Reading List
The Best Books of the 21st Century
Two girls throw their dolls into a dark cellar in Naples. A blacksmith’s son becomes the most powerful man in Henry VIII’s England. A father pushes a shopping cart across a burned America to keep his son alive. A mother of ten is taken from her home in Belfast and never comes back. The twenty-first century is only a quarter old, but some of its books already feel permanent. These twelve, ten novels and two works of nonfiction, are among the most admired of the century so far.
By Lisanne Swart · 12 books · Fiction & Nonfiction · 2001 to 2018 · Updated October 2026
Quick answer
Start with My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante, which The New York Times named the best book of the century so far in 2024. The list below has twelve books published between 2001 and 2018: ten novels and two works of nonfiction, most of them prize-winners. Further down is a guide to which one suits your mood.
The list at a glance
- 01My Brilliant Friend Elena Ferrante
- 02Wolf Hall Hilary Mantel
- 03Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ishiguro
- 04The Road Cormac McCarthy
- 05Gilead Marilynne Robinson
- 06Austerlitz W. G. Sebald
- 07Americanah Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- 08The Underground Railroad Colson Whitehead
- 09Pachinko Min Jin Lee
- 10Normal People Sally Rooney
- 11Say Nothing Patrick Radden Keefe
- 12Bad Blood John Carreyrou
Twelve of the best books since 2000
My Brilliant Friend
The first of four Neapolitan novels about the lifelong friendship and rivalry between Elena and Lila, two girls growing up in a poor neighbourhood of Naples in the 1950s. In 2024, The New York Times placed it first in its list of the 100 best books of the 21st century.
Why read itA whole life, and a whole country’s history, seen through one friendship. Most readers finish all four books.
Wolf Hall
Thomas Cromwell, the son of a violent blacksmith, rises to become Henry VIII’s most powerful adviser while the king tries to end his marriage to Katherine of Aragon. It won the Booker Prize, and so did its sequel, Bring Up the Bodies.
Why read itHistorical fiction written from so close inside one man’s head that you forget you know how it ends.
Never Let Me Go
Kathy remembers her years at Hailsham, an English boarding school where the students are told they are special, and slowly understands what they were raised for. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize; Ishiguro won the Nobel Prize in 2017.
Why read itQuiet, devastating and about what it means to live a short life fully.
The Road
After an unnamed catastrophe, a father and his young son walk south through a burned and empty America, pushing their belongings in a shopping cart. It won the Pulitzer Prize.
Why read itThe bleakest book on this list, and one of the most loving: a father’s devotion to his son at the end of the world.
Gilead
In 1956, John Ames, an elderly preacher in a small Iowa town who knows he is dying, writes a long letter to his young son about his life, his father and grandfather, and the beauty of the ordinary world. It won the Pulitzer Prize.
Why read itA slow, luminous book about gratitude. It rewards patient readers more than any other book here.
Austerlitz
Jacques Austerlitz, an architectural historian, discovers late in life that he came to Britain as a small child on a Kindertransport from Prague, and sets out to find what happened to his parents. Sebald died in a car accident the year it was published.
Why read itA novel about how the past hides inside us, with photographs woven through the text.
Americanah
Ifemelu and Obinze fall in love as teenagers in Lagos. She leaves for America, where she discovers what it means to be Black and starts a blog about race; he ends up undocumented in London. It won the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Why read itA love story and a sharp book about race and migration at the same time.
The Underground Railroad
Cora escapes from a cotton plantation in Georgia on an Underground Railroad that is, in this novel, a real railroad running beneath the ground, and each state she reaches shows a different face of American racism. It won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.
Why read itA brilliant idea carried through with great force: history told as a nightmare that is also true.
Pachinko
Four generations of a Korean family who move to Japan, from a pregnant teenager in 1910s Korea to her grandsons running pachinko parlours in the 1980s, facing discrimination at every step. It was a finalist for the National Book Award.
Why read itA family saga you can disappear into, about people history tried to ignore.
Normal People
Connell and Marianne grow up in the same small town in the west of Ireland, she rich and isolated, he popular and poor, and keep coming back to each other through school and university at Trinity College Dublin. It was longlisted for the Booker Prize.
Why read itThe novel that defined a generation’s idea of love and miscommunication.
Say Nothing
In 1972, Jean McConville, a widowed mother of ten, was taken from her flat in Belfast by the IRA and never seen again. Keefe uses her disappearance to tell the story of the Troubles and of the people who fought them and lived with the guilt. It won the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Why read itNonfiction that reads like a thriller, about violence, silence and what it costs to keep a secret.
Bad Blood
The rise and fall of Theranos, the blood-testing start-up whose founder, Elizabeth Holmes, raised hundreds of millions of dollars for technology that did not work. Carreyrou is the Wall Street Journal reporter who exposed the company.
Why read itThe defining business story of the century so far, and a study of how far belief and charisma can carry a lie.
Not sure where to start?
If you want one big story to disappear into
→ Read My Brilliant Friend or Pachinko.
If you want something short
→ Read Never Let Me Go or The Road.
If you prefer true stories
→ Read Say Nothing, then Bad Blood.
If you love history
→ Read Wolf Hall.
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Frequently asked questions about the best books of the 21st century
What is the best book of the 21st century?
In 2024, The New York Times asked hundreds of writers and critics and placed My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante first in its list of the 100 best books of the 21st century so far.
What are the best novels of the 21st century?
Among the most admired are My Brilliant Friend, Wolf Hall, Never Let Me Go, The Road, Gilead, Austerlitz and The Underground Railroad.
What is the best nonfiction book of the 21st century?
Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe, about the Troubles in Northern Ireland, is one of the most widely praised. Bad Blood by John Carreyrou is the defining business story of the period.
Which 21st-century books won the Pulitzer Prize?
On this list: Gilead (2005), The Road (2007) and The Underground Railroad (2017).
Footnotes
- “The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century”, The New York Times Book Review, July 2024.
- Prizes: Wolf Hall, Booker Prize 2009; Never Let Me Go, Booker shortlist 2005; Gilead, Pulitzer Prize 2005; The Road, Pulitzer Prize 2007; The Underground Railroad, Pulitzer Prize 2017 and National Book Award 2016; Americanah, National Book Critics Circle Award 2013; Pachinko, National Book Award finalist 2017; Normal People, Booker longlist 2018; Say Nothing, National Book Critics Circle Award 2018.
From the bookshelf
“You have to carry the fire.”
— Cormac McCarthy, The Road
More books I keep coming back to are on my personal bookshelf, and every month one of them goes out to the Night Owl Bookclub.
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I update this list as I read. New picks go to my monthly newsletter first.
