New York Times Best Books of the 21st Century

Updated August 9, 2024
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Tree of smoke
Johnson, Denis
Paper Book
Once upon a time there was a war . . . and a young American who thought of himself as the Quiet American and the Ugly American, and who wished to be neither, who wanted instead to be the Wise American, or the Good American, but who eventually came to witness himself as the...
The vegetarian : a novel
Han, Kang
Paper Book
FROM HAN KANG, WINNER OF THE 2024 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE   "[Han Kang's] intense poetic prose . . . exposes the fragility of human life."--The Nobel Committee for Literature, in the citation for the Nobel Prize   A NEW YORK TIMES...
How to be both /
Smith, Ali,
Paper Book
SHORT-LISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE WINNER OF THE BAILEYS WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION WINNER OF THE 2014 GOLDSMITHS PRIZE WINNER OF THE 2014 COSTA NOVEL AWARD  WINNER OF THE SALTIRE LITERARY BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD A Best Book of the Year: NPR, Financial...
Bel canto
Patchett, Ann
Paper Book
NYT Bestseller A major motion picture starring Julianne Moore and Ken Watanabe. "Blissfully romantic....A strange, terrific, spellcasting story." -- San Francisco Chronicle "Bel Canto...should be on the list of every literate music lover. The story is riveting, the...
Men we reaped :
Ward, Jesmyn.
Paper Book
Named one of the Best Books of the Century by New York Magazine The two-time National Book Award winner and author of Salvage the Bones and Let Us Descend, contends with the deaths of five young men dear to her, and the risk of being a Black man in the...
Demon Copperhead : a novel
Kingsolver, Barbara
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE * WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION New York Times Readers' Pick: Top 100 Books of the 21st Century * An Oprah's Book Club Selection * An Instant New York Times Bestseller * An Instant Wall Street Journal Bestseller * A #1 Washington Post...
Bring up the bodies :
Mantel, Hilary,
Paper Book
The sequel to Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel's Man Booker Prize winner and New York Times bestseller, Bring Up the Bodies delves into the heart of Tudor history with the downfall of Anne Boleyn. The basis for the TV show on BBC and PBS Masterpiece...
On beauty :
Smith, Zadie.
Paper Book
Howard Belsey, a Rembrandt scholar who doesn't like Rembrandt, is an Englishman abroad and a long-suffering professor at Wellington, a liberal New England arts college. He has been married for thirty years to Kiki, an American woman who no longer resembles the sexy activist she once was....
Small things like these
Keegan, Claire
Paper Book
**OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK, DECEMBER 2024** **NEW YORK TIMES BOOK CLUB PICK, DECEMBER 2024** NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING CILLIAN MURPHY A New York Times Bestseller * Shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize * Winner of...
Station eleven /
Mandel, Emily St. John,
Paper Book
This Anniversary Edition of Station Eleven, a finalist for the National Book Award and named a Best Book of the Twenty-First Century by the New York Times, celebrates ten years of this now iconic novel with a new color illustration and a guide to "The Mandelverse" ...
The human stain
Roth, Philip.
Paper Book
It is 1998, the year in which America is whipped into a frenzy of prurience by the impeachment of a president, and in a small New England town, an aging classics professor, Coleman Silk, is forced to retire when his colleagues decree that he is a racist. The charge is a lie, but the real truth...
The sympathizer
Nguyen, Viet Thanh
Paper Book
Now an HBO Limited Seriesfrom Executive Producers Park Chan-wook and Robert Downey Jr., StreamingExclusively on Max Winner of the 2016Pulitzer Prize for Fiction Winner of the 2016 EdgarAward for Best First Novel Winner of the 2016 Andrew Carnegie Medalfor...
The return : fathers, sons, and the land in between
Matar, Hisham
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE * The acclaimed memoir about fathers and sons, a legacy of loss, and, ultimately, healing--one of The New York Times Book Review's ten best books of the year, winner of the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle...
Detransition, baby : a novel
Peters, Torrey
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * The lives of three women--transgender and cisgender--collide after an unexpected pregnancy forces them to confront their deepest desires in "one of the most celebrated novels of the year" (Time) "Reading this novel is like holding a live...
Frederick Douglass :
Blight, David W.
Paper Book
Winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in History Winner of the Bancroft, Parkman, Los Angeles Times (biography), Lincoln, Plutarch, and Christopher Awards Named one of the Best Books of 2018 by The New York Times Book Review, The Wall Street Journal,...
The emperor of all maladies : a biography of cancer
Mukherjee, Siddhartha
Paper Book
Selected as One of the Best Books of the 21st Century by The New York Times Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, adapted as a documentary from Ken Burns on PBS, this New York Times bestseller is "an extraordinary achievement" (The New Yorker)--a magnificent,...
The story of the lost child
Ferrante, Elena
Paper Book
A BEST BOOK OF THE CENTURY - NEW YORK TIMES The "stunning conclusion" to the bestselling saga of the fierce lifelong bond between two women, from a gritty Naples childhood through old age (Publishers Weekly, starred review). The Story of the Lost Child concludes the...
A manual for cleaning women :
Berlin, Lucia.
Paper Book
One ofTheNew York Times Book Review's Ten Best Books of 2015 One ofJezebel's Favorite Books of 2016 A Manual for Cleaning Womencompiles the best work of the legendary short-story writer Lucia Berlin. With the...
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow /
Zevin, Gabrielle.
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * Sam and Sadie--two college friends, often in love, but never lovers--become creative partners in a dazzling and intricately imagined world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality. It...
Exit west :
Hamid, Mohsin,
Paper Book
One of The New York Times's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century FINALIST FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE & WINNER OF THE L.A. TIMES BOOK PRIZE FOR FICTION and THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE "It was as if Hamid knew what was going to happen to America and the...
An American marriage
Jones, Tayari
Paper Book
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB 2018 SELECTION LONGLISTED FOR THE 2018 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION "One of my favorite parts of summer is deciding what to read when things slow down just a bit, whether it's on a...
Olive Kitteridge
Strout, Elizabeth
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE * The beloved first novel featuring Olive Kitteridge, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of My Name is Lucy Barton and the Oprah's Book Club pick Olive, Again "Fiction lovers, remember this name: Olive...
The passage of power /
Caro, Robert A.
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE, THE MARK LYNTON HISTORY PRIZE, THE AMERICAN HISTORY BOOK PRIZE One of the New York Times's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century Book Four of Robert A. Caro's...
Secondhand time :
Aleksievich, Svetlana,
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The magnum opus and latest work from Svetlana Alexievich, the 2015 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature--a symphonic oral history about the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergence of a new Russia NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST...
The new Jim Crow : mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness
Alexander, Michelle.
Paper Book
Once in a great while a book comes along that changes the way we see the world and helps to fuel a nationwide social movement. The New Jim Crow is such a book. Praised by Harvard Law professor Lani Guinier as "brave and bold," this book directly challenges the notion that the presidency...
The friend /
Nunez, Sigrid
Paper Book
When a woman unexpectedly loses her lifelong best friend and mentor, she finds herself burdened with the unwanted dog he has left behind. Her own battle against grief is intensified by the mute suffering of the dog, a huge Great Dane traumatised by the inexplicable disappearance of its master, and...
Far from the tree : parents, children and the search for identity
Solomon, Andrew
Paper Book
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, a Books for a Better Life Award, and one of The New York Times Book Review's Ten Best Books of 2012, this masterpiece by the National Book Award-winning author of The Noonday Demon features stories of parents who not only learn to...
We the animals
Torres, Justin
Paper Book
SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE An exquisite, blistering debut novel Three brothers tear their way through childhood-- smashing tomatoes all over each other, building kites from trash, hiding out when their parents do battle, tiptoeing around the...
The plot against America /
Roth, Philip
Paper Book
When the renowned aviation hero and rabid isolationist Charles A. Lindbergh defeated Franklin Roosevelt by a landslide in the 1940 presidential election, fear invaded every Jewish household in America. Not only had Lindbergh, in a nationwide radio address, publicly blamed the Jews for sel&...
The great believers /
Makkai, Rebecca.
Paper Book
PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BOOK OF 2018 LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE WINNER ALA CARNEGIE MEDAL WINNER THE STONEWALL BOOK AWARD WINNER Soon to Be a Major Television Event, optioned by...
Heavy :
Laymon, Kiese,
Paper Book
*Named a Best Book of 2018 by The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, NPR, Broadly, Buzzfeed (Nonfiction), The Undefeated, Library Journal (Biography/Memoirs), The Washington Post (Nonfiction), Southern Living (Southern), Entertainment Weekly...
Middlesex
Eugenides, Jeffrey
Paper Book
A dazzling triumph from the bestselling author of The Virgin Suicides - the astonishing tale of a gene that passes down through three generations of a Greek-American family and flowers in the body of a teenage girl. In the spring of 1974, Calliope Stephanides, a student at a girls' school in...
Stay true :
Hsu, Hua,
Paper Book
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER * NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A gripping memoir on friendship, grief, the search for self, and the solace that can be found through art, by the New Yorker staff writer Hua Hsu "This book is exquisite and excruciating and I will be...
Nickel and dimed : on (not) getting by in America
Ehrenreich, Barbara
Paper Book
Our sharpest and most original social critic goes "undercover" as an unskilled worker to reveal the dark side of American prosperity. Millions of Americans work full time, year round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in...
The flamethrowers :
Kushner, Rachel.
Paper Book
Named a Best Book of 2013 by The New York Times; Vogue; O, The Oprah Magazine; Time; Bookish; New York magazine; The New Yorker; Slate; Flavorwire; Publishers Weekly; Kirkus Reviews; Salon; and Complex.
The looming tower : al-Qaeda and the road to 9/11
Wright, Lawrence
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * PULITZER PRIZE WINNER * A "heart-stopping account of the events leading up to 9/11" (The New York Times Book Review), this definitive history explains in gripping detail the growth of Islamic fundamentalism, the rise of al-Qaeda, and the intelligence failures that...
Tenth of December : stories
Saunders, George
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST * NAMED ONE OF TIME'S TEN BEST FICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE * NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE DECADE BY ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY AND BUZZFEED * NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE...
Train dreams
Johnson, Denis
Paper Book
ANew York Times Notable Book for 2011 One ofThe Economist's 2011 Books of the Year One of NPR's 10 Best Novels of 2011 Denis Johnson'sTrain Dreams is an epic in miniature, one of his most evocative and poignant fictions. Robert Grainer is a day...
Life after life : a novel
Atkinson, Kate.
Paper Book
What if you could live again and again, until you got it right? On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born to an English banker and his wife. She dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, lets out a lusty...
Trust /
Dâiaz, Hernâan,
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES'S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2022 LONGLISTED FOR THE 2022 BOOKER PRIZE "Buzzy and...
A mercy
Morrison, Toni.
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * In "one of Morrison's most haunting works" (The New York Times), the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner reveals what lies beneath the surface of slavery. But at its heart, like Beloved, it is the story of a mother and a daughter--a mother who casts off her...
The goldfinch
Tartt, Donna
Paper Book
A young New Yorker grieving his mother's death is pulled into a gritty underworld of art and wealth in this "extraordinary" and beloved Pulitzer Prize winner from the author of The Secret History that "connects with the heart as well as the mind" (Stephen King, New York Times Book...
The fifth season /
Jemisin, N. K.
Paper Book
At the end of the world, a woman must hide her secret power and find her kidnapped daughter in this "intricate and extraordinary" Hugo Award winning novel of power, oppression, and revolution. (The New York Times) This is the way the world ends. . .for the last time. ...
A brief history of seven killings /
James, Marlon,
Paper Book
Winner of the Booker Prize One of the New York Times's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century One of Entertainment Weekly's Top 10 Books of the Decade One of The Atlantic's Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years ...
H is for Hawk
Macdonald, Helen
Paper Book
One of the New York Times Book Review's 10 Best Books of the Year One of Slate's 50 Best Nonfiction Books of the Last 25 Years ON MORE THAN 25 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR LISTS: including TIME (#1 Nonfiction Book), NPR, O, The Oprah Magazine (10 Favorite Books), Vogue (Top 10), Vanity Fair...
A visit from the Goon Squad
Egan, Jennifer.
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE WINNER * With music pulsing on every page, this startling, exhilarating novel of self-destruction and redemption "features characters about whom you come to care deeply as you watch them doing things they shouldn't, acting gloriously,...
Between the world and me
Coates, Ta-Nehisi.
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER * NAMED ONE OF TIME'S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE * PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST * NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST * ONE OF OPRAH'S "BOOKS THAT HELP ME THROUGH" * NOW AN HBO ORIGINAL SPECIAL EVENT...
Salvage the bones : a novel
Ward, Jesmyn.
Paper Book
Winner of the National Book AwardThe National Book Award winning novel from the author of Let Us Descend and Men We Reaped--a gritty but tender story of family and poverty in the days leading up to Hurricane Katrina.A hurricane is building over the Gulf of Mexico,...
The line of beauty :
Hollinghurst, Alan
Paper Book
Winner of the 2004 Man Booker Prize and a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award and the NBCC award. From Alan Hollinghurst, the acclaimed author of The Sparsholt Affair, The Line of Beauty is a sweeping novel about class, sex, and money during four extraordinary years of change and...
White teeth
Smith, Zadie
Paper Book
On New Year's morning, 1975, Archie Jones sits in his car on a London road and waits for the exhaust fumes to fill his Cavalier Musketeer station wagon. Archie--working-class, ordinary, a failed marriage under his belt--is calling it quits, the deciding factor being the flip of a 20-pence coin. When...
Sing, unburied, sing : a novel
Ward, Jesmyn
Paper Book
*WINNER of the NATIONAL BOOK AWARD for FICTION *A TIME MAGAZINE BEST NOVEL OF THE YEAR and A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 OF 2017 *Finalist for the Kirkus Prize *Finalist for the Andrew Carnegie Medal *Finalist for the Aspen Words Literary Prize...
Cloud atlas
Mitchell, David
Paper Book
#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER * The timeless, structure-bending classic that explores how actions of individual lives impact the past, present and future--from a postmodern visionary and one of the leading voices in fiction   One of the New York Times's 100 Best Books of...
Americanah
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A modern classic about star-crossed lovers that explores questions of race and being Black in America--and the search for what it means to call a place home. * From the award-winning author of We Should All Be Feminists and Half of a Yellow...
Atonement
McEwan, Ian
Paper Book
In this rich novel by the author of the Booker Prize-winning novel "Amsterdam, " a young girl unwittingly tells a tale that turns her family upside down. Brilliant and utterly enthralling in its depiction of childhood, love and war, England and class, "Atonement" is at its center a profound--and...
The overstory :
Powers, Richard,
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER  An Air Force loadmaster in the Vietnam War is shot out of the sky, then saved by falling into a banyan. An artist inherits a hundred years of photographic portraits, all of the same doomed American chestnut...
Behind the beautiful forevers
Boo, Katherine.
Paper Book
Annawadi is a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport, and as India starts to prosper, Annawadians are electric with hope. But then terror and a global recession rock the city and suppressed tensions over religion, caste, sex, power and economic envy turn brutal....
Evicted : poverty and profit in the American city
Desmond, Matthew
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE * ONE OF TIME'S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE * ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES'S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY One of the most acclaimed books of our time, this modern classic "has set a...
Erasure :
Everett, Percival L.
Paper Book
Percival Everett's blistering satire about race and publishing, now adapted for the screen as AMERICAN FICTION, directed by Cord Jefferson and starring Jeffrey Wright and Tracee Ellis Ross Thelonious "Monk" Ellison's writing career has bottomed out: his latest manuscript has...
Say nothing :
Keefe, Patrick Radden,
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NOW AN FX LIMITED SERIES STREAMING ON HULU * NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER * From the author of Empire of Pain--a stunning, intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions.
Lincoln in the bardo : a novel
Saunders, George
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE The "devastatingly moving" (People) first novel from the author of Tenth of December: a moving and original father-son story featuring none other than Abraham Lincoln, as well as an unforgettable cast...
The sellout : a novel
Beatty, Paul.
Paper Book
Winner of the 2016 Man Booker Prize Winner of the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction Named one of the best books of 2015 byTheNew York Times Book Reviewand theWall Street Journal A biting satire about a...
Pachinko
Lee, Min Jin
Paper Book
One of the New York Times 100 Best Books of the 21st Century In this New York Times bestseller, four generations of a poor Korean immigrant family fight to control their destiny in 20th-century Japan-the inspiration for the television series on...
Outline
Cusk, Rachel
Paper Book
Literary Hub, Best Books of the Decade, A Finalist for the Folio Prize, the Goldsmiths Prize, the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction One of The New York Times' Top Ten Books of the Year Named a A New York Times...
The road
McCarthy, Cormac
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE * NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A searing, post-apocalyptic novel about a father and son's fight to survive that "only adds to McCarthy's stature as a living master. It's gripping, frightening and, ultimately, beautiful" (San Francisco Chronicle)....
The year of magical thinking /
Didion, Joan
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER * From one of America's iconic writers, a stunning book of electric honesty and passion that explores an intensely personal yet universal experience: a portrait of a marriage--and a life, in good times and bad--that will speak to...
The brief wondrous life of Oscar Wao /
Dâiaz, Junot,
Paper Book
Winner of: The Pulitzer Prize The National Book Critics Circle Award The Anisfield-Wolf Book Award The Jon Sargent, Sr. First Novel Prize A Time Magazine #1 Fiction Book of the Year One of The New York Times's 100 Best Books of the...
Gilead /
Robinson, Marilynne
Paper Book
2005 Pulitzer Prize Winner for Fiction 2004 National Book Critics Circle Winner In 1956, toward the end of Reverend John Ames's life, he begins a letter to his young son, an account of himself and his forebears. Ames is the son of an Iowan preacher and the...
Never let me go
Ishiguro, Kazuo
Ebook
NOBEL PRIZE WINNER * From the acclaimed, bestselling author of The Remains of the Day comes "a Gothic tour de force" (The New York Times) with an extraordinary twist--a moving, suspenseful, beautifully atmospheric modern classic. One of The New York Times's 10...
The Underground Railroad :
Whitehead, Colson,
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * PULITZER PRIZE WINNER * NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER * "An American masterpiece" (NPR) that chronicles a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. One of The New York Times's 10...
The corrections
Franzen, Jonathan
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES Bestseller NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER "A spellbinding novel" (People) from the New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections is a comic, tragic epic of worlds colliding: an old-fashioned world...
The known world
Jones, Edward P.
Paper Book
Winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize Award and recognized as the best book of fiction in the 21st century by the New York Times, Edward P. Jones's The Known World is a debut novel of stunning emotional depth and unequaled literary power and continues to show its importance to the...
Wolf Hall :
Mantel, Hilary,
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR FICTION In inimitable style, Hilary Mantel's New York Times bestselling Wolf Hall is "a darkly brilliant reimagining of life under Henry VIII. . . ....
The warmth of other suns :
Wilkerson, Isabel.
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER * TIME'S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE * ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES'S FIVE BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY   "A brilliant and stirring epic . . . Ms. Wilkerson does for the...
My brilliant friend
Ferrante, Elena.
Paper Book
#1 BEST BOOK OF THE CENTURY - NEW YORK TIMES Now an HBO series: the first volume in the New York Times-bestselling "enduring masterpiece" about a lifelong friendship between two women from Naples (The Atlantic). Beginning in the 1950s in a poor but vibrant neighborhood on the...

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