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...
How to be both
Smith, Ali
Paper Book
Passionate, compassionate, vitally inventive and scrupulously playful, Ali Smith's novels are like nothing else. How to be both is a novel all about art's versatility. Borrowing from painting's fresco technique to make an original literary double-take, it's a fast-moving genre...
Bel canto :
Patchett, Ann
Paper Book
Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country's vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honor of the powerful businessman Mr. Hosokawa. Roxanne Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has mesmerized the international guests with her singing. It is a perfect evening -- until...
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...
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
One of the New York Times's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century Winner of the 2006 Orange Prize for Fiction, another bestselling masterwork from the celebrated author of Swing Time and White Teeth "In this sharp, engaging satire, beauty's only skin...
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
A National BestsellerA New York Times Book Review Editor's ChoiceAn Amazon Best Book of the Year So Far (#5)One of Newsday's "10 Books Not to Miss in April"A Publishers Weekly Debut Fiction PickA Library Journal Best Debut of SpringOne of Kirkus Reviews' "10 Novels to Lose Yourself In" and a Must...
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...
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...
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 : maturity, old age
Ferrante, Elena, author.
Paper Book
International bestselling seriesThe Story of the Lost Child is the long-awaited fourth volume in the Neapolitan Novels.The Neopolitan quartet traces the friendship between Elena and Lila, from their childhood in a poor neighbourhood in Naples, to their thirties, when both women are mothers but each...
A manual for cleaning women : selected stories
Berlin, Lucia
Paper Book
One of The New York Times' 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. Global bestseller. A Manual for Cleaning Women compiles the best work of the legendary short-story writer Lucia Berlin. With the grit of Raymond Carver, the humor of Grace Paley,...
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
A New York Times BestsellerWinner of The Los Angeles Times Book Prize for FictionWinner of The Aspen Words Literary PrizeIn a country teetering on the brink of civil war, two young people meet -- sensual, fiercely independent Nadia and gentle, restrained Saeed. They embark on a furtive love affair,...
An American Marriage (Oprah's Book Club)
Jones, Tayari.
Paper Book
A NEW YORK TIMES AND WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK A 2018 BEST OF THE YEAR SELECTION OF NPR  * TIME  * BUSTLE  * O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE  * THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS  * AMAZON.COM
Olive Kitteridge
Strout, Elizabeth.
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE * THE EMMY AWARD-WINNING HBO MINISERIES STARRING FRANCES MCDORMAND, RICHARD JENKINS, AND BILL MURRAY In a voice more powerful and compassionate than ever before, New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Strout binds together thirteen rich,...
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
In a bold and innovative argument, a rising legal star shows readers how the mass incarceration of a disproportionate number of black men amounts to a devastating system of racial control. This is a terrifying reality that exists in the UK as much as in the US. Despite the triumphant dismantling of...
The friend
Nunez, Sigrid
Paper Book
An Award-winning AuthorWhen a woman unexpectedly loses her lifelong best friend and mentor, she finds herself burdened with the dog he left behind. Now her own battle against grief is intensified by the mute suffering of a huge Great Dane, and by the threat of eviction. Increasingly obsessed with...
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
ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY The critically acclaimed debut from the National Book Award-winning author of Blackouts. In this award-winning, groundbreaking novel, Justin Torres plunges us into the chaotic heart of one family, the intense bonds of...
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.
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 : an American memoir
Laymon, Kiese
Paper Book
*Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal and Kirkus Prize Finalist* In this powerful and provocative memoir, genre-bending essayist and novelist Kiese Laymon explores what the weight of a lifetime of secrets, lies, and deception does to a black body, a black family, and a nation...
Middlesex
Eugenides, Jeffrey.
Paper Book
Winner of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. 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.
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
In this now classic work, Barbara Ehrenreich, 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...
The flamethrowers : a novel
Kushner, Rachel.
Paper Book
* Selected as ONE of the BEST BOOKS of the 21st CENTURY by The New York Times * NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST * New York magazine's #1 Book of the Year * Best Book of the Year by: The Wall Street Journal; Vogue; O, The Oprah Magazine; Los Angeles Times;...
The looming tower : Al-Qaeda and the road to 9/11
Wright, Lawrence
Paper Book
The bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the history of 9/11: the basis for the original Hulu series starring Alec Baldwin, Peter Sarsgaard, Jeff Daniels, and Tahar Rahim. A gripping narrative that spans five decades, The Looming Tower explains in unprecedented...
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...
Runaway : stories
Munro, Alice
Paper Book
"In Alice Munro's new collection, we find stories about women of all ages and circumstances, their lives made palpable by the subtlety and empathy of this incomparable writer." "The runaway of the title story is a young woman who, though she thinks she wants to, is incapable of leaving her husband....
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
Díaz, Hernán
Paper Book
An unparalleled novel about money, power, intimacy, and perception Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they...
The vegetarian : a novel
Han, Kang
Paper Book
A beautiful, unsettling novel in three acts, about rebellion and taboo, violence and eroticism, and the twisting metamorphosis of a soul. Winner of the 2016 Man Booker International Prize.
Persepolis
Satrapi, Marjane
Paper Book
A New York Times Notable Book A Time Magazine “Best Comix of the Year” A San Francisco Chronicle and Los Angeles Times Best-seller Wise, funny, and heartbreaking, Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi’s memoir of growing up in...
A mercy
Morrison, Toni.
Paper Book
In exchange for a bad debt, an Anglo-Dutch trader takes on Florens, a young slave girl, who feels abandoned by her slave mother and who searches for love-first from an older servant woman at her master's new home, and then from a handsome free blacksmith-in an evocative novel set against late...
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 that "connects with the heart as well as the mind" (Stephen King, New York Times Book Review). <...
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. ...
Postwar : a history of Europe since 1945
Judt, Tony.
Paper Book
Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize Winner of the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award One of the New York Times' Ten Best Books of the Year Almost a decade in the making, this much-anticipated grand history of postwar Europe from one of the...
A brief history of seven killings : a novel
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 ...
Small things like these
Keegan, Claire
Paper Book
An exquisite winter tale of courage - and its cost, set in Catholic Ireland.
H is for hawk
Macdonald, Helen
Paper Book
As a child the author was determined to become a falconer. She learned the arcane terminology and read all the classic books, including T H White's tortured masterpiece, The Goshawk, which describes White's struggle to train a hawk as a spiritual contest. This book offers an account of his struggle...
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
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * The blockbuster debut novel from "a preternaturally gifted" writer (The New York Times) and author of On Beauty and Swing Time--set against London's racial and cultural tapestry, reveling in the ecstatic hodgepodge of modern life, flirting with disaster,...
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 : a novel
Mitchell, David
Paper Book
#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A 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 the...
Americanah
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi
Paper Book
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILEY'S WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2014. A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From the award-winning author of Half of a Yellow Sun, a powerful new novel--a story of love and race centred around a young man and woman from Nigeria who...
Atonement : a novel
McEwan, Ian
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A symphonic novel of love and war, childhood and class, guilt and forgiveness that provides all the satisfaction of a brilliant narrative and the provocation we have come to expect from the acclaimed Booker Prize-winning, internationally bestselling author.
The overstory
Powers, Richard
Paper Book
The Overstory, winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, is a sweeping, impassioned work of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of--and paean to--the natural world. From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, Richard Powers's twelfth novel unfolds in concentric...
Hateship, friendship, courtship, loveship, marriage :
Munro, Alice,
Paper Book
A superb new collection from one of our best and best-loved writers. Nine stories draw us immediately into that special place known as Alice Munro territory–a place where an unexpected twist of events or a suddenly recaptured memory can illumine the arc of an entire life. The fate of a strong...
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 :
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
Paper Book
Introduced by Brandon Taylor - Booker-shortlisted author of Real Life - Erasure is an unforgettable, satirical but tender novel about race and cultural expectations in contemporary America.
Say nothing : a true story of murder and memory in Northern Ireland
Keefe, Patrick Radden
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * SOON TO BE 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...
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
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 by The New York Times Book Review and the Wall Street Journal A biting satire...
Pachinko /
Lee, Min Jin,
Paper Book
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 Apple TV+.  In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja, the adored...
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
One of the New York Times 100 Best Books of the 21st Century A post-apocalyptic classic set in a burned-out America, a father and his young son walk under a darkened sky, heading slowly for the coast. They have no idea what, if anything, awaits them there. The Road...
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
Paper Book
**OVER 1 MILLION COPIES SOLD** SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE #9 in the New York Times '100 Best Books of the 21st Century' 'Brilliantly executed.' MARGARET ATWOOD 'A page-turner and a heartbreaker.' ...
The underground railroad : a novel
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
The winner of the National Book Award, the New York Times No.1 Bestseller and the worldwide literary sensation, 'The Corrections' has established itself as a truly great American novel. The Lamberts - Enid and Alfred and their three grown-up children - are a troubled family living in a...
The known world
Jones, Edward P.
Paper Book
Henry Townsend, a farmer, boot maker, and former slave, through the surprising twists and unforeseen turns of life in antebellum Virginia, becomes proprietor of his own plantation--as well his own slaves. When he dies, his widow Caldonia succumbs to profound grief, and things begin...
Wolf hall
Mantel, Hilary
Paper Book
A magisterial new novel that takes us behind the scenes during one of the most formative periods in English history: the reign of 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 : childhood, adolescence
Ferrante, Elena
Paper Book
A modern masterpiece from one of Italy¿s most acclaimed authors, My Brilliant Friend is a rich, intense, and generous-hearted story about two friends, Elena and Lila. Ferrante¿s inimitable style lends itself perfectly to a meticulous portrait of these two women that is also the story of a nation and...

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