weird choices. There wasn’t a lot of diversity, mainly literary fiction and some nonfiction, which was disappointing. I have very mixed feelings about the list itself because the ranking is weird, but several of my favourite books (The Goldfinch, Station Eleven, The Road, Gilead) were on there, and several on my imminent tbr (Trust, Kavalier and Clay, Atonement, Cloud Atlas, The Overstory, Lincoln in the Bardo). On the other hand, two dnf’s - Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow; and A Visit from the Goon Squad - were also on there. The NYT did also just release a top 100 list based on reader submissions and I think it’s better. More diverse genres and better selection overall. Can’t wait for them to do it again in the 2048 lmao
@@alexmorales7907 agreed!
No way was a fan, it is like they took 100 book agents, authors, some celebrity I did not know. Smashed the people into their top 10 books and published it. I did not see any books that were great in my book. One of my books was an African American author but the books they chose authors in this ethnicity was so obscure, that I had to even think. I think it was a lot of list of being PC with political topics or political angst of the other side of the aisle, that I rolled my eyes at about first 25 books. Then I just rolled my eyes, and being the completist in me… I continued to read this list. Waste of my time to finish the list. If they were going to be so PC there are more minorities in the literary sphere that I expected at least one. As for Woke, I quit watching at this point… 7:02
Things really hot up at 7:03
Why would “the 2000’s” not start with the year 2000? lol
The first year of the 1st century was 1 AD. Therefore, if you add 100 years to it, the start of the 2nd century would be 101 AD. Each century begins with a year ending in 01 and ends with a year ending in 00. For example, the 2nd century starts in 101 AD and ends in 200 AD.
@@xrxsux3204 I wasn’t aware of that until I just looked it up. Seems like the wrong way to count something but I guess that’s historically what we’ve done
@@MadMaxFuryRosewe need a year 0 to get everything to line up
@@MadMaxFuryRose the 2000s do start with the year 2000, but the 21ST CENTURY didn't technically start until the year 2001, because the first recorded year of AD was year 1, not year 0. That means when we got to year 100. The first century was years 1-100. The 2nd century was years 101-200, and so on.
Because a millenia ends on the thousandth year, not the 999th year. Just like it can't be a century without the 100th year.
Apparently the century doesn't start on the 1 anymore...at least I heard that a few years ago....I don't get it
@@marcelhidalgo1076 yeah I think society just couldn't handle it 😂
Clearly nobody’s either an engineer or computer scientist. Counts start at zero.
❤🎉❤🎉❤
Vegetarian and Convencience Store Woman are the only two books I've read in this century that even crack my top 100. I also think the list was reader voted though? That makes it slightly more understandable about the placements but it does seems a weak century overall so far.
There were two lists, the original one that the NYT put out, and then they did a follow up with a reader's choice.
Kang just won the Nobel! 🎉
👍🏾
Shalom from Israel 👋 Just stumbled on your podcast, it's an instant sub for me 💯 When you refused to use the Word "diversity" I felt that 😂 I feel like the word is tainted or highjacked, like many other words. It's too bad reality got so twisted these days, this specific instance is just a daily reminder. Can't wait to check out your content.
K guys..really wanted to give y’all a shot but 16 mins in we’re talking about sharon stone and MIA kahlifa.. and really almost 20 mins in before the actual topic began.. why do white guys all think every last thing they have to say is important enough to be on a podcast.. anyway.
@@tz7245 why do you think you're important enough to comment like we care if you like the podcast or not?
@@Lifeonbooks yet here you are responding claiming to not care.. responding the same day of my initial comment mind you.. doesn’t quite add up to not caring ://
@@tz7245 while I appreciate that typing up a few sentences may take a great amount of time and effort for you, that's not true for everyone.
Can I party with you guys?
Of course, my bro.
The Hebrew Bible doesn't have ANY Punctuation and the sentences go loooong usually, which is where the Author of Blood Meridian got his stylistic inspiration. Blood Meridian is a master work in terms of Craft no doubt, but the Gnostic ideaology it preaches is poison to Western Culture, which ruins the entire work for me.
I already want to reread Blood Meridian. You don’t need to keep selling it to me by saying it poisons western culture
@@Metafictional.meathead Don't you need a permission from your parents, though? You little rascal, you. What a big, bold rebel you are. 😘