The 42 Best Recent Books of All Time Ever!

Summer is apparently the time for lists, especially in book land, and there were two in the last week that got my friends talking. First came the New York Times with its 100 Best Books of the 21st Century, then Esquire dropped its 75 Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time. I tried to resist them, friends, but I am a weak, fleshy monster who is easily tempted, so I couldn't prevent myself from tasting this honeypot.

Lists are usually intended to do three things. The purest, I suppose, is recommendation, a kind of "Here are ways to spend your time that we promise will be worth it". I can go with that. The most conniving reason, on the other hand, is to provoke and draw attention: "Here’s an opinion that will generate conversation or controversy and get us noticed!" That's why we're talking about it now, and why you get odd inclusions, hot takes, or just weird shit.

The third and far more mundane reason behind lists is to give the people who make them the chance to rest. Lists always arrive when publishing folks need a break: arriving in December and January so everybody can take a rest during the holidays; or popping up in the summer so that folks can ride on it for through July and August. Maybe this is what offended the media industry so much about the rise of the Buzzfeed listicle? It had some of the effort and engagement of a traditional list, but didn't come with the ability to take a vacation.

Anyway, back to the main thread.

I didn't expect to catch much from the Times list—which does include non-fiction but is mainly novels—since I don't read a lot of fiction (especially the Big Dude Literature that usually dominates these productions, like, say, Philip Roth or Paul Auster). But I surprised myself with a score of 23, and it sparked a genuine interest in picking up a few titles that I hadn't bothered with before. Having just gotten back from a trip to Naples, I figure I should add Elena Ferrante, for example, and despite loving a good bleak post-Apocalyptic scenario, I've never read The Road.)

I was even less expectant of enjoying the Esquire list, because I feel like I don't read much science fiction. But in fact the fuzziness of the genre and the fact that it covered all books ever written (not just since 2000) meant that I had read more than I expected there, too: 13 in total, from Three-Body to Frankenstein.

There are a very small handful of books on both of these lists: Station Eleven, Never Let Me Go, and The Fifth Season all get the double seal of approval. But what that means? I don't know.

Over at Defector, Kelsey McKinney has a spirited post that takes a shot at these kinds of list. Big lists are too vanilla, too consensus-based, just engagement games, they rarely contain surprises, they don’t satisfy Real Book Lovers. None of that’s wrong, really. Even as I'm writing this I wonder whether it's snotty to count up my score. Is this what I have come to? Am I falling for the engagement play?

So… is this a measurement of me as a book lover? Does it reduce the terribly noble and haughtily honorable hobby of reading to a base spreadsheet?

The answer, probably, is: who cares?

Weak, fleshy me loves a list, and loves finding out what other people read, and loves to be reminded that there are more great books out there than I could ever get around to.

So if you want to tell me your thoughts on the rankings, I'm listening.

Housekeeping: July books should be with all club members now, and I hope everyone is enjoying Ferris Jabr’s Becoming Earth. New shipping is over until August, although I do have extra copies available at a discount, so email me if you’re interested—I’m happy to pass along individual books with folks even if you’re not a member. (We usually have a handful of additional copies left over from bulk buying.)

In the meantime, I’m gearing up for Ferris to join us in our July Q&A session on Tuesday July 30 at 5pm Eastern, 2pm Pacific. Zoom links will go out a few days in advance, and I’d love to see as many of you as possible—so please mark it in your calendars.

Onward

Bobbie

(Shopping list photograph by ElJay, used under Creative Commons CC BY 2.0 license)