100 New York Times Best Books of the 21st Century

Updated 9 days ago
100 Books
nytimes

As voted on by 503 novelists, nonfiction writers, poets, critics and other book lovers — with a little help from the staff of
The New York Times Book Review.

Position	Details	Rating	Readers Count
#1	My Brilliant Friend Elena Ferrante Ann Goldstein (Translator)	4.06	365 reads
#2	The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration Isabel Wilkerson	4.46	105 reads
#3	Wolf Hall Hilary Mantel	3.92	265 reads
#4	The Known World Edward P. Jones	3.63	45 reads
#5	The Corrections Jonathan Franzen	3.85	199 reads
#6	2666 Roberto Bolaño Natasha Wimmer (Translator)	3.86	108 reads
#7	The Underground Railroad Colson Whitehead	4.03	446 reads
#8	Austerlitz W.G. Sebald James Wood	4.29	33 reads
#9	Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ishiguro	3.82	1,075 reads
#10	Gilead Marilynne Robinson	3.96	140 reads
#11	The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Junot Díaz	3.72	327 reads
#12	The Year of Magical Thinking Joan Didion	4.03	274 reads
#13	The Road Cormac McCarthy	4.04	1,473 reads
#14	Outline Rachel Cusk	3.74	119 reads
#15	Pachinko Min Jin Lee	4.24	589 reads
#16	The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay Michael Chabon	4.22	324 reads
#17	The Sellout Paul Beatty	3.83	131 reads
#18	Lincoln in the Bardo George Saunders	3.89	302 reads
#19	Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland Patrick Radden Keefe	4.46	228 reads
#20	Erasure Percival Everett	4.32	60 reads
#21	Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City Matthew Desmond	4.6	188 reads
#22	Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity Katherine Boo	3.97	104 reads
#23	Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories Alice Munro	4.1	24 reads
#24	The Overstory Richard Powers	4.07	311 reads
#25	Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx Adrian Nicole LeBlanc	3.73	15 reads
#26	Atonement Ian McEwan	3.89	373 reads
#27	Americanah Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie	4.24	335 reads
#28	Cloud Atlas David Mitchell	3.93	545 reads
#29	The Last Samurai Helen DeWitt	4.33	39 reads
#30	Sing, Unburied, Sing Jesmyn Ward	4.08	178 reads
#31	White Teeth Zadie Smith	3.83	182 reads
#32	The Line of Beauty Alan Hollinghurst	3.84	42 reads
#33	Salvage the Bones Jesmyn Ward	3.75	81 reads
#34	Citizen: An American Lyric Claudia Rankine	4.09	74 reads
#35	Fun home Alison Bechdel	4.04	337 reads
#36	Between the World and Me Ta-Nehisi Coates	4.56	568 reads
#37	The Years Annie Ernaux Alison L. Strayer (Translator)	4.25	26 reads
#38	The Savage Detectives Roberto Bolaño	4.07	62 reads
#39	A Visit from the Goon Squad Jennifer Egan	3.8	319 reads
#40	H is for Hawk Helen Macdonald	3.87	133 reads
#41	Small Things Like These Claire Keegan	4.13	418 reads
#42	A Brief History of Seven Killings Marlon James	4.01	74 reads
#43	Postwar Tony Judt	4.5	22 reads
#44	The Fifth Season N. K. Jemisin	4.34	1,275 reads
#45	The Argonauts Maggie Nelson	4.03	116 reads
#46	The Goldfinch Donna Tartt	3.95	712 reads
#47	A Mercy Toni Morrison	3.91	27 reads
#48	Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood Marjane Satrapi Mattias Ripa (Translator)	4.39	434 reads
#49	The Vegetarian Han Kang Deborah Smith (Translator)	3.54	481 reads
#50	Trust Hernan Diaz Ada Arduini (Translator)	3.78	195 reads
#51	Life After Life Kate Atkinson	3.68	227 reads
#52	Train Dreams Denis Johnson	3.94	61 reads
#53	Runaway: Stories Alice Munro	3.91	35 reads
#54	Tenth of December George Saunders	4.05	163 reads
#55	The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 Lawrence Wright	4.43	56 reads
#56	The Flamethrowers Rachel Kushner	3.43	36 reads
#57	Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America Barbara Ehrenreich	3.62	161 reads
#58	Stay True Hua Hsu	4.09	90 reads
#59	Middlesex Jeffrey Eugenides	4.14	390 reads
#60	Heavy Kiese Laymon	4.55	47 reads
#61	Demon Copperhead Barbara Kingsolver	4.39	424 reads
#62	10:04 Ben Lerner	3.45	37 reads
#63	Veronica Mary Gaitskill	3.2	9 reads
#64	The Great Believers Rebecca Makkai	4.5	127 reads
#65	The Plot Against America Philip Roth	3.63	104 reads
#66	We the Animals Justin Torres	3.5	49 reads
#67	Far from the Tree Andrew Solomon	4.29	29 reads
#68	The Friend Sigrid Nunez	3.8	82 reads
#69	The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness Michelle Alexander	4.55	188 reads
#70	All Aunt Hagar's Children: Stories Edward P. Jones	4.5	5 reads
#71	Childhood / Youth / Dependency Tove Ditlevsen Tiina Nunnally (Translator) Michael Favala Goldman (Translator)	4.05	17 reads
#72	Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets Svetlana Alexievich Bela Shayevich (Translator)	4.36	26 reads
#73	The Passage of Power Robert A. Caro	4.68	22 reads
#74	Olive Kitteridge Elizabeth Strout	4.01	164 reads
#75	Exit West Mohsin Hamid	3.79	220 reads
#76	Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow Gabrielle Zevin	4.1	1,648 reads
#77	An American Marriage Tayari Jones	3.92	242 reads
#78	Septology Jon Fosse	4.9	5 reads
#79	A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories Lucia Berlin	4.3	51 reads
#80	The Story of the Lost Child Elena Ferrante Ann Goldstein (Translator)	4.4	126 reads
#81	Pulphead John Jeremiah Sullivan	4.14	18 reads
#82	Hurricane Season Fernanda Melchor Sophie Hughes (Translator)	4.08	75 reads
#83	When We Cease to Understand the World Benjamín Labatut Adrian Nathan West (Translator)	4.07	160 reads
#84	The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer Siddhartha Mukherjee	4.25	169 reads
#85	Pastoralia George Saunders	3.89	69 reads
#86	Frederick Douglass Prophet of Freedom David W. Blight	4.24	25 reads
#87	Detransition, Baby Torrey Peters	4	167 reads
#88	The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis Lydia Davis	4.17	9 reads
#89	The Return: Fathers, Sons, and the Land in Between Hisham Matar	3.5	16 reads
#90	The Sympathizer Viet Thanh Nguyen	4.06	212 reads
#91	The Human Stain Philip Roth	0	3 reads
#92	The Days of Abandonment Elena Ferrante Ann Goldstein (Translator)	4.18	57 reads
#93	Station Eleven Emily St. John Mandel	4.08	1,277 reads
#94	On Beauty Zadie Smith	3.78	96 reads
#95	Bring Up the Bodies Hilary Mantel	4.32	135 reads
#96	Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval Saidiya Hartman	4.67	12 reads
#97	Men We Reaped: A Memoir Jesmyn Ward	4.41	37 reads
#98	Bel Canto Ann Patchett	3.81	170 reads
#99	How to Be Both Ali Smith	3.75	53 reads
#100	Tree of Smoke Denis Johnson	4.08	17 reads