the problem with the "100 best books of the century" list (as someone who contributed to it) 

It should have been titled 'The 100 best American books of the 21 Century' because if around 90% of the list is centered on American narratives and authors then the magnificent literature of entire continents was deliberately ignored as usual to cater to the sensibilities of Americans. There's nothing wrong with celebrating American literature but sidelining Asian, African and Latin American masterpieces to accommodate American books has been a recurring theme and it needs to change.

Honestly very shocked that not a single one of Khaled Hosseinis books are on the list. I consider them very influencial and they are still in my fav books of all time.

Jack looks like a conspiracy theorist in the thumbnail, and I’m HERE for it

They played an old study video of yours in assembly yesterday. The teacher talked very highly of you and I was very excited 😊

I always come back to your videos because you have such a way of expressing yourself that’s so sure and confident while also leaving so much room for other opinions and truths. Your opinion is the only one I value when it comes to book recommendations because as you said my time (and money) are precious to me. I’ve read about 15 of your book recommendations this year and not a single one disappointed me.

I’m never going to stop mentioning that Cindy and Jack gave us a great list of books. LISTEN TO THEM!

the problem w a list like this is that it’s inherently going to be mostly novels from white western countries, who deserve to have their stories told, but there isnt enough emphasis on books from smaller countries and less common perspectives

You gotta read Magnetic Aura from Borlest. Don't look it up or read anything about it. Just pick it up and read :D happy reading!

If the votes aren’t published it means that in theory books could be on that list that only got nominated by two people but because a few thousand only got one mentioned ones they maybe didn’t end up with enough books with multiple mentions to fill the 100 spots.

there's a book called Hidden Manifestation by Oliver Mercer, and it talks about how using some secret techniques you can attract almost everything in life it's not some bullshit law of attraction, it's the real deal

I appreciated how thoughtful your discussion around the limits surrounding this NYT list was. You managed to strike a balance between acknowledging important context while also not shutting down the pleasure we have in debating our favourites despite the impossibility of achieving an objective truth.

Hey Jack, I got a video suggestion if you already haven't done it: Take characters from popular movies and shows (whichever you like) and create a list of books you envision them reading. Instead of relying on books popular characters have been seen holding - make your own inagined list and how well read you image this character to be, or what kinds of tastes you think they'd have. You can put in stereotypical books and then thrown in a plot twist one that you wouldn't assume they'd read at first, but then it kinda makes sense or makes them be dynamic.

Westerners favourite hobby is inventing awards for themselves then saying shit like “THE BEST IN THE UNIVERSE”

I’m an avid AVID reader (it was a thing at high school that I was devouring books and reading a different one every week or day), and I’m going into the second year of English Literature and Creative Writing degree and I had only read three or four of the books and they were for the first year of my degree and I had heard of even less of the books. I had never heard of about 80% books on the list. But the ones I did read are really good. And it is really nice to see books that I haven’t heard about so that I can go and make a note of the ones that I want to read. 😁😁

My ten just for fun 1. They Can't Kill Us Till They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib 2. The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat 3. A Little Life by Hanya Yangahara 4. The Goldfinch by Donna Tart 5. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak 6. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong 7. Babel by R.F. Kuang 8. Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky 9. The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression by Andrew Solomon 10. Educated by Tara Westover/ The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

it should be called 'The US' 100 best books of the century" or 'The 100 American best books of the century"

over 40 mins you’re spoiling us!!

I had never heard about this list before the video, but I have one big opinion after watching this video! I think my biggest issue with this list is from a statistical perspective - 500 people is either way too few people to ask, or 100 books is a way too long of a list for this sample size. 500 people, 5000 votes and 100 books? I get a feeling that many of the books in the list got only two votes, and 'the little help from New York Times' was them deciding between all books that got 2, or it might even be possible that some of the books in the list got 1 vote only, and it was up to New York Times to decide which of those will fill in the remaining number short from 100. And, quite frankly, I think that this would be the biggest flaw of this list. I truly believe that the books are great and very influential, but there is no way that you can call them readers choice if you only surveyed 500 people and tooka whole 100 books out of that.

15:47 one possible factor on poetry: I don’t necessarily conceptualize a printed poetry collection as “book” in my mind. Yes, it obviously meets the criteria of being a book, but that’s not how my brain categorizes it. If asked, I would talk about my favorite poems or my favorite collections, in those terms. So this probably played into people neglecting to think of poetry when this survey went out. One of those how you ask the question matters situations?

Comment on Stephen King putting his own book on the list, if you not gonna put your own book, what do you do? Gotta believe in your work.

They tried so hard to be inclusive, but not one Indigenous American writer made the list, which automatically disqualified the list in my opinion. They basically "disappeared" us, again, in the list. I've read 7/100 of this list and did my masters thesis on "Citizen" by Claudia Rankine, the only poetry on the list. Thanks for your well-considered commentary.

I just graduated uni, and just now i discovered jack's uni vlogs, especially his rejection letter from oxford to study masters degree, jack you should react to that video after 4 years, cus it broke my heart, and to prove your motto PROVE THEM WRONG

Jack not considering himself a book expert is honestly hilarious to me

@Jack Edwards I'm totally with you concerning There, There. I feel Tommy Orange is a very important voice for an underrepresented population. Sherman Alexie was one of my very favorite authors. A National Book Award winner, he has since been "canceled." Thank you for another amazing and thought-provoking video!

was just watching your backlog of second channel videos because i needed something to do while i wait for my food to be delivered and then i see this was posted.......am being fed in SO many ways right now

Only from the US? Well that seems unfair.

How is the agressive averageness that is Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow on any of these lists 💀

The biggest problem with this list is that it doesn't include the words "so far". If you asked me the best books of the 17th, 18th, 19th or 20th century I could probably come up with a list, but we're only 24 years in. Give authors a chance to write all their books.

the 'this or that' minigame sounds like data collection for a statistical technique called MaxDiff which ranks overall preference of a list based off of loads of two-way choices. I wonder if this determined the final ranking, or at least contributed.

23:50 me when i got 11th in my graduating class and the top 10 got to give a speech

Another great video! I also want to take a moment to give you some thanks. I was not a "reader" until I watched your online content. Since the start of the year, I've read more books for leisure than the past 20+ years combined. Keep up the great work!

This video is long enough for me to cook AND eat my meal to. truly blessed 🙏🙏

You are the favorite English teacher I never had

If anyone could have balls enough to suggest one of their own books for the list of course it would be the most successful author of the 20th century and I love him even more for the sass of it XD

yes, i also probably couldn't tell you the specifics of a few of my favourite books. the feelings they evoked in me, combined with the context of the point in my life in which i read them, absolutely has dictated what i consider the most important books to me

I loved these lists because they led me to my new favourite book series. I bought My Brilliant Friend because it was the only book that made it into the top 10 of both NYT and readers lists, and immediately upon finishing it, I bought the next two books in the saga because I couldn't wait to spend more time with these characters. You are right, these lists, although flawed, are good to help us get through the noise, just as you do. You should partner with the NYT to reimburse me for the amount of books I have bought just because you said they were great. Thank you!

I thought this was a video from like a month ago, and then I checked and it was 4 minutes😭

Your video essays are BEAUTIFUL. Loved this!❤

THE COCONUT TREE REFERENCE LMFAOO its the fact that it fit so well into the conversation i have to give you my flowers for that

Best books lists are fun to discuss and I very much enjoyed your take on this one from the NYT. My friend and fellow booktuber Jolene noticed how few Canadian titles made the top 100, so we polled Canadian booktubers and other readers (and literary luminaries) and came up with a “top 67 Canadian books of the 21st century” - not having a team of book editors to help with curation, we simply tallied votes. Our list has generated discussion and raised awareness, which is exactly what we hoped for. BTW on the Book Riot podcast, there’s an episode with an interview with the NYT Books Editor answering questions about how the top 100 list was put together. The choice between two books follow-up exercises that you described was part of the curation process.

I'm getting started with that Jane Austen-inspired speech.

Give this man an honorary degree in psychology please and thank you

I love the cover you made for this video it’s so creative

I consider myself an avid read who has read a lot of books. But I haven’t read a single books on that list. A few are on my wishlist and some are from authors who’s other books I’ve read but I was still a bit shocked about the list. But it did anger me how us/english centric it is. Yes it’s a list by a us magazine asking (I assume) mostly native english people but then don’t call it best book of the century. Call it best English books or whatever. Don’t make a claim and then not include most of the world of literature 🙄 *Edit: so apparently that was a deliberate decision by the NYT but then they still should mention it in the list or the name.

thank you for commenting on this, jack! I was very angry at the limitation of having being published in the US! As a polyglot, I'm pretty sure there's a chinese language, francophone or even lusophone book that might be a national bestseller, prob sold more copies than many other books from the US, but because they weren't translated they were left off the list - 2 billion anglophones followed by 1.4 billion chinese people (not even chinese speakers) makes the odds look pretty good, let me tell ya

It’s also difficult because there are so many great books that I’ve given 4 stars and I think about all the time and recommend to people vs. the “best” books I gave 5 stars but can’t really remember much about?

It's interesting that the call out said published in The US in english, because does that mean originally published, or the bookncould be written before 2000, but the translation was published in the US after 2000. No wonder the few non-US books stuck out like a sore thumb. If I was given that question, I would have assumed books published by US authors writing in english.

Impressed with myself and not in a good way that my between my BA and MA in English I’ve only read one of these hundred books in full. I’m even more surprised that it’s We the Animals. Thought for sure of anything I’d read for my degrees to make this list, it’d be On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. One of these days I need to prioritize sitting down and finishing Fun Home in its entirety. Persepolis as well. As a graphic novel enthusiast I’ve dropped the ball on those two.

My list, in full recency bias: 1) Pod, Laline Paull 2) Bandit Queens, Parini Shroff 3) In the Dream House, Carmen Maria Machado 4) The Way of Kings, Brandon Sanderson 5) Uprooted, Naomi Novik 6) Bunny, Mona Awad 7) The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins 8) Diary of a Void, Emi Yagi 9) The Priory of the Orange Tree, Samantha Shannon 10) I'm glad my mum died, Jennette McCurdy Honourable mentions: yes Gone Girl should be on the list. Claire Keegan of course. And I think perhaps Twilight as the cultural impact of that 2005 book has been massive.

Am I the only one that is bothered by the fact that the 21st century starts on January 1st, 2001? 2001!

I am huge bookworm my whole life, I live on goodreads and in the library and I only recocnised 5 books on that list. 😂 Maybe because I am not from America, and english is not my first language, but still those are not 100 books of the century.

Nickled and Dimed is one of the very few books I can recall reading within a single 24 hour period. Definitely kept my interest.

Another problem is creating a list of top 100 books while asking people to submit only 10 books. I believe a lot of people have Harry Potter in their top 100 books but very few people have it on their top 10 list. So if the critics had been asked to submit 100 books instead of 10, Harry Potter would most definitely have made the final list. The way the voting was designed, a book that a handful people have in their top 10 and the rest of the world doesn't even have it in their top 100 would place better than a book that everyone has in in their top 100, but just not in their top 10.

i’ve been watching you for years Jack and in the era of social media where advertising and marketing is at the forefront of most things online, your honesty and transparency is so so refreshing. your integrity as a creator shines through constantly and as a viewer i appreciate it so much

4:05 to Clarify, Jack - if I remember reading correctly - The New York Times reached out to King first and asked if he wanted to contribute (I suppose because he's one of the best-selling living writers, hence they felt that courtesy was well-deserved). If I understood correctly, King Chose Under The Dome as his personal pick, and that appeared on the Critic's List, while for the Reader's List the fans voted for 11.22.63. Unless I'm misremembering, in which case someone correct me.

i think it would be interesting for readers to vote for the 100 best books from their countries. that way there’s more variety and gives lesser known books more recognition

Crying at the origin of nostalgia and also that Sally Rooney isn’t on this list!!!!!!

This inspired me to go through every book I've read to find my 10 lol (in no particular order) The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai Know My Name by Chanel Miller The Last Queen by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Part of Your World by Abby Jimenez I am I am I am by Maggie O’Farrell A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

Fingersmith by Sarah waters.. ANY Sarah waters, such a shame not to see her on the list.

i love you so much jack. i love how you talk about how books impact us as readers. it made me tear up. you put it so succinctly. you’re a gift. thank you so much for existing

I would have nominated these 10 books (in no particular order): 1. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel 2. Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield 3. Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley 4. An Immense World by Ed Yong 5. Stories of Your Life by Ted Chiang 6. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins 7. Piranesi by Susanne Clarke 8. This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal EL-Mohtar and Max Gladstone 9. Miracle Creek or Happiness Falls by Angie Kim 10. Bunny by Mona Awad I'm definitly more of a genre fiction reader with a particular weakness for Literary horror and sci-fi.

4:02 if i was Stephen king, I'd have submitted all my ten books fot the list.

A number of things: 1-Lobby the NYT to release a Top 100 list of books translated into English. (these are 90% of what I read.) 2-Read Umberto Eco's Infinity of Lists. 3-10 & 11--the difference between promotion & relegation. That's all I've got. Good work on all this. How long did this actually take to film?

I'd consider the newest translation of The Iliad as a book of the 21st century because translation is essentially a process that produces a whole new work of literature. A translation is entirely written by the translator using the ideas and the story by someone else but in making the book accessible in another language the translator themselves becomes the writer of that book in that language. It would be disrespectful to the work of translators to not consider their literary output as worthy enough or outdated. Because the thing is that The Iliad is not a book of the 21st century but in updating the book and translating it anew for a modern audience the translation very much is.

I read exactly one book on that list 😅🙈 The Fifth season. It is on the list very much deserved! And I have indeed added a few titles to my tbr😁

I've read over 100 books in the past year alone, and I only read one book on this list (say nothing). Truthfully, rarely do I venture into the 2000s, I tend to stay in the previous century. I didn't research any of the books, I only know the title and author from the video, but it seems to me that there aren't many history books on this list let alone historical fiction which feels more and more like a relic of the past. Historical novels can be the greatest form of storytelling possible but somehow this artform seems to be evaporating. To think that my connection with humanity and people my age (I was born after the turn of the century) is basically non-existent makes me sad, not because I want to be have more connection with the books of today (although I obviously do want that as well), but that there aren't more people my age that read historical fiction from the previous century (hard enough that most don't read at all...). Either way I think I had my share of whining about historical fiction for now, and I have no opinion of the list, as I know almost nothing about most of these books, other then agree how weird it is that Harry Potter didn't even make it onto the list and wtf is wrong with Stephen King lol.

My list (I was surprised how few books from the 21st century are my favourites - I think I prefer 20th) 1) Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel 2) Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens 3) The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory 4) Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel 5) The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid 6) My Dark Venessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell 7) The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini 8) The Mirror & the Light by Hilary Mantel (might as well go for the trilogy) 9) When All is Said by Anne Griffin 10)The Curious Case of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

I haven't thought for once that the list is not based on how many votes each book got! Shocker

I consider translations to lean towards the translator's original work more so than just a copy of the original in another language - considering the extra leg work the translator has to do and not only translating the work, but then taking the translation and making something poetic out of it. The Iliad is a perfect example of this because you cannot faithfully translate Greek into English without sometimes entirely changing the meaning and verbage because English simply doesn't have the words to describe concepts that were demonstrated in Homer (how color is described in Greek, if translated faithfully to English, sounds clunky and loses its meaning entirely), so in that sense the translator has to create new wording from a simple translation due to the difference in connotations from one language to the next - so I feel translations made in this century in English should be considered.

26:35 i feel like this view can apply to the way season 3 of Bridgerton was received(not to say it didnt have its flaws). People had spent so long with season 2 that nostalgia had set in,and it cast a shadow over season 3

The list has been a success in the sense that it has enervated so many folks to think about and express their opinions about books. Yay! It will be interesting to see how The Guardian’s list compares. Most memorable book: “Educated” by Tara Westover

I will tell you three of my favorites that are missing from the list: Fates and Furies, There There, and Homegoing. Thanks for this great video!

This is your friendly reminder to re read my favorite book The Master And Margarita thank you :)

I'm meh on the relative exclusion of genre fiction, mostly because I think most (not all!) genre fiction these days has devolved to commercial, mainstream entertainment with hardly any consideration for genuine "literary quality"-there are, of course, a few exceptions to this trend; I think in a few years, with some age, R. F. Kuang's books would've landed on a list like this, and I would've liked to see Ted Chiang here. Anywho, I feel like there used to be a time when genre fiction and literary fiction could be one and the same, i.e. Asimov, Atwood, Butler, Orwell, Tolkien, LeGuin, Dick, Borges, and other authors who wrote things like science and fantasy with high regard for the language, in addition to shaping the culture. If you made this list for the previous century, you would certainly see a lot of genre fiction ... In the end, I don't think this is snobbery or elitism: all the aforementioned authors were incredibly well-read and popular in their time, and their works aren't hard to digest, and even then, there's nothing wrong with wanting some sort of high aesthetic standard with regard to the art you're consuming, and that doesn't necessarily entail inaccessibility (Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Carver, and so many great American authors were/are so, so accessible). It also implies that genre fiction and literary fiction are not mutually exclusive, which some academics would try to suggest. Also, I feel like there's a good amount of genuinely good genre fiction, with literary value, on the list anyway. Saunders is arguably science fiction / speculative, especially the books of his which did land on the list. Everett and Beatty are certainly the best picks for satire/comedy here. The fact that Bolano landed two books here is a huge win for both translated fiction, as well as genre fiction in mystery, speculative, historical ... And are "The Sympathizer" and "Pachinko" not considered good reps of historical fiction? The list goes on. I feel like the criticism is less that genre fiction is underrepresented, and more so that the list is less of a popularity contest than we would've thought. Ultimately, I just think of Harry Potter as something that sold a lot of books and made it in front of a lot of eyes. It's the business around the intellectual property that's relevant in some way, not the books themselves. It's like making a "100 Best Movies of the Twenty-First Century" list and expecting an MCU movie on there-they make a lot of money, and a lot of people see them, and they have staying power in our culture, but are they really "good"? Anyhow, I like reading genre fiction, but I can only think of one or two books from this century that I would've considered putting on my ballot-but of course, there were almost always other books in literary fiction which ended up more deservingly taking my spots. Caveat: I think a lot of literary fiction nowadays isn't actually that great or refined, either. In fact, I was a bit shocked to see certain works of literary fiction on here. I don't think literary fiction automatically implies superiority. I can name countless genre fiction books that I think are more profound and beautiful than many literary fiction books.

i loved your tangent on nostalgia, it absolutely wasn’t unnecessary!!

Loving this deep-dive video essay style videos, Jack! Please do more please instead of the tired book hauls 😅

I'm sorry but Harry Potter not being there is criminal, regardless of the writer

it would be so fun to just exclude originally english-language books and curate / create a list of the best world fiction (published in this century in english for the first time)

I suggest you read these books, they are very special: The Souls Journey After Death by Ibn Qayyim Majmu al-Fatawa Ibn Taymiyyah Regarding Life After Death And Affairs Of The Unseen by Shykah Salih Fawzan Interaction of Greatest Leader the Prophet's Dealing with Different People by Muhammad Salih al-Munajjid The Last Prophet: Evidences for the Authenticity of Islam by Haitham Talaat JESUS: Man, Messenger, Messiah by Abu Zakariya Ibn Taymeeyah's Essay on the Jinn (demons)

I think the thing that personally bugs me about these types of lists is just how snooty the lists are. I think when people are told to think of the best piece of literature they can, they will immediately think of something grammatically astronomical, something where every word bleeds emotion and power, no matter whether the storyline was mediocre or not. If a book with a boring plot book is written in a way in which you know the author uses a thesaurus, then it will outshine another book that may have an amazing and entertaining storyline, but a simple and easy to digest writing style

Ive only read 4 books on this list: New Jim Crow The Goldfincher The fifth season Americanah How is there no Stephen king on this list? Seriously no 11/22/63?

On translations: translations are an art form in and of themselves. Translations aren't just a facsimile of the original. A good (even list-worthy) translation and a bad translation are worlds apart. In other words, translations are virtually their own product.

I think the NYT staff input was solid. I am a bookseller and I so often see on the translated copies on the main cover 'NYT bestseller' that it doesn't mean anything anymore. Is not a great list, in my opinion.

No Knausgård? At all? Wtf happened?? My Struggle is still the best piece of literature I’ve ever read, but it seems like no one is talking about it anymore

Jack, you are genuinely the best mealtime companion. It's like my smart friend who's contantly there to educate me as I go through my day.

I think I would enjoy maybe 10 of these books, about as pleasurable as most 'classics' to me

i forget how much i enjoy your videos until i click on one. always so enjoyable

All lists like this are in various ways biased and arbitrary, but for the NYT not to publish their methodology makes this list even less valuable than most. I don't think anyone should view this list as anything but a suggested reading list by the NYT editors. As such, it can be useful. But half the fun of lists like this is the apparatus of "objectivity," even when we know that it's not really objective. And the final list is painfully safe: all the books are ones that have received lots of attention and praise from precisely the kind of people you think of when you think of the NYT.

Never clicked faster

My country (Chile) had 3 out of the 5 latin American books on the list. That's just disrespectful. These kind of lists just keep on promoting the same books and the same American and European authors over and over again. It proves that the book industry its not interested in invest on authors from third world countries, even if they are incredibly talented. And its even sadder cause people who love to read made the list, so that means that the readers are not willing to give Spanish speaking authors a chance? They work hard to get their books publish but to get them TRANSLATED? that's like winning the lottery, most of the time it never happens. But when it does happen, they deserve some recognition. It's just so disappointing.

read the forbidden book Magnetic Aura on Borlest, and you'll see the secrets they're keeping from us.

Loved this video! I read 9 books from the nyt list & 29 from the reader's list

The New York Times is an authority for non-English speaking countries as well. And seeing this list made by literary lumineries was baffling, because many of these books did not echo outside of the US and UK that much. I suppose one cannot expect an American publication to be as inclusive, but it does frame itself as a list of 'best books of the century'. Not 'American best books of the century', or NYT bestsellers, which is why I expected more diversity from this list. The lack of genre fiction and YA is quite tragic. The Reader's List felt much more impactful and accurate of the literary landscape and, as you said, what you can see in bookstores. There I at least recognized the majority of the books 😂 And I am an avid reader, I've read over 450 books (excluding children's books), just... not the blatantly American ones which were not translated into Polish.

I've only read 1 of the books, and many I didn't even recognize.

Considering I've been working on a PhD for the past 6 years, I'm surprised I've managed to read 4 of the books on the critics list. There is no reading for pleasure in my recent past or future so you could tell me this list was perfect or it was atrocious and I would believe you.

Gaming journalism has a very similar issue. The reviewers only play a few hours of the game and may not be skilled at the genre of game but make a negative review based on possibly 1% of the whole experience of the game.

Apparently I don't read a lot of this century's books. I read only one on the list and that was for my degree 😅

Wow!! I’ve only read 3 of the books and I bought Pachinko, which was at 15, a few weeks ago. Hopfully in the few weeks I can increase my count to 4 😂.

It’s such a joy to listen to you talk about books. Thank you for this nuanced, thoughtful analysis. :)

I've only read 8 on the critics' list but read 35 on the people's choice.