A Journey Through the NYT 100 Best Books of the 21st Century
Ok, so despite the title of the this post, I am not going to read all 100 books on this list… Don’t get excited. But, since I figured I don’t have enough to read as it is, I’m going do a fun little… experiment? Reading journey? Whatever you want to call it, I hope you feel like joining me. Whether that means commenting with your own experiences with these titles, reading along, or posting your own ranking in the comments, I think this will be a fun discussion.
Before I get ahead of myself, let me explain what I’ll be doing.
As many of you in the book club know, we recently read My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante. I had been wanting to read her for a while, and this particular book was listed as Number 1 in the New York Times Top 100 Books of the 21st Century.
And for the life of me, I can’t figure out why.
That sounds harsh, but hear me out.
It’s a good book. It’s very readable and she’s a good storyteller. But so are a lot of books and a lot of authors. A part of me wishes I had read this without all the background chatter. If I had just gone into it blind, never having heard of her before, it would have been a better experience. As it was, I expected this book to be… well… brilliant. And I came away thinking it was fine.
So I thought ok Bryanna, fair. That’s your opinion. This author has 3 books on this top 100 list, so clearly you have no idea what you’re talking about.
I took a closer look at this list, put together by various authors, editors and critics, and was shocked to see what was ranked “lower” . The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, for example, or Atonement by Ian McEwan, or Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, all incredible novels. I don’t know what the criteria was, but on this journey, I intend to find out.
As I ranted in my head, and sometimes quietly, out loud while alone, I realised ok… you didn’t love it. Fine. But how many of these other books have you actually read, and how do they stack up against My Brilliant Friend?
And then I got an idea.
Just for fun, just for shits and giggles, I picked 10 books from this list that I haven’t read yet and decided to do my own list. Some of them I’ve been wanting to read, some of them are books I would normally not pick up. All of them will be read with this very specific question in mind: Is it “better” than My Brilliant Friend?
Now before you get mad and vow never speak to me again, I am aware this is subjective. This list in and of itself is subjective. How can it not be? How do you judge what is the best book of the last 25 years? But they did. Supposedly. So I thought, why can’t we? We, as The Ink Drinkers, can come to our own conclusions.
So, as I go through these 10 books, I invite you to join the conversation in the comment section with anything you would like to add. If you’ve read the books, or others on the list, let me know your thoughts. If you haven’t, are there any that you’re now curious to read? Did you ever see yourself picking up a Jonathan Franzen novel? Because I sure didn’t, but here I am.
Here’s how this blog series is going to look, and what I’m hoping to answer/ discover along the way:
For each post, I’ll write a short summary about the book I’ve picked, it’s ranking, my thoughts, why I think it’s on the list, and if I would rank it higher than where it is, lower, or even Number 1. I tend to stay in my lane when it comes to genres I love, and I think this is going to be a good exercise in getting me outside of my comfort zone. Worst case scenario, I read a book I would normally never have looked at twice .
And sometimes, those are the absolute best.
In the next post I’ll talk a bit about the criteria, who was asked and the topics/themes the voters tended to focus on. I will also discuss the first book on the list that I picked, The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson.
So stay tuned and happy reading.
Bryanna
For a look at the full list, click here