The best books of the 21st century? Let’s fight about it

Summer is a slow time in the publishing business. With fewer big, buzzy books coming out and reviewers in the doldrums, come July you’re likely to see exercises like the New York Times’ recent “The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century.”

Catnip for book lovers, it’s a list the Times created after they “sent a survey to hundreds of literary luminaries, asking them to name the 10 best books published since Jan. 1, 2000.” According to the Times, 503 people responded, including a wide range of novelists, nonfiction writers, poets and critics.

The list was instant clickbait, as was a second list of readers’ Top 100. They’re both bountiful material for discussion of (or arguments about) the worthiness of books, and I am always glad to see people talking about books. They also brim with suggestions — the Times even included handy check boxes to mark those you’ve read and those you want to read.

But of course I had a few quibbles. (Have you met me?)

First, the idea of “best” is pretty bogus in this context. Unlike scoring a gymnastics routine with measurable parameters, judging a book is deeply personal and infinitely complex.

And the word implies comparison, the idea that these 100 books exceed all others. Given that more than 1 million new books are published in the U.S. every year, nobody, but nobody, has read them all to be able to compare them.

Furthermore, the Times asked those who took its survey to rank books published in English in the United States, which leaves out the majority of all books published across the globe in a plethora of other languages.

So “best” is, at best, relative.

I also detected some curation in both lists, particularly in terms of genre. The lists do include fiction, nonfiction and a smidge of poetry, but almost all of the novels are literary fiction, despite the popularity of genres like romance and science fiction. A handful of fantasy and horror books made it — “The Hunger Games,” “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” Stephen King’s stellar “11/22/63.”

But not a single book of crime fiction, even though the 21st century has been a golden age for that genre? No Michael Connelly, no Dennis Lehane, no S.A. Cosby … don’t get me started. I could make a list of 100 best crime fiction books of the 21st century without breaking a sweat. Even the choice of works by single authors reveals this genre snobbery: Kate Atkinson’s splendid historical novel “Life After Life” makes the lists, but none of her equally splendid Jackson Brodie crime novels do.

A number of books appear on both lists, but sometimes with very different rankings. (The only one ranked the same on both lists is Kazuo Ishiguro’s heartbreaking “Never Let Me Go” at No. 9.)

On the luminaries list, Barbara Kingsolver’s stunner “Demon Copperhead” is ranked No. 61. On the readers’ list, it’s No. 1.

Another wide gap is Donna Tartt’s epic “The Goldfinch,” No. 46 on the luminaries list, No. 4 for readers.

Most surprising to me, though, were some of the books that didn’t make either list that for me are among the most memorable of the century so far.

Not a single book by the mighty Louise Erdrich (“The Round House,” “LaRose,” “The Sentence”) or the electric Lauren Groff (“Florida,” “Fates and Furies,” “Matrix”)? Where are Jim Harrison’s “Brown Dog,” Peter Matthiessen’s “Shadow Country,” Gary Shteyngart’s “Super Sad Love Story”?

Even book critics can’t read everything, but I’ve read about two-thirds of the books on each list. I haven’t loved all of those, but many of them would make my personal list of 21st century standouts.

Here they are. I’m not calling them the best, and I’m not ranking them. (They’re alphabetical by author.)

These are the books that I’ve read in the 21st century that made the New York Times’ lists and that have also resonated for me, that still live in my head. They are wildly different from each other. I recommend them all.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, “Americanah”

Kate Atkinson, “Life After Life”

Alison Bechdel, “Fun Home”

Katherine Boo, “Behind the Beautiful Forevers”

Michael Chabon, “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay”

Ta-Nehisi Coates, “Between the World and Me”

Matthew Desmond, “Evicted”

Junot Diaz, “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao”

Joan Didion, “The Year of Magical Thinking”

Jennifer Egan, “A Visit From the Goon Squad”

Jeffrey Eugenides, “Middlesex”

Percival Everett, “Erasure,” “James”

David Grann, “Killers of the Flower Moon”

Kazuo Ishiguro, “Never Let Me Go,” “Klara and the Sun”

Edward P. Jones, “The Known World”

Patrick Radden Keefe, “Say Nothing,” “Empire of Pain”

Barbara Kingsolver, “Demon Copperhead”

Helen Macdonald, “H Is for Hawk”

James McBride, “Deacon King Kong,” “The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store”

Cormac McCarthy, “The Road”

Ian McEwan, “Atonement”

Toni Morrison, “A Mercy”

Maggie O’Farrell, “Hamnet”

Tommy Orange, “There There”

Ann Patchett, “The Dutch House,” “Tom Lake”

George Saunders, “Tenth of December,” “Lincoln in the Bardo”

Rebecca Skloot, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”

Elizabeth Strout, “Olive Kitteridge”

Donna Tartt, “The Goldfinch”

Amor Towles, “A Gentleman in Moscow”

Colson Whitehead, “The Underground Railroad,” “The Nickel Boys”

Isabel Wilkerson, “The Warmth of Other Suns”