25 Best Books of the 21st Century

If you avoided every book published in the 21st century, you’d still be unlikely to ever run out of good reading material, since there are an overwhelming number of classics published in the 20th century, and then all sorts of essential pieces of literature published in 1900 or earlier, too. “Wait, isn’t 1900 part of the 20th century?” you might be asking. It’s part of the 1900s, as in the decade, but not the 20th century.

The same goes for the year 2000. Arguable classics from 2000, like House of Leaves, Blonde, and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, aren’t going to be here, as a result. It would feel right for the year 2000 to be part of the 21st century, but also, it would be factually incorrect. So, going through the best books of the 21st century so far means counting anything published from 2001 onwards. There’s only one author who appears here more than once, and he only appears twice, just to maintain some variety. Speaking of variety, non-fiction and works of fiction will be included here, too.

25

‘Never Let Me Go’ (2005)

Kazuo Ishiguro

Image via Faber Paperback

A far from conventional science fiction book, and a heavy one, too, Never Let Me Go feels like it’s been around for longer than just over 20 years… in a good way. It feels like more of a traditional classic than it is, and that also suggests it’s going to stand the test of time further, though it’s worth really stressing that it’s a good book without being a very fun book.

The sci-fi elements are subdued, and there mostly to enhance what’s mostly a psychological drama, and something that can be unusually eerie (maybe even scary) at times, too. It’s all too easy to ruin some of the surprises in Never Let Me Go, so it’s just better to say you’re better off discovering things here for yourself (again, if you don’t mind reading a downbeat novel every now and then).

24

‘The Cold Six Thousand’ (2001)

James Ellroy

Image via Cornerstone Digital

The middle chapter in the Underworld USA trilogy by James Ellroy, The Cold Six Thousand, is not as good as American Tabloid, but that one came out in 1995, so it can’t be here. Sorry, American Tabloid. It is worth mentioning that, though, because the book covers events between 1958 and 1963, with The Cold Six Thousand picking up right after and covering 1963 to 1968, with the third book, Blood’s a Rover, then covering 1968 to 1973.

Historical figures and fictional characters collided in American Tabloid, building up to the assassination of John F. Kennedy, with some of those figures and characters carrying over to The Cold Six Thousand, which then builds to the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy. It succeeds at making a tumultuous time in history feel all the more chaotic and downbeat, standing as a good book to read if, for whatever reason, you want to feel some intense paranoia.

23

‘The Road’ (2006)

Cormac McCarthy

Image via Picador

Potentially the greatest post-apocalyptic book of the century so far, The Road is about a man and his son trying to survive in a vastly changed world, but one that does feel uneasily believable. If an apocalyptic event did happen, it would probably be more The Road than Fallout… not that Fallout looks amazing, either, but there is fun to be had in that world, whether you’re talking about the games or the show.

The Road keeps things minimalist and brutal, in that Cormac McCarthy sort of way. You can typically rely on him for a well-written bad time, though there is still humanity in The Road, with some love and all still existing when there’s nothing else. And all that’s conveyed in a non-cheesy way, and without detracting/distracting from the bulk of the book, which is still very much as heavy as it needs to be, with subject matter like this.

22

‘Falling Man’ (2007)

Don DeLillo

Image via Scribner Book Company

Certain Don DeLillo books are worthy of reading before Falling Man, but those ones (namely, Libra, Underworld, and White Noise) all came out in the 20th century. Falling Man is his best of the current century, and it’s admittedly imperfect, but it has enough truly striking moments to ultimately feel great. It’s a novel that sees DeLillo tackling the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, doing so after addressing historical events of the back half of the 20th century in books like Libra and Underworld.

The postmodern approach here does lead to certain stretches of the book being hard to connect to others, and there is a non-chronological sort of storytelling here. But it does all serve to make the final stretch of Falling Man very haunting and powerful, albeit in ways that are hard to explain without undermining said haunting and powerful quality (just trust, please).

21

‘Born to Run’ (2016)

Bruce Springsteen

Image via Simon & Schuster

If you’ve listened to enough classic Bruce Springsteen albums, you’ll probably know he’s good with words (bit of an understatement), and those songs are often narratively quite strong. It shouldn’t be too surprising, then, that when he wrote a memoir – with the same title as what’s probably his best album – it was also extremely well-written. He covers about everything you’d want here, and the whole thing’s well-paced, too.

Like any memoir, Born to Run is going to be more compelling if you’re a Bruce Springsteen fan, but that’s okay. Maybe the person writing is a Bruce Springsteen fan, and so perhaps they’re biased, but what are you going to do? Yes, you. Problem? Upset? Don’t agree Born to Run is very good? Tough. It’s a great memoir. It’s a great book. It’s also one of a few memoirs that might be enhanced if you listen to it, since Springsteen himself narrates it (the same can be said about a couple more memoirs from the 21st century that’ll be mentioned a little later).

20

‘Against the Day’ (2006)

Thomas Pynchon

Image via Penguin Press

Like Don DeLillo, Thomas Pynchon is a postmodernist author who had his most essential books published in the 20th century, but he’s remained writing throughout the 21st century, too. Against the Day isn’t just his biggest of this century, but is also the beefiest book he’s written so far in either century, being well over 1000 pages long and having an overwhelming bunch of characters who drop in and out of the narrative (or narratives?) as a period of about 25 years is covered.

Against the Day is kind of a historical novel that spans from 1893 to 1918, but the main characters are mostly fictional, and there are some clear breaks from reality at certain points, when Pynchon wants to get fantastical/surreal. You can chip away at it over time, but it is a rewarding one to eventually finish (or conquer), standing as Pynchon’s most moving novel, or maybe his second-most, after only Mason & Dixon.

19

‘Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy’ (2007)

Vincent Bugliosi

Image via W. W. Norton & Company

There were lots of things that happened in the 1960s, to put it mildly. It was a decade of change, upheaval, and progress (at least in some regards), with the John F. Kennedy assassination being… well, not related to progress. But it definitely changed things and shook America, plus much of the world, in ways that can still be felt, and it all happened not too long ago in the overall scheme of things.

Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy is the ultimate book about the event, covering it in exhaustive detail and then addressing just about every conspiracy theory that’s sprung up about the event itself, laying out why they don’t hold up. It is easiest to be exposed to conspiracies, rather than detailed refutations of conspiracies, so Reclaiming History has value in that regard. And if you still want to believe, you do you, and even then, you can still probably get a lot out of the (long) section of this (very long) book that covers the assassination and its immediate aftermath, more or less minute-by-minute.

18

‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’ (2007)

J.K. Rowling

Image via Bloomsbury

The 1990s was when the Harry Potter series started, but the 2000s felt like the decade that it was truly dominant, and even inescapable. The fourth book was published in 2000, and is debatably the best Harry Potter book of the 2000s, but it’s got that “technically a 20th-century book” thing going for it, so it’s not here. The final three books in the series were also published during the 2000s, and were being released at around the same time the first few movies were coming out, too.

Of the 21st century Harry Potter books, the grand finale, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, is going here. It’s one of the less controversial endings to a long-running book series out there, and even if it’s not perfect, it is still satisfying and crowd-pleasing. Crowds of people read it, and most of them seemed pleased. And you can’t fault Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows when it comes to drama and big things happening, with it being jam-packed to the extent that dividing its eventual movie adaptation into two parts did ultimately feel appropriate.

17

‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ (2005)

Image via Norstedts Förlag

Stieg Larsson died suddenly and tragically before he could see just how popular his Millennium series would be, because the three books in that series he wrote were all published posthumously. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was the first of them, and probably the best, being about a journalist and a hacker/private investigator who both get wrapped in a complex criminal case for (initially) different reasons.

It unfolds a bit like a noir story, and also a psychological thriller, keeping things unpredictable and consistently tense. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has been adapted into two movies, and that’s part of the reason it’s such a central and defining neo-noir story, but the book remains the most compelling way to soak up this particular dark, intense, and oftentimes surprising narrative.

16

‘Sonny Boy: A Memoir’ (2024)

Al Pacino

Image via Penguin

Another memoir, Sonny Boy is Al Pacino telling his life story in his own words, and it also has a fantastic audiobook version, with Pacino being both conversational and theatrical with his delivery. It feels like he’s approached you in a bar, or you’ve found yourself stuck next to him on a long plane trip, and he’s just started casually telling you about everything he’s done. But he’s Pacino, and his life story is fascinating, so it’s worth listening to.

There is a slow pace to the early chapters, about Pacino’s childhood, but then he returns to this time right near the book’s end, and the final things he has to say about his pre-acting years become so much more bittersweet and moving. And then the parts about all the incredible movies he’s been in (with some time spent on the not-so-incredible movies he’s also been in) are all engrossing in the ways you’d expect such parts to be.