Earlier this month, New York Times published its list of 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. If you do not have a subscription to the NYT, you can also find this list of books here.
In an America that seems to be divided over everything, people were remarkably united in their reactions to this list: no one liked it (as far as I have seen so far). Perhaps that is to be expected. Any list is going to be subjective, because NYT’s selection of “leading luminaries” who drafted this list was certainly very subjective. Several people I know remarked what a travesty it is, for instance, that neither of Susanna Clarke’s stunning novels made the list. I agree. No Vodolazkin on the list either.
History is represented on the list, but it favors fiction. Theology, nevertheless, is altogether absent from this list, and so are any books published by religious publishers. Such absences always represent biases or worldviews—in this case, those of both the committee of individuals selected to nominate books and of NYT’s book review editor.
Okay, fine, you might respond, but can someone else do better? Perhaps, I would retort, any list is at best representative of the particular publication’s flavor—it responds to the question: What kinds of books does this publication consider most important? But then, there is a value to answering this question too. So, perhaps the best thing NYT did with its experiment was encourage us to reflect on it for ourselves. This experiment is a conversation starter, and we’re always fans of conversations about books.
We are a little magazine. We are no NYT. But we know something about books. And we too know a lot of really great writers, some established and others up-and-coming. And so, we at Current asked our own in-house team of writers to recommend books that they think must be on this list.
I look forward to sharing the results with you later this month. In the meanwhile, however, I also invite you to nominate books that YOU think must be on this list.
These 2 books are a must:
The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery by Eric Foner
Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion by Gregory Boyle, SJ
NT Wright: “The Day the Revolution Began”
Without a doubt, I would mimic the NYT list by keeping Kingsolver’s “Demon Copperhead.”
In the category of memoir, Philip Yancey’s “Where the Light Fell” is a newer “Seven Storey Mountain” in its own way.