We love a list, and we love an excuse for a conversation about books, and so we couldn’t have been more delighted when the New York Times released their list of the best books of the 21st century, so far. From 503 top tens submitted by authors and other literary world folk, plus a bit of statistical magic, they boiled it down to their definitive top 100. And we have to hand it to them, it’s a damn good list. Still, we might argue with a few of their choices, and of course we have some thoughts of our own.
And so in this episode you’ll get our own Book Club Review top 20 books, some of which were on the NYT’s best books of the 21st century list, most of which were not. They’re the books we felt had been overlooked, books we loved and were desperate to talk about, books we want to share with you.
And so join me (Kate) and Sarah in London, Phil in New York and Laura in Vancouver as we spend a delightful hour considering the best of the best. I guarantee you’ll come away with at least one book for your TBR, and hopefully one you’ll love as much as we do.
Listen via the media player above, or your preferred podcast app with this podfollow link.
Booklist
(A non-exhaustive list of the many, many books we covered in this episode)
- Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
- Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
- Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald
- The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
- 2666 by Roberto Bolaño
- The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
- The Known World by Edward P. Jones
- Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
- The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
- My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
- Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
- The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin
- Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
- The Years by Annie Ernaux
- Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
- East West Street by Philippe Sands
- The Trees by Percival Everett
- The Cost of Living, Real Estate and Things I Don’t Want to Know by Deborah Levy
- The Hare with the Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal
- Master of the Senate by Robert Caro
- Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
- Machete Season by Jean Hatzfeld
- In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
- Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar
- The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson
- Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk
- The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff
- Delicate Edible Birds by Lauren Groff
- Under the Skin by Michel Faber
- The Rest is Noise by Alex Ross
- The Shepherd’s Hut by Tim Winton
- I Am, I Am, I Am by Maggie O’Farrell
- This House of Grief by Helen Garner
- The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
- The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
- Stay True by Hua Hsu
- The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
- August Blue by Deborah Levy
Notes
Do check out our episode sponsors Serious Readers, who are offering £100 off their brilliant HD reading lamps, use the code BCR at checkout. UK customers get free delivery, elsewhere you can still take advantage of the offer, but there will be a shipping charge.
2 Comments
Thank you,
As always, a GREAT podcast! Looking forward to the book list being posted.I don’t often read Fantasy genre however, have when recommended on your podcast. Loved Piranese and Neverwhere. There is a classic Fantasy book mentioned in this podcast. Can’t recall the name?
Be well,
Amy
List finally updated. I think you’re thinking of The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle, more extensively discussed by Laura in our Summer Reading Report, episode #165 – but do listen to that show before reading as I’m not sure it’s a ‘recommend’.