Last week, the New York Times published the list of the top 100 books of the 21st century as determined by their readers. I was one of the readers who submitted my top 10 list, although I admit that I didn’t think of some books I might have included. I thought I’d take a look at this new list from several angles .
Which Books Were Also on My List
The books on this list that were also on my list are these:
Not so good, but I did a little better if you add in the books that were on my shortlist but got scratched off to get down to 10:
What Other Books Were on My List
I tend to have eccentric tastes, so I wasn’t surprised that some of the books I put on my list weren’t included on the top 100 at all. The rest of the books on my top 10 were:
Which Books Did I Wish I’d Thought Of
Of course, I noticed books on the list that I might have put on my list if I’d thought of them:
- Never Let Me Go
- Cloud Atlas
- Killers of the Flower Moon
- The Glass Castle
- Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
Which Books Are Still on My Pile
There are a couple books that I actually have on my pile to read. (In fact, one is next, but I haven’t brought it along with me on my trip because it’s so fat.) So, I haven’t read them yet but intend to:
- Lessons in Chemistry
- The Bee Sting
Which Books I Think Are Overrated
There are lots of books on this list that I admire. It’s just difficult to bring a list down to 10 books from all those written since 1999. However, let’s get down to it. There are lots of wildly popular books that I think are overrated. In my opinion only, here are the ones from this list. Don’t get mad at me if they’re your favorites. I’m just saying they shouldn’t be on a list of the best books of the century.
- All the Light We Cannot See
- Pachinko
- My Brilliant Friend
- The Book Thief
- Where the Crawdads Sing (I did not review this one because I couldn’t bear it.)
- 1Q84
- Let the Great World Spin
- My Year of Rest and Relaxation
- A Man Called Ove
What? Me Read? 
As always, a most interesting and thoughtful post – I am so glad I found your blog and that you are still blogging. So many interesting book bloggers have given up but then I imagine it must be quite a time consuming activity.
I was also pleased to read your comment on Crawdads as I felt exactly the same way! Ditto All the Light and My Brilliant bl**dy Friend as I came to think of it when I had to read it for book group.
Some of your top books would definitely also be mine , especially Life After Life, but many of them I’ve heard of but not read so shall have to look at your reviews and see whether I’m tempted.
I know some of them aren’t for everyone. Thank you for the kind comments.
I also voted but in a sense ‘wasted’ my votes by choosing Australian authors! I thought if enough of us did…
Anyway, I’ve read 41 from the list, abandoned one, and have a further nine in my reading stack.
That’s pretty good. Did any of your Australian books make it on the list?
Good, bad or indifferent, it seems to me that the most important thing about this list is that it got people who usually don’t talk about books, talking about books! I found the list to be very… er… strange, to be honest. I think you know I wrote a blog post about my opinions of the list.
Yes, I read it. Was that about the original list or the readers’ list?
I wrote it before the readers’ list about the original, but although I liked the readers’ list better, it too was skewed somewhat.
I guess you’re talking about the small press issue. For a readers’ list, I guess it makes sense that fewer people would vote for small-press books just because they may not have run across as many. I don’t really pay much attention to who published books when I read them, although obviously I like Dean Street.
Yes, that’s partly it. Plus, the readers of NYT are going to lean heavily on books reviewed by the NYT. I noticed that not all the books I put on my list were even ON the list offered and I had to add them myself. For sure no Dean Street Press books were there! Never mind. I think book bloggers like us make much better lists, even if they’re only for ourselves!
I suppose, although I only sporadically read their reviews, and I certainly didn’t think about whether I had when I picked my list. Some of the books on my list, I’m sure had probably not been reviewed by them.