Earlier this summer, the New York Times shared its "Best Books of the 21st Century So Far (gift link)". I love books and I love lists so I was excited to check it out. But I have to say my reaction to the list could be sort of summed up as a sad trombone "womp womp" kind of sound. I have read 27 books on the list but can't say I loved many of those 27. I should not be surprised because award-winning "high brow" types of books often don't work for me. Maybe I am not smart enough to enjoy them? Who knows. Others in my book club had more success with the list and I joked that it's probably because of their liberal arts college education. As an aside, I have a colleague who is always talking about the superiority of liberal arts colleges and I am 99% sure she knows that I did not go to a liberal arts college.
I recognize I am very late to the party of talking about this list, but better late than never, right? Here are the 27 books I have read along with my quick thoughts/spicy takes on those books. I'll bold the ones I really liked.
1. My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante - How was this number 1? I didn’t like this book and would have abandoned if I wasn't reading it for book club (sorry, NGS!!).
2. The Known World by Edward P. Jones - This won the Pulitzer so unsurprisingly I did not care for it. In my goodreads review, I noted that I didn't care for the really large cast of characters and the non-linear timeline that moved backwards and forwards in a confusing manner.
3. The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead - I liked this book but did not love it.
4. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro - Meh. This is a dystopian novel which is a genre that I generally don't care for.
5. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson - I liked this one and gave it 4 stars (which seems like an inflated rating in hindsight) but didn't feel compelled to read any other books in the series.
6. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion - I loved this book and remember flagging so many of the passages. It's a beautiful and heartbreaking memoir about losing her husband and dealing with her daughter's health crisis.
7. The Road by Cormac McCarthy - I loathed this book and gave it 1 star which is really saying something! It's dystopian and I remember long stretches of dialogue with no identifier to indicate who was talking.
8. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee - I really liked this book and learned so much about the dynamics between Japan and Korea which I was completely unaware of.
9. Evicted by Matthew Desmond - I liked this book although "like" seems like the wrong adjective to use when the topic (housing stability) is very heartbreaking.
10. Atonement by Ian McEwan - I didn't love this when I read it in 2007 but my tastes have changed so much that I don't trust 26yo Lisa's view of the book. I would consider re-reading this one.
11. Americanah by Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie - I really liked this book about a Nigerian immigrant living in the U.S.
12. Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward - I gave this book 4 stars so must have really liked it but I do not remember much about it - but I read it when Paul was about 7 months old so it's not surprising that I don't remember much about it.
13. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates - I liked but didn't love this book.
14. Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan - I really liked this slim novel by an Irish author.
15. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt - Meh meh meh. Way too long.
16. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi - I loved this graphic memoir about growing up in Tehran during the Islamic revolution.
17. Trust by Hernan Diaz - This novel told in 4 parts was a very uneven reading experience for me - I nearly abandoned it during the first section but stuck around as people raved about the 4th section. It was good but not great IMO.
18. Runaway by Alice Munro - We read this for book club otherwise I wouldn't have picked it up. It was just ok (sorry, Nicole! I know how much you love Munro!).
19. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides - Another 1 star book.
20. The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai - I loved this book! It's about the AIDS epidemic in Chicago in the 80s.
21. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout - Another book that I adored. I flagged so many passages fo this book.
22. Exit West by Mohsin Hamid - I gave this 2 stars as I did not care for the detached writing style and the magical realism plot device.
23. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin - I adored this book about a male/female friendship.
24. An American Marriage by Tayari Jones - LOVED this book about a marriage disrupted by the wrongful imprisonment of the husband.
25. Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters - Infidelity featured prominently in this story line and that was the kiss of death for me.
26. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel - I liked this more than I like most dystopian novels but I didn't love it like others did and I've come to realize that St. John Mandel is just not for me.
27. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett - I have loved every Patchett book I have read - except this one which I gave 2 stars. I read it back in 2008 so I do give some side eye to 27 yo Lisa's opinions on books, but I remember disliking it so much that I can't bring myself to re-read it. How was this the most beloved book by Patchett? My favorite of her works is Commonwealth.
Out of the 27 books I've read 11, were successful but I'd probably only include The Great Believers, Olive Kitteridge and An American Marriage on my list of the 10 best books of the 21st Century so far if by "best" we mean most impactful. Other books I would include on that list are
- Commonwealth by Ann Patchett
- Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
- And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Housseini
- This is How it Always is by Laurie Frankel
- When Breath Becomes Air Paul Kalanithi
- The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne
- Tiny, Beautiful Things Cheryl Strayed
It’s also worth noting that of the 11 books I really liked, 10 were written by women. I have certainly noticed that books written by men are often less successful for me. I am not sure what the gender breakdown was for the NYT list but would venture to guess the majority were written by men.
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So, can we still be friends? What did you think of the NYT list? If your views differed greatly from mine, that is helpful info as I might be your anti-book twin meaning you might want to avoid books that I love! I felt that the NYT list that was crowd-sourced from readers was far a better list with more titles that had me nodding my head.
20 comments:
I had only read FIVE books on the NYT list and didn't agree with much of anything. I do disagree on Olive Kitteridge as I found that book so depressing (and a bit formulaic after reading some other Elizabeth Strout books).
I also didn't love My Year of Magical Thinking, but I read it at a different "era" of my life and think it might resonate with me more now?
When Breath Becomes Air is one of the most beautifully written memoirs I have ever read. I think I've read it three times and it breaks my heart every single time. SO POWERFUL!
You know I agree with you 100% on My Brilliant Friend. How can one book be so polarizing. It reminds me a bit of that optical illusion dress: do you see white/gold or blue/black. I loathed just about everything about that book and it was a true slog for me. That said, I'm SO glad I read it because I can participate in fun discussions like this. And I will admit that I did want to know how the story arc played out (pretty horrible, surprise, surprise) and read synopses on the other three books in the series.
I actually loved My Brilliant Friend and read the whole series as one long book around the time that the 4th one was published. And I respectfully disagree with you about Gilead. I have read 3 of her 5 books and loved them all. Home, not Gilead was my favorite. That said, I felt that in many cases the author was right but the book was not. I have read much of what Ann Patchett has written and agree that Commonwealth was excellent -- probably my favorite of all her books I have read. I preferred Whitehead's Sag Harbor a coming of age story to The Underground Railroad. But what I love about the list is how it has gotten everyone talking about books! Hooray for that!
I liked My Brilliant Friend okay, then I enjoyed the middle two books quite a bit, and I liked the last book up until the epilogue, when, if it had been a physical rather than an audiobook, I would have thrown it across the room. I HATED the end more than any other book I can think of. My favorite on the list is The Emperor of All Maladies, which is a long, non-fiction book about cancer, which doesn't scream page-turner, but it's very compelling. I think I also enjoyed it because we were living in Madison, WI at the time, and one of the cancer researchers used to take walks on the trail where I ran (and is now named after him!) so it was a cool connection.
You're way ahead of me. I've only read 3 of the 100 books, and DNF'd a few more. Station Eleven was a hit for me, MBF was a miss, and I forget the 3rd book but it wasn't memorable. Hey to each their own!
Oh, I feel like the vast majority of books I read are written by women. Probably 80-90%. I just don't think men write women all that well. There's always something weird and degrading about their physical descriptions? I read 31, but honestly, I just don't read much by men or that much nonfiction - I think because as a social scientist, I read and write nonfiction all day long?
Look, you and Stephany wrote about the list at the same time! I posted today about My Brilliant Friend and the other books in the series, which I loved.
I had never heard of Homegoing, and now so many people are talking about it, I have it on hold at the library. I'm glad for lists like this that get people talking, and can decide whether to read other books as well.
Regarding The Road, seems like most people hated it. I loved it, though it broke my heart. One really interesting thing the author did with the punctuation was to change it up...when they got some food and nutrition, he used better punctuation and formatting. Then when they were starving again, it went to hell. Is that enough to make someone like a book they hate? No. But it was an interesting idea.
Homegoing!! Yes!! That book deserves all the accolades and I'm pretty upset it's not on the list. I adore My Brilliant Friend, of course, but I realize that it was pretty divisive in CBBC land.
I think we can still be bookish friends. You've never steered me wrong re: picture books!
ooh, Homegoing. LOVE that one. But I also loved Middlesex!! 1 star? (I mean - it is kind of a pediatric endocrinology driven novel, so I may have been primed to like it!). I also feel kind of meh about the list but I also found it really fun to talk about, so from that standpoint - keep at it, NYT!!
PS I enjoyed Bel Canto, State of Wonder, Commonwealth, The Dutch House, and These Precious Days but I actually think my favorite Ann Patchett is Tom Lake!
I feel like we have similar reading taste, for those books that are on the list and you didn't care for ,same here. Of those that you'd add, I read these and love them
- Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
- When Breath Becomes Air Paul Kalanithi
- Tiny, Beautiful Things Cheryl Strayed
I will save those that you loved to TBR! it's hard to find someone to have similar reading taste. :)
I thought the book list was pretty meh overall. Yes, some there that I enjoyed and even thought were excellent. But it seemed like there were major omissions. I think I read about 20 of them, maybe more (it was a bit since I saw it) but I wasn't knocked out.
This NYT book list sure generated a lot of strong feelings! People have such different tastes in books- I think you and I are a little like anti-twins, reading wise. One thing that strikes me from this list is the amount of dystopian novels- it's a subject I've been steering clear of lately because it just stresses me out. I think you also like character-driven novels a bit more than I do. We do agree on Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow- I liked that one.
Ooh, I loved this post, Lisa. I had read 25 of the books on the list and disliked many of them, particularly My Brilliant Friend Hello. Thanks for sharing your other favorites! I have some new books to add to my TBR.
I've read two of those books with two more on my to-read shelf.
Isn't it interesting how different books are received differently by different people? I know many who loved Station Eleven and I didn't, I know many who didn't like Olive Kittridge, but I loved it. Goes to show, there's book out there for everyone.
If you liked "The Year of Magical Thinking," you should check out "A Three Dog Life" by Abigail Thomas. This was a bestseller but has faded from popularity. I'm on a mission to encourage more people to read her books!
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates - this book is not asking you to love it. It is asking you to open your eyes to see beyond your own world view
I have not read any of the books you mention here. I've not looked closely at the NTY list, but I'm enjoying reading the books that people agreed with/didn't agree with. I must come back here the next time I am looking for something to read. A few of the books you mention sound good to me. I am not into sci-fi or dystopian, etc. I like things to mirror real life, I guess. Maybe I'm boring or unimaginative. To each their own though. ;)
I want to do a post on this even though I am way behind the eight ball!!
On the original list, I have "read" (I count DNFs as read so that I don't go back and accidentally try to read them again) 33 of them. However, I would say at least 4 were DNFs and at least 5 were given 2 stars, so I am not sure that any of them were really hits out of the park for me. My favorite of all that I read was probably Station Eleven, but I did not give any books on this list five stars. I think the original list is kind of a joke.
For the reader list, I have read 70 of them, and my ratings are much higher! I really loved The Nightingale, Educated, All The Light We Cannot See, Empire of Pain, and When Breath Becomes Air.
PS Covenant of Water is WAY TOO LONG, I could not get into Little Life, and I DNFed Girl, Woman, Other, I think because there was no punctuation and I kept getting distracted.
Wow, it's amazing how we disagree on a few books - I thought we were more aligned! I JUST listened to and loved Gilead, The Road, and Commonwealth (on your recommendation). At the time the list came out, though, I'd only read... MBF! I am using your post, Elisabeth's recent top five/bottom five fiction post, and Stephany's NYT post to build my "I really need to read this TBR", so THANK YOU! I have a feeling we'll overlap on a few more, eventually. ;)
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