NYT 100 Best Books of 21st C

NYT 100 Best Books of 21st C is an unranked selection published in 2024 — one of the 14 sources behind the book canon, weighted as major international poll. 20 of its 100 entries appear in the aggregated canon. Its scope (2000–present) is calibrated against unrestricted lists before scoring.

1. ·10:04 — Ben Lerner
2. ·2666 — Roberto BolañoCanon #226
3. ·A Brief History of Seven Killings — Marlon James
4. ·A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories — Lucia Berlin
5. ·A Mercy — Toni Morrison
6. ·A Visit from the Goon Squad — Jennifer Egan
7. ·All Aunt Hagar's Children — Edward P. Jones
8. ·Americanah — Chimamanda Ngozi AdichieCanon #193
9. ·An American Marriage — Tayari Jones
10. ·Atonement — Ian McEwanCanon #136
11. ·Austerlitz — W.G. SebaldCanon #91
12. ·Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity — Katherine Boo
13. ·Bel Canto — Ann Patchett
14. ·Between the World and Me — Ta-Nehisi Coates
15. ·Bring Up the Bodies — Hilary Mantel
16. ·Citizen: An American Lyric — Claudia Rankine
17. ·Cloud Atlas — David MitchellCanon #186
18. ·Demon Copperhead — Barbara Kingsolver
19. ·Detransition, Baby — Torrey Peters
20. ·Erasure — Percival Everett
21. ·Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City — Matthew Desmond
22. ·Exit West — Mohsin Hamid
23. ·Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity — Andrew Solomon
24. ·Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom — David W. Blight
25. ·Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic — Alison Bechdel
26. ·Gilead — Marilynne RobinsonCanon #171
27. ·H is for Hawk — Helen Macdonald
28. ·Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories — Alice Munro
29. ·Heavy — Kiese Laymon
30. ·How to be Both — Ali Smith
31. ·Hurricane Season — Fernanda Melchor
32. ·Life After Life — Kate Atkinson
33. ·Lincoln in the Bardo — George Saunders
34. ·Men We Reaped: A Memoir — Jesmyn Ward
35. ·Middlesex — Jeffrey EugenidesCanon #144
36. ·My Brilliant Friend — Elena Ferrante
37. ·Never Let Me Go — Kazuo IshiguroCanon #225
38. ·Nickel and Dimed: On — Barbara Ehrenreich
39. ·Olive Kitteridge — Elizabeth Strout
40. ·On Beauty — Zadie SmithCanon #187
41. ·Outline — Rachel Cusk
42. ·Pachinko — Min Jin Lee
43. ·Pastoralia — George Saunders
44. ·Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood — Marjane Satrapi
45. ·Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 — Tony Judt
46. ·Pulphead — John Jeremiah Sullivan
47. ·Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx — Adrian Nicole LeBlanc
48. ·Runaway: Stories — Alice Munro
49. ·Salvage the Bones — Jesmyn Ward
50. ·Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland — Patrick Radden Keefe
51. ·Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets — Svetlana Alexievich
52. ·Sing, Unburied, Sing — Jesmyn Ward
53. ·Small Things Like These — Claire Keegan
54. ·Station Eleven — Emily St. John Mandel
55. ·Stay True — Hua Hsu
56. ·Tenth of December — George Saunders
57. ·The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay — Michael ChabonCanon #228
58. ·The Argonauts — Maggie Nelson
59. ·The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao — Junot DíazCanon #227
60. ·The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis — Lydia Davis
61. ·The Copenhagen Trilogy — Tove Ditlevsen
62. ·The Corrections — Jonathan FranzenCanon #142
63. ·The Days of Abandonment — Elena Ferrante
64. ·The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer — Siddhartha Mukherjee
65. ·The Fifth Season — N.K. Jemisin
66. ·The Flamethrowers — Rachel KushnerCanon #230
67. ·The Friend — Sigrid Nunez
68. ·The Goldfinch — Donna TarttCanon #229
69. ·The Great Believers — Rebecca Makkai
70. ·The Human Stain — Philip RothCanon #145
71. ·The Known World — Edward P. Jones
72. ·The Last Samurai — Helen DeWitt
73. ·The Line of Beauty — Alan HollinghurstCanon #143
74. ·The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 — Lawrence Wright
75. ·The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness — Michelle Alexander
76. ·The Other Name: Septology I-II — Jon Fosse
77. ·The Overstory — Richard Powers
78. ·The Passage of Power — Robert A. Caro
79. ·The Plot Against America — Philip RothCanon #231
80. ·The Return — Hisham Matar
81. ·The Road — Cormac McCarthyCanon #190
82. ·The Savage Detectives — Roberto BolañoCanon #112
83. ·The Sellout — Paul Beatty
84. ·The Story of the Lost Child — Elena Ferrante
85. ·The Sympathizer — Viet Thanh Nguyen
86. ·The Underground Railroad — Colson Whitehead
87. ·The Vegetarian — Han Kang
88. ·The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration — Isabel Wilkerson
89. ·The Year of Magical Thinking — Joan Didion
90. ·The Years — Annie Ernaux
91. ·Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow — Gabrielle Zevin
92. ·Train Dreams — Denis Johnson
93. ·Tree of Smoke — Denis Johnson
94. ·Trust — Hernan Diaz
95. ·Veronica — Mary Gaitskill
96. ·Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women, and Queer Radicals — Saidiya Hartman
97. ·We the Animals — Justin Torres
98. ·When We Cease to Understand the World — Benjamín Labatut
99. ·White Teeth — Zadie SmithCanon #183
100. ·Wolf Hall — Hilary Mantel

List compiled and published by its original authors; positions shown as published. Canon ranks link to each entry's full evidence page.