The Greatest Books Since 1990
How is this list generated?
This list is generated from 130 "best of" book lists from a variety of great sources. An algorithm is used to create a master list based on how many lists a particular book appears on. Some lists count more than others. I generally trust "best of all time" lists voted by authors and experts over user-generated lists. On the lists that are actually ranked, the book that is 1st counts a lot more than the book that's 100th. If you're interested in the details about how the rankings are generated and which lists are the most important(in my eyes) please check out the list details page.
If you have any comments, suggestions, or corrections please feel free to e-mail me.
-
351
. Ooga-Booga by Frederick Seidel
From the winner of the PEN/Voelker Award, poems of love, terror, rage, and desire. Here I am, not a practical man, But clear-eyed in my contact lenses, Following no doubt a slightly different line ...
- Google
-
-
-
352
. Veronica by Mary Gaitskill
A finalist for the National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award, here is an evocative novel about female friendship in the glittering 1980s. Alison and Veronica meet amid the nocturna...
- Google
-
-
-
353
. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
Discovering in childhood a supernatural ability to taste the emotions of others in their cooking, Rose Edelstein grows up to regard food as a curse when it reveals everyone's secret realities.
- Google
-
-
-
354
. The Possessed by Elif Batuman
No one who read Elif Batuman's first article (in the journal n+1) will ever forget it. "Babel in California" told the true story of various human destinies intersecting at Stanford University durin...
- Google
-
-
-
355
. Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi
A brilliant and inventive story of love, lies, and inspiration. Fairy-tale romances end with a wedding, and the fairy tales don't get complicated. In this book, the celebrated writer Mr. Fox can't ...
- Google
-
-
-
356
. White Girls by Hilton Als
Combining elements of memoir, criticism, fiction and non-fiction, the book's essays create a portrait of "white girls", a category in which Als includes everyone from Truman Capote to Flannery O’Co...
-
-
-
357
. Do Everything in the Dark by Gary Indiana
Follows the experiences of downtown New Yorkers at crossroads in their lives, from a gay couple who find themselves growing distant, to an interracial couple lapsing into heroin addiction, to a for...
- Google
-
-
-
358
. Lives Other Than My Own by Emmanuel Carrère
From the acclaimed Emmanuel Carrère, an act of generous imagination that unflinchingly records devastating loss and, equally vividly, the wealth of human solace that follows in its wake In Sri Lank...
- Google
-
-
-
359
. Black and Blur by Fred Moten
"Taken as a trilogy, consent not to be a single being is a monumental accomplishment: a brilliant theoretical intervention that might be best described as a powerful case for blackness as a categor...
- Google
-
-
-
360
. The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan
Struggling to regain her voice and express her true feelings to her husband, ghostwriter Ruth Young discovers that her inability to speak closely parallels the story of her mother LuLing's early li...
- Google
-
-
-
361
. Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina García
"Remarkable...An intricate weaving of dramatic events with the supernatural and the cosmic...Evocative and lush...A rich and haunting narrative, an excellent new voice in contemporary fiction." SAN...
- Google
-
-
-
362
. Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Fifteen-year-old Kambili and her older brother Jaja lead a privileged life in Enugu, Nigeria. They live in a beautiful house, with a caring family, and attend an exclusive missionary school. They'r...
- Google
-
-
-
363
. Ties That Bind, Ties That Break by Lensey Namioka
Third Sister in the Tao family, Ailin has watched her two older sisters go through the painful process of having their feet bound. In China in 1911, all the women of good families follow this ancie...
- Google
-
-
-
364
. Fried Green Tomatoes by Fannie Flagg
The remarkable novel of two Southern friendships--the basis of the hit film--available for the first time in large print. From the Trade Paperback edition.
- Google
-
-
-
365
. A Book of Luminous Things by Czesław Miłosz
A collection of the world's greatest poetry from the past two thousand years brings together five hundred works by more than two hundred poets, along with commentary by the editor
- Google
-
-
-
366
. The Book of Salt by Monique Truong
The Book of Salt is Vietnamese-American author Monique Truong's first novel; it presents a narrative through the eyes of Bình, a Vietnamese cook. His story centers in Paris in his life as the cook ...
-
-
-
367
. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered wh...
- Google
-
-
-
368
. Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag
A young man's close-knit family is nearly destitute when his uncle founds a successful spice company, changing their fortunes overnight. As they move from a cramped, ant-infested shack to a larger ...
- Google
-
-
-
369
. A Constellation of Vital Phenomena: A Novel by Anthony Marra
In a small rural village in Chechnya, eight-year-old Havaa watches from the woods as Russian soldiers abduct her father in the middle of the night and then set fire to her home. When their lifelong...
- Google
-
-
-
370
. Wizard of the Crow by Ngugi wa Thiong'o
A landmark of postcolonial African literature, Wizard of the Crow is an ambitious, magisterial, comic novel from the acclaimed Kenyan novelist, playwright, poet, and critic. Set in the fictional Fr...
- Google
-
-
-
-
372
. The MaddAddam Trilogy by Margaret Atwood
Across three stunning novels—Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood, and Maddaddam—the best-selling, Booker Prize-winning novelist projects us into a near future that is both all too familiar and be...
- Google
-
-
-
373
. Oblivion: Stories by David Foster Wallace
In the stories that make up Oblivion, David Foster Wallace joins the rawest, most naked humanity with the infinite involutions of self-consciousness--a combination that is dazzlingly, uniquely his....
- Google
-
-
-
374
. Capital by John Lanchester
Residents of Pepys Road in London receive odd, anonymous postcards demanding “We Want What You Have” during the financial meltdown of 2008 in this new novel from the best-selling author of The Debt...
- Google
-
-
-
375
. Spreadeagle by Kevin Killian
Set in San Francisco, fiftyish gay novelist Daniel Isham presides over a complicated ménage financed not only by family money but by the huge success of his kitschy, feel-good “Rick and Dick” novel...
-
-
-
376
. Seven Years by Peter Stamm
"Alexander is torn between two very different women. Sonia, his wife and business partner, is everything a man could want: intelligent, gorgeous, charming, and ambitious. But when the seven-year it...
- Google
-
-
-
377
. The Broken Earth Trilogy by N. K. Jemisin
This is the way the world ends. For the last time. A season of endings has begun. It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world's sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the su...
- Google
-
-
-
378
. The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon
The only novel from MacArthur Genius Award winner, Aleksandar Hemon -- the National Book Critics Circle Award winning The Lazarus Project. On March 2, 1908, nineteen-year-old Lazarus Averbuch, an E...
- Google
-
-
-
379
. The Sluts by Dennis Cooper
Set largely on the pages of a website where gay male escorts are reviewed by their clients, and told through the postings, emails, and conversations of several dozen unreliable narrators, The Sluts...
- Google
-
-
-
380
. Red Clocks by Leni Zumas
Five women. One question. What is a woman for? In this ferociously imaginative novel, abortion is once again illegal in America, in-vitro fertilization is banned, and the Personhood Amendment grant...
- Google
-
-
-
381
. The Time of Our Singing by Richard Powers
The Time of Our Singing (2003) is a novel by American writer Richard Powers. It tells the story of two brothers involved in music, dealing heavily with issues of prejudice. Their parents met at Mar...
-
-
-
382
. The Needle's Eye by Fanny Howe
Fanny Howe's The Needle's Eye: Passing through Youth is a sequence of essays, short tales, and lyrics that are intertwined by an inner visual logic. The book contains filmic images that subvert the...
- Google
-
-
-
383
. The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse: A Novel by Louise Erdrich
A New York Times Notable Book For more than a half century, Father Damien Modeste has served his beloved Native American tribe, the Ojibwe, on the remote reservation of Little No Horse. Now, nearin...
- Google
-
-
-
384
. Eat the Document by Dana Spiotta
Dana Spiotta, whom Michiko Kakutani called "wonderfully observant and wonderfully gifted...with an uncanny feel for the absurdities and sadness of contemporary life" (The New York Times), has writt...
- Google
-
-
-
385
. Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart
Super Sad True Love Story is the third novel by American writer Gary Shteyngart. The novel takes place in a near-future dystopian New York where life is dominated by media and retail.
-
-
-
386
. Boyhood: Scenes from provincial life by J M Coetzee
In Boyhood, J. M. Coetzee revisits the South Africa of half a century ago, to write about his childhood and interior life. Boyhood's young narrator grew up in a small country town. With a father he...
- Google
-
-
-
387
. The Largesse of the Sea Maiden: Stories by Denis Johnson
Twenty-five years after Jesus' Son, a haunting new collection of short stories on mortality and transcendence, from National Book Award winner and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Denis Johnson The...
- Google
-
-
-
388
. Notes from No Man's Land: American Essays by Eula Biss
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism Winner of the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize A frank and fascinating exploration of race and racial identity Notes from No Man's Land...
- Google
-
-
-
389
. Home Land by Sam Lipsyte
Catamount Notes, the Eastern Valley High School alumni newsletter, is filled with tales of success from the school's graduates, until Lewis "Teabag" Miner, class of 1989, sends a hilarious confessi...
- Google
-
-
-
390
. Sleeping It Off in Rapid City by August Kleinzahler
The first broad retrospective of August Kleinzahler's career, Sleeping It Off in Rapid City gathers poems from his major works along with a rich portion of new poems that visit different voice regi...
- Google
-
-
-
391
. All Grown Up by Jami Attenberg
Who is Andrea Bern? When her dippy therapist asks the question, Andrea knows the right things to say: she’s a designer, a friend, a daughter, a sister. But it’s what she leaves unsaid—she’s alone, ...
- Google
-
-
-
392
. Fine Just the Way It Is by Annie Proulx
A collection of nine western-themed tales features an array of pioneer country inhabitants from different backgrounds.
- Google
-
-
-
393
. The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
THE NO. 1 LADIES’ DETECTIVE AGENCY - Book 1 Fans around the world adore the bestselling No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, the basis of the HBO TV show, and its proprietor Precious Ramotswe, Bo...
- Google
-
-
-
394
. Boy's Life by Robert R. McCammon
In Zephyr, Alabama, a bizarre murder is only the beginning Small town boys see weird sights, and Zephyr has provided Cory Jay Mackenson with his fair share of oddities. He knows the bootleggers who...
- Google
-
-
-
395
. Born Confused by Tanuja Desai Hidier
Tanuja Desai Hidier's fantastically acclaimed cross-cultural debut comes to PUSH! Dimple Lala doesn't know what to think. Her parents are from India, and she's spent her whole life resisting their ...
- Google
-
-
-
396
. Chanda's Secrets by Allan Stratton
This is the powerful story of one girl's struggle for survival amid the African HIV/AIDS pandemic a story of harsh realities and hard-won hopefulness, leavened with humour and the possibility of ch...
- Google
-
-
-
397
. City of the Beasts by Isabel Allende
Fifteen-year-old Alexander Cold accompanies his fearless grandmother, a magazine reporter for International Geographic, on an expedition to the dangerous, remote world of the Amazon to document the...
- Google
-
-
-
398
. Crow Lake by Mary Lawson
Mary Lawson's debut novel is a shimmering tale of love, death and redemption set in a rural northern community where time has stood still. Tragic, funny and unforgettable, this deceptively simple m...
- Google
-
-
-
399
. Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje
Anil’s Ghost is the critically acclaimed fourth novel by Michael Ondaatje. It was first published in 2000 by McClelland and Stewart.
Anil’s Ghost follows the life of Anil Tissera, a native Sri L...
-
-
-
400
. He, She and It by Marge Piercy
"A triumph of the imagination. Rich, complex, impossible to put down." Alice Hoffman In the middle of the twenty-first century, life as we know it has changed for all time. Shira Shipman's marriage...
- Google
-
-
This list is generated from 130 "best of" book lists from a variety of great sources. An algorithm is used to create a master list based on how many lists a particular book appears on. Some lists count more than others. I generally trust "best of all time" lists voted by authors and experts over user-generated lists. On the lists that are actually ranked, the book that is 1st counts a lot more than the book that's 100th. If you're interested in the details about how the rankings are generated and which lists are the most important(in my eyes) please check out the list details page.
If you have any comments, suggestions, or corrections please feel free to e-mail me.
-
351 . Ooga-Booga by Frederick Seidel
From the winner of the PEN/Voelker Award, poems of love, terror, rage, and desire. Here I am, not a practical man, But clear-eyed in my contact lenses, Following no doubt a slightly different line ...
- Google -
352 . Veronica by Mary Gaitskill
A finalist for the National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award, here is an evocative novel about female friendship in the glittering 1980s. Alison and Veronica meet amid the nocturna...
- Google -
353 . The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
Discovering in childhood a supernatural ability to taste the emotions of others in their cooking, Rose Edelstein grows up to regard food as a curse when it reveals everyone's secret realities.
- Google -
354 . The Possessed by Elif Batuman
No one who read Elif Batuman's first article (in the journal n+1) will ever forget it. "Babel in California" told the true story of various human destinies intersecting at Stanford University durin...
- Google -
355 . Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi
A brilliant and inventive story of love, lies, and inspiration. Fairy-tale romances end with a wedding, and the fairy tales don't get complicated. In this book, the celebrated writer Mr. Fox can't ...
- Google -
356 . White Girls by Hilton Als
Combining elements of memoir, criticism, fiction and non-fiction, the book's essays create a portrait of "white girls", a category in which Als includes everyone from Truman Capote to Flannery O’Co...
-
357 . Do Everything in the Dark by Gary Indiana
Follows the experiences of downtown New Yorkers at crossroads in their lives, from a gay couple who find themselves growing distant, to an interracial couple lapsing into heroin addiction, to a for...
- Google -
358 . Lives Other Than My Own by Emmanuel Carrère
From the acclaimed Emmanuel Carrère, an act of generous imagination that unflinchingly records devastating loss and, equally vividly, the wealth of human solace that follows in its wake In Sri Lank...
- Google -
359 . Black and Blur by Fred Moten
"Taken as a trilogy, consent not to be a single being is a monumental accomplishment: a brilliant theoretical intervention that might be best described as a powerful case for blackness as a categor...
- Google -
360 . The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan
Struggling to regain her voice and express her true feelings to her husband, ghostwriter Ruth Young discovers that her inability to speak closely parallels the story of her mother LuLing's early li...
- Google -
361 . Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina García
"Remarkable...An intricate weaving of dramatic events with the supernatural and the cosmic...Evocative and lush...A rich and haunting narrative, an excellent new voice in contemporary fiction." SAN...
- Google -
362 . Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Fifteen-year-old Kambili and her older brother Jaja lead a privileged life in Enugu, Nigeria. They live in a beautiful house, with a caring family, and attend an exclusive missionary school. They'r...
- Google -
363 . Ties That Bind, Ties That Break by Lensey Namioka
Third Sister in the Tao family, Ailin has watched her two older sisters go through the painful process of having their feet bound. In China in 1911, all the women of good families follow this ancie...
- Google -
364 . Fried Green Tomatoes by Fannie Flagg
The remarkable novel of two Southern friendships--the basis of the hit film--available for the first time in large print. From the Trade Paperback edition.
- Google -
365 . A Book of Luminous Things by Czesław Miłosz
A collection of the world's greatest poetry from the past two thousand years brings together five hundred works by more than two hundred poets, along with commentary by the editor
- Google -
366 . The Book of Salt by Monique Truong
The Book of Salt is Vietnamese-American author Monique Truong's first novel; it presents a narrative through the eyes of Bình, a Vietnamese cook. His story centers in Paris in his life as the cook ...
-
367 . The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered wh...
- Google -
368 . Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag
A young man's close-knit family is nearly destitute when his uncle founds a successful spice company, changing their fortunes overnight. As they move from a cramped, ant-infested shack to a larger ...
- Google -
369 . A Constellation of Vital Phenomena: A Novel by Anthony Marra
In a small rural village in Chechnya, eight-year-old Havaa watches from the woods as Russian soldiers abduct her father in the middle of the night and then set fire to her home. When their lifelong...
- Google -
370 . Wizard of the Crow by Ngugi wa Thiong'o
A landmark of postcolonial African literature, Wizard of the Crow is an ambitious, magisterial, comic novel from the acclaimed Kenyan novelist, playwright, poet, and critic. Set in the fictional Fr...
- Google -
372 . The MaddAddam Trilogy by Margaret Atwood
Across three stunning novels—Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood, and Maddaddam—the best-selling, Booker Prize-winning novelist projects us into a near future that is both all too familiar and be...
- Google -
373 . Oblivion: Stories by David Foster Wallace
In the stories that make up Oblivion, David Foster Wallace joins the rawest, most naked humanity with the infinite involutions of self-consciousness--a combination that is dazzlingly, uniquely his....
- Google -
374 . Capital by John Lanchester
Residents of Pepys Road in London receive odd, anonymous postcards demanding “We Want What You Have” during the financial meltdown of 2008 in this new novel from the best-selling author of The Debt...
- Google -
375 . Spreadeagle by Kevin Killian
Set in San Francisco, fiftyish gay novelist Daniel Isham presides over a complicated ménage financed not only by family money but by the huge success of his kitschy, feel-good “Rick and Dick” novel...
-
376 . Seven Years by Peter Stamm
"Alexander is torn between two very different women. Sonia, his wife and business partner, is everything a man could want: intelligent, gorgeous, charming, and ambitious. But when the seven-year it...
- Google -
377 . The Broken Earth Trilogy by N. K. Jemisin
This is the way the world ends. For the last time. A season of endings has begun. It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world's sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the su...
- Google -
378 . The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon
The only novel from MacArthur Genius Award winner, Aleksandar Hemon -- the National Book Critics Circle Award winning The Lazarus Project. On March 2, 1908, nineteen-year-old Lazarus Averbuch, an E...
- Google -
379 . The Sluts by Dennis Cooper
Set largely on the pages of a website where gay male escorts are reviewed by their clients, and told through the postings, emails, and conversations of several dozen unreliable narrators, The Sluts...
- Google -
380 . Red Clocks by Leni Zumas
Five women. One question. What is a woman for? In this ferociously imaginative novel, abortion is once again illegal in America, in-vitro fertilization is banned, and the Personhood Amendment grant...
- Google -
381 . The Time of Our Singing by Richard Powers
The Time of Our Singing (2003) is a novel by American writer Richard Powers. It tells the story of two brothers involved in music, dealing heavily with issues of prejudice. Their parents met at Mar...
-
382 . The Needle's Eye by Fanny Howe
Fanny Howe's The Needle's Eye: Passing through Youth is a sequence of essays, short tales, and lyrics that are intertwined by an inner visual logic. The book contains filmic images that subvert the...
- Google -
383 . The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse: A Novel by Louise Erdrich
A New York Times Notable Book For more than a half century, Father Damien Modeste has served his beloved Native American tribe, the Ojibwe, on the remote reservation of Little No Horse. Now, nearin...
- Google -
384 . Eat the Document by Dana Spiotta
Dana Spiotta, whom Michiko Kakutani called "wonderfully observant and wonderfully gifted...with an uncanny feel for the absurdities and sadness of contemporary life" (The New York Times), has writt...
- Google -
385 . Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart
Super Sad True Love Story is the third novel by American writer Gary Shteyngart. The novel takes place in a near-future dystopian New York where life is dominated by media and retail.
-
386 . Boyhood: Scenes from provincial life by J M Coetzee
In Boyhood, J. M. Coetzee revisits the South Africa of half a century ago, to write about his childhood and interior life. Boyhood's young narrator grew up in a small country town. With a father he...
- Google -
387 . The Largesse of the Sea Maiden: Stories by Denis Johnson
Twenty-five years after Jesus' Son, a haunting new collection of short stories on mortality and transcendence, from National Book Award winner and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Denis Johnson The...
- Google -
388 . Notes from No Man's Land: American Essays by Eula Biss
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism Winner of the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize A frank and fascinating exploration of race and racial identity Notes from No Man's Land...
- Google -
389 . Home Land by Sam Lipsyte
Catamount Notes, the Eastern Valley High School alumni newsletter, is filled with tales of success from the school's graduates, until Lewis "Teabag" Miner, class of 1989, sends a hilarious confessi...
- Google -
390 . Sleeping It Off in Rapid City by August Kleinzahler
The first broad retrospective of August Kleinzahler's career, Sleeping It Off in Rapid City gathers poems from his major works along with a rich portion of new poems that visit different voice regi...
- Google -
391 . All Grown Up by Jami Attenberg
Who is Andrea Bern? When her dippy therapist asks the question, Andrea knows the right things to say: she’s a designer, a friend, a daughter, a sister. But it’s what she leaves unsaid—she’s alone, ...
- Google -
392 . Fine Just the Way It Is by Annie Proulx
A collection of nine western-themed tales features an array of pioneer country inhabitants from different backgrounds.
- Google -
393 . The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
THE NO. 1 LADIES’ DETECTIVE AGENCY - Book 1 Fans around the world adore the bestselling No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, the basis of the HBO TV show, and its proprietor Precious Ramotswe, Bo...
- Google -
394 . Boy's Life by Robert R. McCammon
In Zephyr, Alabama, a bizarre murder is only the beginning Small town boys see weird sights, and Zephyr has provided Cory Jay Mackenson with his fair share of oddities. He knows the bootleggers who...
- Google -
395 . Born Confused by Tanuja Desai Hidier
Tanuja Desai Hidier's fantastically acclaimed cross-cultural debut comes to PUSH! Dimple Lala doesn't know what to think. Her parents are from India, and she's spent her whole life resisting their ...
- Google -
396 . Chanda's Secrets by Allan Stratton
This is the powerful story of one girl's struggle for survival amid the African HIV/AIDS pandemic a story of harsh realities and hard-won hopefulness, leavened with humour and the possibility of ch...
- Google -
397 . City of the Beasts by Isabel Allende
Fifteen-year-old Alexander Cold accompanies his fearless grandmother, a magazine reporter for International Geographic, on an expedition to the dangerous, remote world of the Amazon to document the...
- Google -
398 . Crow Lake by Mary Lawson
Mary Lawson's debut novel is a shimmering tale of love, death and redemption set in a rural northern community where time has stood still. Tragic, funny and unforgettable, this deceptively simple m...
- Google -
399 . Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje
Anil’s Ghost is the critically acclaimed fourth novel by Michael Ondaatje. It was first published in 2000 by McClelland and Stewart. Anil’s Ghost follows the life of Anil Tissera, a native Sri L...
-
400 . He, She and It by Marge Piercy
"A triumph of the imagination. Rich, complex, impossible to put down." Alice Hoffman In the middle of the twenty-first century, life as we know it has changed for all time. Shira Shipman's marriage...
- Google