Top 21st Century Books: THE TOP 25
what do you think will take the top spot?
Welcome to the final day of our Top 21st Century Books project. If you would like to read the first selection of books and an introduction, click here, here for 75-51 and here for 50-26.
Well, here we are. The final twenty-five rankings, and some of our collective favourites. I’d like to make one final post of some reflections on this whole process tomorrow, if you will indulge me. I’d include it today but I wanted to get this up for you before it got too late.
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
= The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin trans. by Ken Liu
Pachinko is a much loved novel that follows a Korean family over the course of a few generations, beginning in the early twentieth century. This sweeping narrative describes life in a Korea occupied by Japan, and the legacy of this violence.
Hard science fiction doesn’t get much better than Liu Cixin Remembrance of the Earth’s Past trilogy. I decided to collapse some of the series (as you’ll see) so we could squeeze more titles on, but The Dark Forest would have ranked on the list, too, at ninety-four. I can’t talk too much about this one without spoiling the first book, but it opens with Ye Wenjie, who witnesses her father’s murder at the hands of the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution, an event which forever changes the trajectory of humanity.
Circe by Madeline Miller
Miller’s second novel comes in thirty-six places ahead of Song of Achilles. A feminist reimagining of the life of Circe, based on her representation in The Odyssey.
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
= Know My Name by Chanel Miller
Beginning with two sisters in eighteenth-century Ghana, one of whom is married off to an Englishman while the other is enslaved and transported to America, Homegoing follows the paths of their lineages.
Know My Name is a powerful memoir about sexual assault, the American justice system that protects perpetrators, and a reclamation of voice.
Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
= Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
So pleased to see Chiang in the top twenty-five! Story of Your Life is one of my favourite short stories ever, following a linguist tasked with communicating with aliens. But there are some other gems in this collection, also.
And then we have Kingsolver’s ambitious retelling of David Copperfield set in Appalachia, winning both the Pulitzer (along with Hernan Diaz’s Trust) and the 2023 Women’s Prize.
Milkman by Anna Burns
Oh yes, I’m happy to see this here. An omission from the original list for me. Set during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and following a bookish protagonist who wants to be anything but ‘interesting’ to the community. A challenging narration style, but rewarding overall.
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
This novel was such a sensation when it came out, and it hasn’t yet fallen out of our community’s collective memory. Following two friends torn apart by an unspeakable event in 1970s Kabul. I’ve no idea what I’d make of this today and I probably need to revisit these novels at some point (this article gave me some food for thought).