Great list, great video! A few notable oversights I thought: Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo Seasons Quartet by Ali Smith My Struggle by Karl Ove Knausgaard No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood Ducks Newburyport by Lucy Ellmam James by Percival Everett The Bee Sting by Paul Murray Milkman by Anna Burns Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino There There by Tommy Orange House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami The Round House by Louise Erdrich
Always glad for your reportage, Eric! Also I had no idea you hadn’t read some of these! Last Samurai, The Friend, Gilead, Outline, and Munro, among others made my personal ballot list before all rankings were announced. I’d read 58 of the 100, which was a pleasant surprise. And of course I was delighted Ferrante to take #1! The Neapolitan novels have made me the reader I am today, I hope you love the series once you finish it! ⭐️
Nickel and Dimed is one of my favorite books of all time. Ehrenreich works different minimum-wage or low-wage jobs and explores the people, the working environment, and the difficulty of making it on so little. Great non-fiction work!
OMG. That's what I've been doing for my novel. An old acquaintance actually just made fun of me when she saw me at the grocery store working the cash. She straight out asked "All this education and you want to work here?" I guess I should quit now. Someone already did this project. I wanted to focus on women and especially single mothers and how impossible it is to get out of the poverty cycle when you can't even afford proper housing. Thanks for sharing that it's your favourite book. I will read this book now.
Nice work squeezing in commentary on 100 books into a half hour. I’ve read 17 of the books, which is lower than I was expecting. So many books, so little time. I really recommend Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams, it’s a short and easy read but packs a major punch. One of my favorites.
I had read 19 books. I thought like you, how American and English language biased it is. But it was fun going through the list and crossing out what I had read. There were so many books I hadn't even heard of. So happy Ferrante is on top. Deserved!
Thanks for this video. I've listed twenty-five novels that should've been on this list. A few of these were published in their original language before the 21st Century. Nonetheless, the English translation of all of these appeared in this century. Elizabeth Costello: J.M. Coetzee Satantango: Laszlo Krasznahorkai A Sense of an Ending: Julian Barnes The Map and the Territory: Michel Houellebecq I Curse the River of Time: Per Petterson In Memory of Memory: Maria Stepanova Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead: Olga Tokarczuk Milkman: Anna Burns Elena Knows: Claudia Piñeiro Solar Bones: Mike McCormack The Ice Palace: Tarjai Vesaas Heaven and Hell: Jon Kalman Stefansson The Passenger/Stella Maris: Cormac McCarthy Against the Day: Thomas Pynchon Solenoid: Mircea Cărtărescu Public Reading Followed by Discussion: Danielle Mémoire Indecision: Benjamin Kunkel Remainder: Tom McCarthy Ducks, Newburyport: Lucy Ellmann The Door: Magda Szabo All That Is: James Salter Barley Patch: Gerald Murname Lost Paradise: Cees Nooteboom The Promise: Damon Galgut Minor Detail: Adania Shibli
My tally was 24 + 2 of your extras - Ducks needed to be on that list - what were they thinking! Would have thought Trees, Milkman and Feast of the Goat by Vargas Llosa would have deserved a place too.
Thanx for doing your rundown. Here's a few books I thought they missed: The BeeSting; Jonathon Strange and Mr Norell; The Maniac; and Birnham Wood/The Lumineers
I’m disappointed that ‘The Books of Jacob’ by Olga Tokarczuk isn’t on the list - it is a door stop of a book but it was incredible - I can’t say enough good things about it.
I've read 52 and own 13 others with about that many more I know I'd like to read. I love this list. I didn't love each of the ones I've read, but I can see how they might make the list.
Hello Eric🙋♀️ The only novel I have read on the list is “White Teeth” by Zadie Smith. My favourite novels of the 21st Century: “The Essex Serpent” by Sarah Perry. “Still Life” by Sarah Winman. “Where the Crawdads Sing” by Delia Owens. “The Island” and other novels by Victoria Hislop.
I read 40 and want to read another 10. I would not have put Ferrante first. I would certainly have included Good Lord Bird. A mixed bag, but it’s impossible to limit the number of great books over 25 years to 100.
I live in the US (for now) I know for a fact that there is access to the works of Sayaka Murata and Mieko Kawakami. I even bought one of their books at a mall store in Florida so there’s no excuse for their absence.
I looked up the list and I’d read 18. However two of those were DNFd. I think Nonfiction should be a separate category. Can’t help thinking that if this list was made in U.K., Australia, Asia, Germany Europe… The list would be very different. Three books I’d add? Ohio / Deluge by Stephen Markley The Body Keeps The Score ( nonfiction) Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad Empire of Pain ( nonfiction) Great Circle Hidden Valley Road ( nonfiction) I cheated and did 3 of both.
I would add: Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal
I looked forward to this being announced each day. I ended up having read 29 and I was shocked at that. I will try to get to at least 50. I was so happy the Kazuo Ishiguro made it. I would’ve preferred The Road or Wolf Hall to have been number one just because they left a much bigger impact upon me. However, the number one pick is a great book. Kudos to you on all the editing you did for this video. As an aside, I love when you hold up your copies of the books because they often have different covers from the US ones. Your copy of Cloud Atlas is quite beautiful and your Americanah is quite striking. Your copy of The Road is also really interesting - it seems to be a negative exposure. I went ahead and added the first two books you recommended. The third, The Parcel, isn’t available on my app as an audiobook. I’ll check periodically, so I’ll wait on that one before I buy a physical copy. 44 is very impressive! Amazing job on this video.
Fun video. Did you take the NYTimes quiz related to the list? Its fun too. Here are my top: Ninth Street Women (Mary Gabriel-NF,) Leonardo da Vinci (Walter Isaacson-NF,) What Is the Grass: Walt Whitman in My Life (Mark Doty-NF,) Will in the World (Stephen Greenblatt-NF,) and Dispatches from the Edge (Anderson Cooper-NF) Out of the 10 I sent to the NYTimes, 9 were NF. 5 were memoirs or leaning toward memoir. 4 were biography. Its fun to learn these things about yourself, lol.
I completely agree. I understand the criticism it now receives but I think it will have a lasting impact and be considered a classic long past its contemporaries on the NYT list. Its unforgettable characters, LGBTQ+ themes and it’s behemoth size make it hard to ignore.
VERNON GOD LITTLE - DBC Pierre The Passenger/Stella Maris - Cormac The Sellout - Paul Beatty Sisters Brothers - Patrick DeWitt American War - Omar El Akkad Bewilderment - Richard Powers Super Sad True Love Story - Gary Shytengart You Shall Know Our Velocity! - Dave Eggers Then We Came To An End - Joshua Ferris
I’ve read 9 and want to read 3. I would add James, Tom Lake, Heaven and Earth Grocery Store. Any book by Jodi Picoult. Devotions by Mary Oliver. Braiding Sweetgrass. The Anthropocene. Rules of Civility and A Gentleman in Moscow. The Leftover Woman. The First Ladies.
I would've loved to have seen a James McBride book on this list! If I had to choose which one, I'd have to choose The Good Lord Bird. Another choice I think should've been on this list is The Love Songs of WEB Dubois.
I 100% agree that *Love Songs of WEB DuBois* should have been included. Also: Louise Erdrich!!!! I do have a success story about the list. A friend sent me a copy of Pulphead years ago....a hand -me down....and after I saw this list, I found it on my shelves. It had just been sitting there...I didn't even really know what it was! Because of the list, I started reading it and now I'm obsessed with the essays of John Jeremiah Sullivan. So good. ("Pulphead" refers to someone who writes for magazines...Sullivan's essays are wide ranging but always so smart and thoughtful and he does that magical, almost impossible thing in which he is very much, as a person, present in his work, on the page...but at a perfect calibration.Not as an ego, but as the best possible companion and guide). All in all, in my opinion, this is an okay list, but lacks diversity. I gather that the instructions to contributors were minimal., and that shows. It's unclear what "best" really means. However: I do think the NYT did a good job of linking each book to two or three other books, and including some of the ballots returned by writers. It made for a fun week of discovering the list little by little....
You are so prolific! Just finished 10th of December. George Saunders' stories are beautiful and painful. I read them because of your commentary about Lincoln in the Bardo, equally beautiful and painful and so imaginative,
I haven’t tallied up how many I’ve read however there are a few I would have liked to see included: Milkman by Anna Burns, Women Talking by Miriam Toews, Educated by Tara Westover. I agree with you about Lila rather than Gideon. In “Nickeled & Dimed” the author, Barbara Ehrenreich, consecutively worked at various minimum or low wage jobs and wrote about how daunting it can be to find housing and groceries as a sole provider in that situation. The dollar amounts of wage rates and rents are a bit dated but the reality remains.
I've read 29. Was very pleased to see Kavalier and Clay l, 2666, and The Savage Detectives on the list. I did find the US-centric nature to be disappointing if not entirely unexpected. I would have liked to see Margaret Atwood on the list as Oryx and Crake and Maddadam speak to our climate crisis. Also disappointing that Sarah Waters or The Luminaries weren’t including.
I really appreciate and admire your attitude towards lists, it’s so positive! I’m a bit greedy, I’d like fiction and non fiction to be separate so we can have 2 lists! On the issue of one author having several listings: on the one hand, if it’s truly excellent, shouldn’t they be recognised? On the other hand, it would be nice to see a wider variety of names. Could we put several books with one author as 1 entry? Finally, you’re right: where is all the work from the rest of the world? I know, there are a few, but it feels a bit perfunctory. I need to be less grumpy and adopt some of your positive vibes! Thank you again for an excellent video. (I love the chantlike repetition of “I want to read it”! The cri de cœur of all bibliophiles!)
Thanks for doing this as I can't see the list without subscribing to the NYT. I was surprised to find I have read 46 given there is naturally a bit of a US bias as it is an American publication. There are also a fair few I would like to get to. I love Ferrante but was surprised she not only got top spot but two others in the hundred. I was thrilled to see Hurricane Season though. Wolf Hall belongs in the top ten for sure. 2666 is great but I also think it is one of those books people rate highly because they are proud at having got all the way through it. Train Dreams and The Sympathizer would both be worth your time. Fun Home and Persepolis are two of the best graphic memoirs I have read. And reading Citizen is essential I think. Perhaps I will finally get to The Road inspired by this list. If I had to pick just one book to add to the list I think it might be Milkman by Anna Burns as it felt so fresh as well as deep.
You are in my mind. I was about to write I would put ducks, Newbury port in the list but you mentioned it yourself. As for Ferrante, I have read the book and in my opinion it is just a pleasant read, something to read in your holidays. I would never put it in the number 1, not even in the first 100.
I definitely agree about Ali Smith's Seasons Quartet. I read Autumn in the same week as I read Salman Rushdie's The Golden House, which was a powerful combination at a time when US and British current events were so stressfully turbulent. I always find it fascinating how books wax and wane in popularity. Some of the books that turn up all the time locally in the corner of booktube I tend to hang out in do show up in some lists, but not always, while some of the books on these sorts of lists are not just rarely mentioned, but are actually books I've never seen before anywhere.
Thanks for your insight on the list! I wish you gave a tiny bit more detail on why you liked certain novels. Definitely added Love Songs of WEB DuBois on my list!
Where's one of my favourite novels of all time - Small Island by Andrea Levy? I have read 19 from this list. Books I dnf'd - Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, The Vegetarian, White Teeth and The Known World!! Have made a list of 11 that I would quite like to read.
Im just about to start on my Ferrante journey too. Very much anticipated. By the way, i have a different cover for My Brilliant Friend...its nuch more appealing! That cover that you have has always put me off a little 😂
A very anglo- saxon list. Roth, Munro, Egan, McCarthy, Mcewan, Mantel, Hisham Matar are my favorites and I read them all. Strangely Auster and Delillo don't appear here.
I've read 48 of these books. Books I would certainly have included: Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen Barkskins by Annie Proulx LaRose by Louise Erdrich Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann (a contender for no1 really) The Book Of Illusions by Paul Auster The Master by Colm Toibin Deacon King Kong by James McBride
So many books, so little time! I would add I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger and Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell. I've only read about 6 on the list and hope to get to a few more this year.
My list might include The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, by Taylor Jenkins Reid; Babel, by RF Kuang; Woman at 1000 Degrees, by Hallgrimur Helgason; and The Garden of Evening Mists, by Tan Twan Eng. It is so early in the century though that I'm sure many of my current top books from this century will look very different by the time I'm done reading.
I wish they could do Top 100 per country 😁 also Gerald Murnane isn't on there! His final novel Border Districts is better than some of the books on the list I bet!
I read 35 and agree that the Ferrante books are really a series. I've read many of the authors listed but not these particular titles (ie. Ali Smith). Overall, I thought it was a decent list and reminds me to read many books I own but have not read yet. I enjoyed reading the picks by some of my favorite authors.
I went through, and I had read 19, and I only did "want to read" if I had on my shelf but haven't read. 26, I have 26. I need to get to reading! (Septology and The Copenhagen Trilogy were published as single volumes in the U.S. so I think that's why they're included as a whole)
I have read 21 and own another 7 not read yet. I agree with you about the multiples for an author. Would have liked to see more authors represented and then all with just one book on the list each. I'm mildly shocked that you have not read Middlesex or Kavalier and Clay - both quite popular and very good reads. For new books I would also echo that The Bee Sting by Paul Murray was quite memorable and well written. The Fifth Season being included on the list is really something, since it is a fantasy book. It is really almost it's own little genre by way of being so different. I am very interested in reading The Last Samurai - before this list came out I would have just assumed it was the source material for the Tom Cruise movie. LOL
I haven't read many of them. I did like The Year of Magical Thinking, especially the beginning of the book and then hearing about her daughter too. I'm reading The Warmth of Other Suns right now and like it a lot. I loved A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara which isn't on the list. I also liked Peace Like a River by Leif Enger and The Gift of Rain by Tan Tvan Eng which aren't on the list. One of my favorite books is Blackbird by Jennifer Lauck, also not on the list.
How embarrassing, I’ve only read 6 books off the list, 3 of them by Ferrante 🤣 My Brilliant Friend is my favourite book, I’m so proud of its place on the list
Not sure that I've read that many maybe 24? I'd add a few Australians, Praiseworthy by Alexis Wright, The Yield by Tara June Winch, The Living Sea of the Waking Dream by Richard Flanagan, Breath by Tim Winton, Limberlost by Robbie Arnott, The Weekend by Charlotte Wood, The Spare Room by Helen Garner, Sorry by Gail Jones, there's probably others that I'd consider maybe Lola in the Mirror by Trent Dalton or his other one, Boy Swallowed Universe. The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas or one of his others (but I haven't read them yet). So many others...
I abandoned it after the first book. I really didn't care for the characters one bit. Nor for the post WWII Naples. There was nothing I could latch on sadly. I have two of her other novels and I will give them a try but I am definitely not enamored with Ferrante.
I've read 30 of the list and want to read 26 of the other books of the list. I would have added In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado, The Bee Sting by Paul Murray, and How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair.
I think Septology is considered as 1 book with 7 parts published in 3 volumes. So for that one at least, it's right that the complete work is listed as one entry. Read 9, want to read 6.
I just finished The Love Songs of W.E.B DuBois earlier this month such a great book. Tom Lake of course. And I would add The Women by Kristen Hannah Hannah.
I've read 25 of their top 100, and would be interested in reading about 20 more, but with varying degrees of urgency. For funsies, I made my own top 10 of each fiction and non-fiction, which of course only includes books I've read myself (I have also yet to read Ferrante!). My list only overlaps with theirs with 3 fiction and 3 non-fiction. IMHO most egregious omissions on the NYT list are Milkman on the fiction side, and Braiding Sweetgrass on the non-fiction side.
Only one Book of Essays, No 90 what is it again, and NK Jamison’s Fifth Season is fabulous, but find out nothing else about it before trying it as it’s surprises are wonderful
I've read 51... some of which I didn't love. Interested in 15 of the others. But there are a lot on the list that are not calling my name. Read Denis Johnson's Train Dreams! So amazing!
I've read the first four of the Caro biography but have doubts whether he'll ever publish the fifth. They're very, very good. Another one I've read is Roth's Human Stain. which was part of three, with Larsen's Passing and Bennett's Vanishing Half. All three were good, and I was particularly struck by the sharpness of Bennett's prose. And maybe the only other in the hundred was Demon Copperhead. I read it just after David Copperfield, which was a mistake. However, it's done well enough already without my input, so let it be, right? To be honest, I'm still struggling with the best of the 20th cent, like Faulkner and Steinbeck.
This list seems so arbitrary to me. Of the ones on the list I've read, two of them nare most memorable because I disliked them so much! I would have liked to see The Kite Runner, Cloud Cuckoo Land, Piranesi, and The Book Theif on the list.
I’ve read 72 of these. Two of my personal top ten are on it (H Is for Hawk and Lincoln in the Bardo). I would have chosen a different Chabon, a different Kingsolver and a different Patchett but was delighted to see all 3 represented. I think the list is way too American-centric and the fact that there is only one Irish author on it is absurd. Where is Niall Williams’ This Is Happiness? Where is A Little Life? As you say, this is really about generating discussion, which it certainly has done.
I have only read 24! However there were a lot of DNF 's. Like you, was aware of how there was a definite lack of an international flavour. Some books I felt should have been on include Nadeem Aslam: The Wasted Vigil, or any of his other books. And Susannah Clarke : Piranesi or Mr Strange and Jonathan Norrell. Also, no Margaret Atwood, Colm Toibin and so on.........
Also upset at the lack of diversity - Asian and African writers are virtually ignored. Was glad to see Persepolis and The Fifth Season though. I really didn't like the first Elena Ferrante book so haven't read any of the others. Agree with previous posts that Olga Tokarzcuk, A Little Life and Milkman are weird omissions. I've read 35. Also agree with the multiple books by the same author - do we really need anything other than Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders? Thanks for your review as ever.
I've only read 8 of these. Even within that 2 of those books weren't even my favourite by that author. I would argue all day for Foster over Small things like these and The Nickel Boys over Underground railroad. Also, no Douglas Stuart? I won't even bother complaining about how US centric the list is. But in my view, this list isnt complete without Elena Knows by Claudia Pineiro.
@@niallgoulding122 I agree regarding Foster over Small Things. I also agree with Nickel Boys over Underground. And Anna Burns’ Milkman should not only be on the list, but in the top ten.
@@TKTalksBooks I must read Milkman. I have it on my shelf for years but found it too intimidating to start. Seeing all the love for it in this comment section, I'm going to give it go next month. Thanks for the rec
They should only have allowed one book per author. Train Dreams is a must! Say Nothing is stunning, also The Known World. I have read 22 of the 100 books.
I am not impressed by this list. I do not like Elena Ferrante. IDK why. She's just not my kind of writer; definitely not number one kind. I really want to read The Plot Against America by Roth b/c Asymmetry is one of my favourite novels and Lisa H. had an affair with Roth which is described in that book. It's quite well done. And then of course the second part... Well, I won't spoil it. I did absolutely love The Goon Squat. What a brilliant concept of time (she did admit she was influenced by The Swan's Way trilogy). That should've made the top ten. I'm glad Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is on this list. Also, Stay True was amazing. I can't believe books like The Glass Castle didn't make this list, on overcoming generational poverty, or Wild on overcoming grief and addiction. IDK. Seems a bit elitist.
