hardcover
Hardcover

100 New York Times Best Books of the 21st Century

As voted on by 503 novelists, nonfiction writers, poets, critics and other book lovers — with a little help from the staff of
The New York Times Book Review.

#1

My Brilliant Friend

#1 of 4 in L'amica geniale

2011 • 571 Readers • 331 pages 4.1

#3

Wolf Hall

#1 of 3 in Thomas Cromwell

2009 • 484 Readers • 26 pages 3.9

#4

The Known World

2003 • 94 Readers • 388 pages 3.4

#5

The Corrections

2001 • 281 Readers • 662 pages 3.9

#6

2666

#1 of 5 in 2666

2004 • 332 Readers • 898 pages 3.9

#7

The Underground Railroad

2016 • 671 Readers • 306 pages 4.1

#8

Austerlitz

2001 • 87 Readers • 265 pages 4.4

#9

Never Let Me Go

2000 • 1,543 Readers • 282 pages 3.8

#10

Gilead

#1 of 4 in Gilead

2004 • 242 Readers • 289 pages 4.1

#11

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

2007 • 419 Readers • 360 pages 3.8

#12

The Year of Magical Thinking

2005 • 457 Readers • 5h 1m 4.1

#13

The Road

2006 • 1,676 Readers • 287 pages 4

#14

Outline

#1 of 3 in Outline

2014 • 229 Readers • 249 pages 3.7

#15

Pachinko

2017 • 1,056 Readers • 496 pages 4.3

#16

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

2000 • 350 Readers • 966 pages 4.2

#17

The Sellout

2015 • 230 Readers • 289 pages 3.8

#18

Lincoln in the Bardo

2017 • 443 Readers 3.9

#20

Erasure

2001 • 115 Readers • 320 pages 4.5

#21

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City

2016 • 341 Readers • 434 pages 4.6

#23

#24

The Overstory

2018 • 604 Readers • 502 pages 4.1

#26

Atonement

2001 • 553 Readers • 144 pages 3.9

#27

Americanah

2013 • 581 Readers • 608 pages 4.3

#28

Cloud Atlas

2003 • 941 Readers • 509 pages 3.9

#29

The Last Samurai

2000 • 99 Readers • 484 pages 4.5

#30

Sing, Unburied, Sing

3 Bois Sauvage

2017 • 299 Readers • 285 pages 4

#31

White Teeth

2001 • 308 Readers • 448 pages 3.9

#32

The Line of Beauty

2004 • 76 Readers • 516 pages 4

#33

Salvage the Bones

#2 of 3 in Bois Sauvage

2011 • 171 Readers 3.8

#34

Citizen: An American Lyric

2014 • 134 Readers • 169 pages 4

#35

Fun home

2018 • 342 Readers • 240 pages 4

#36

Between the World and Me

2015 • 716 Readers • 166 pages 4.5

#37

The Years

2008 • 67 Readers • 256 pages 4.5

#38

The Savage Detectives

1998 • 168 Readers • 592 pages 4.1

#39

A Visit from the Goon Squad

#1 of 3 in Goon Squad

2010 • 440 Readers • 289 pages 3.8

#40

H is for Hawk

2014 • 203 Readers • 324 pages 3.9

#41

Small Things Like These

2021 • 499 Readers • 128 pages 4.2

#42

A Brief History of Seven Killings

2014 • 182 Readers • 688 pages 4.1

#43

Postwar

2005 • 77 Readers • 896 pages 4.3

#44

The Fifth Season

#1 of 3 in The Broken Earth

2015 • 1,986 Readers • 421 pages 4.3

#45

The Argonauts

2015 • 195 Readers • 160 pages 4

#46

The Goldfinch

2013 • 1,096 Readers • 1,006 pages 4

#47

A Mercy

2008 • 52 Readers 3.9

#48

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood

#1 of 3 in Persepolis

2000 • 456 Readers • 165 pages 4.3

#49

The Vegetarian

2007 • 589 Readers • 200 pages 3.5

#50

Trust

2022 • 378 Readers • 416 pages 3.8

#51

Life After Life

#1 of 2 in Todd Family

2013 • 329 Readers • 544 pages 3.6

#52

Train Dreams

2002 • 115 Readers • 116 pages 4

#53

Runaway: Stories

2003 • 64 Readers • 335 pages 3.8

#54

Tenth of December

2012 • 232 Readers • 272 pages 4

#55

The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11

2006 • 104 Readers • 578 pages 4.5

#56

The Flamethrowers

2013 • 63 Readers • 432 pages 3.4

#57

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America

2001 • 188 Readers • 244 pages 3.6

#58

Stay True

2022 • 154 Readers • 204 pages 4.1

#59

Middlesex

565 Readers 4.2

#60

Heavy

2018 • 144 Readers • 256 pages 4.6

#61

Demon Copperhead

2022 • 779 Readers • 560 pages 4.4

#62

10:04

2014 • 63 Readers • 257 pages 3.4

#63

Veronica

2005 • 29 Readers • 272 pages 3.3

#64

The Great Believers

2018 • 268 Readers • 17 pages 4.6

#65

The Plot Against America

2004 • 170 Readers • 391 pages 3.7

#66

We the Animals

2011 • 82 Readers • 128 pages 3.5

#67

Far from the Tree

2017 • 74 Readers • 464 pages 4.4

#68

The Friend

2018 • 116 Readers • 226 pages 3.9

#70

#71

Childhood / Youth / Dependency

#1-3 of 3 in The Copenhagen Trilogy

1967 • 68 Readers • 384 pages 3.9

#72

Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets

#5 of 5 in Voices of Utopia

2013 • 91 Readers • 496 pages 4.3

#73

The Passage of Power

#4 of 4 in The Years of Lyndon Johnson

2012 • 47 Readers 4.6

#74

Olive Kitteridge

#1 of 2 in Olive Kitteridge

2008 • 224 Readers • 337 pages 4.1

#75

Exit West

2017 • 331 Readers • 242 pages 3.7

#76

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

2022 • 2,447 Readers • 482 pages 4.2

#77

An American Marriage

2018 • 329 Readers • 321 pages 4

#78

Septology

2022 • 19 Readers • 825 pages 4.8

#79

A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories

2015 • 123 Readers • 432 pages 4.3

#80

The Story of the Lost Child

#4 of 4 in L'amica geniale

2014 • 134 Readers • 498 pages 4.4

#81

Pulphead

2011 • 36 Readers • 365 pages 4.1

#82

Hurricane Season

2017 • 134 Readers • 224 pages 4.2

#84

The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer

2010 • 329 Readers • 571 pages 4.2

#85

Pastoralia

2000 • 87 Readers • 225 pages 4

#86

Frederick Douglass Prophet of Freedom

2018 • 66 Readers • 912 pages 4

#87

Detransition, Baby

2021 • 317 Readers • 320 pages 3.9

#88

The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis

2009 • 41 Readers • 733 pages 4

#89

The Return: Fathers, Sons, and the Land in Between

2016 • 43 Readers • 256 pages 4

#90

The Sympathizer

#1 of 2 in The Sympathizer

2015 • 398 Readers • 384 pages 4

#91

The Human Stain

2001 • 7 Readers • 386 pages

#92

The Days of Abandonment

2002 • 119 Readers • 192 pages 4

#93

Station Eleven

2014 • 1,625 Readers • 333 pages 4.1

#94

On Beauty

2005 • 152 Readers • 446 pages 3.8

#95

Bring Up the Bodies

#2 of 3 in Thomas Cromwell

2012 • 192 Readers • 432 pages 4.4

#96

Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval

Race and American Culture

1997 • 51 Readers • 464 pages 4.3

#97

Men We Reaped: A Memoir

2013 • 103 Readers • 272 pages 4.5

#98

Bel Canto

2001 • 219 Readers • 318 pages 3.8

#99

How to Be Both

2014 • 87 Readers • 384 pages 3.9

#100

Tree of Smoke

2008 • 46 Readers • 624 pages 4.5