After the New York Times published their list of the 100 best books of the 21st century, I saw quite a bit of commentary on it. There was expected criticism of the books on the list and books people thought should have made the list. Other posts from readers talked about how many of the 100 books they read and what their favorites were. I'm going to take the latter approach.
As I combed through the list, I was surprised to find that I only read 7 of the books. The ones I read (and their ranking on the NYT list in parenthesis) were:
- The Overstory by Richard Powers (24)
- Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (28)
- Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (36)
- The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemison (44)
- The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (46)
- Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (76)
- Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (93)
There were a few more on my TBR that I haven't gotten to yet, but I also hadn't heard of many of the books. You may also find it surprising that I didn't give any of the 7 books I read a 5-star rating since they are supposed to be among this century's best. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and Station Eleven were my favorites from the list, and they both received 4-star ratings. They were good books but not great. In retrospect, I should have expected this because my 2020 reading challenge to read New York Times bestsellers did not go well.
As a curated list, I don't place much weight on the NYT best books of the 21st century because I know that my tastes differ from what lands on their bestseller lists. I did find the online discussions about the list to be a positive outcome because people should talk more about books. The list also provided me with some candidates to add to my TBR. Based on past experiences, I may not enjoy them as much as other books, but IMHO you can't go wrong with reading more books.
