The Greatest Books Since 2010 Written by American Authors
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1 . A Visit From The Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
Jennifer Egan's spellbinding novel circles the lives of Bennie Salazar, an ageing former punk rocker and record executive, and Sasha, the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Although Benni...
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2 . Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Who are you? What have we done to each other? These are the questions Nick Dunne finds himself asking on the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary, when his wife Amy suddenly disappears. The pol...
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3 . Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk: A Novel by Ben Fountain
A ferocious firefight with Iraqi insurgents at "the battle of Al-Ansakar Canal"—three minutes and forty-three seconds of intense warfare caught on tape by an embedded Fox News crew—has transformed ...
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4 . Freedom: A Novel by Jonathan Franzen
Patty and Walter Berglund were the new pioneers of old St. Paul—the gentrifiers, the hands-on parents, the avant-garde of the Whole Foods generation. Patty was the ideal sort of neighbor, who could...
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5 . The Sellout by Paul Beatty
The Sellout is a 2015 novel by Paul Beatty published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and in the UK by Oneworld Publications in 2016. The novel takes place in and around Los Angeles, California, and c...
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6 . The Flamethrowers: A Novel by Rachel Kushner
Arriving in New York to pursue a creative career in the raucous 1970s art scene, Reno joins a group of dreamers and raconteurs before falling in love with the estranged son of an Italian motorcycle...
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7 . Salvage the Bones: A Novel by Jesmyn Ward
Winner of the 2011 National Book Award A hurricane is building over the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, and Esch's father is growing concerned. A hard dri...
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8 . The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2014 Aged thirteen, Theo Decker, son of a devoted mother and a reckless, largely absent father, survives an accident that otherwise tears his life apart. Al...
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9 . The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
A profound, startling, and beautifully crafted debut novel, The Sympathizer is the story of a man of two minds, someone whose political beliefs clash with his individual loyalties.
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10 . Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
A provocative meditation on race, Claudia Rankine's long-awaited follow up to her groundbreaking book Don't Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric. Claudia Rankine's bold new book recounts mounting ra...
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11 . The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
The Underground Railroad, published in 2016, is the sixth novel by American author Colson Whitehead. The alternate history novel tells the story of Cora and Caesar, two slaves in the southeaster...
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12 . The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
At Westish College, a small school on the shore of Lake Michigan, baseball star Henry Skrimshander seems destined for big league stardom. But when a routine throw goes disastrously off course, the ...
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13 . Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill
Dept. of Speculation is a portrait of a marriage. It is also a beguiling rumination on the mysteries of intimacy, trust, faith, knowledge, and the condition of universal shipwreck that unites us al...
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14 . Preparation for the Next Life by Atticus Lish
Zou Lei is an illegal immigrant who works at a Chinese restaurant in Queens in search of a better life in the 'Land of the Brave'. Brad Skinner has recently arrived in New York following a tour in ...
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16 . Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
Sing, Unburied, Sing is a 2017 novel by Jesmyn Ward. It is about a family's dynamics in the fictional town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi. The novel received overwhelmingly positive reviews, and was ...
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17 . Nemesis by Philip Roth
Set in a Newark neighborhood during a terrifying polio outbreak, Nemesis is a wrenching examination of the forces of circumstance on our lives. Bucky Cantor is a vigorous, dutiful twenty-three-year...
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18 . The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Marriage Plot is a 2011 novel by American writer Jeffrey Eugenides. The novel grew out of a manuscript begun by Eugenides after the publication of his novel Middlesex and portions are loosely b...
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19 . Family Life by Akhil Sharma
Finally joining their father in America, Ajay and Birju enjoy their new, extraordinary life until tragedy strikes, leaving one brother incapacitated and the other practically orphaned in this stran...
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20 . What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell
Garth Greenwell's What Belongs to You appeared in early 2016, and is a short first novel by a young writer; still, it was not easily surpassed by anything that appeared later in the year....It is n...
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21 . Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
Lincoln in the Bardo is a 2017 experimental novel by American writer George Saunders. It is Saunders's first full-length novel and was the New York Times hardcover fiction bestseller for the week o...
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22 . The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
The Nickel Boys is a 2019 novel by American novelist and writer Colson Whitehead.
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23 . The Martian by Andy Weir
The Martian is a 2011 science fiction novel written by Andy Weir. It was his debut novel under his own name. It was originally self-published in 2011; Crown Publishing purchased the rights and re-r...
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24 . Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner
Adam Gordon is a brilliant, if highly unreliable, young American poet on a prestigious fellowship in Madrid, struggling to establish his sense of self and his relationship to art. What is actual wh...
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25 . Tenth of December by George Saunders
Tenth of December is a collection of short stories by American author George Saunders. It includes stories published in various magazines between 1995 and 2009. The book was published on January 8,...
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26 . Habibi by Craig Thompson
Habibi is a graphic novel by Craig Thompson published by Pantheon in September 2011. The 672-page book is set in a fictional Islamic fairy tale landscape and depicts the relationship between Dodola...
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27 . Zone One by Colson Whitehead
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Underground Railroad A pandemic has devastated the planet, sorting humanity into two types: the uninfected and the infected, the living and the ...
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28 . 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.
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29 . 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...
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30 . 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...
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31 . 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...
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32 . 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...
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34 . 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...
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35 . 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...
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36 . 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...
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37 . 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...
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38 . 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.
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39 . 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...
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40 . 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, ...
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41 . A Dog's Purpose by W. Bruce Cameron
This is the remarkable story of one endearing dog’s search for his purpose over the course of several lives. More than just another charming dog story, A Dog’s Purpose touches on the universal ques...
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42 . LaRose by Louise Erdrich
LaRose is a novel by the author Louise Erdrich, published in 2016 by HarperCollins Publishers. The book was reviewed by multiple publications, including The New York Times, The Kansas City Star, Wi...
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43 . All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
A blind French girl on the run from the German occupation and a German orphan-turned-Resistance tracker struggle with their respective beliefs after meeting on the Brittany coast.
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44 . The Orphan Master's Son: A Novel by Adam Johnson
The son of an influential father who runs an orphan work camp, Pak Jun Do rises to prominence using instinctive talents and eventually becomes a professional kidnapper and romantic rival to Kim Jon...
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46 . Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Ready Player One is a 2011 LitRPG science fiction novel, and the debut novel of American author Ernest Cline. The story, set in a dystopian 2040s, follows protagonist Wade Watts on his search for a...
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47 . Ghost by Jason Reynolds
Aspiring to be the fastest sprinter on his elite middle school's track team, gifted runner Ghost finds his goal challenged by a tragic past with a violent father.
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48 . Her Body and Other Parties: Stories by Carmen Maria Machado
Finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction “[These stories] vibrate with originality, queerness, sensuality and the strange.”—Roxane Gay “In these formally brilliant and emotionally charged t...
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49 . Homesick for Another World by Ottessa Moshfegh
Ottessa Moshfegh’s dark, confident, prickling stories are mostly about youngish men and women who have taken a wrong turn somewhere and find themselves hunkering down in nowhere towns, dismal cabin...
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50 . American Innovations by Rivka Galchen
A brilliant new collection of short stories from "the conspicuously talented" (Time) Rivka Galchen In one of the intensely imaginative stories in Rivka's Galchen's American Innovations, a young wom...
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51 . Redeployment by Phil Klay
Redeployment is a collection of short stories by American writer Phil Klay. His first published book, it won the 2014 National Book Award for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle's 2014 Joh...
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52 . Less by Andrew Sean Greer
Less is a satirical comedy novel by American author Andrew Sean Greer, following gay author Arthur Less as he travels the world on a literary tour. The book covers themes such as romantic love, ...
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53 . Binocular Vision by Edith Pearlman
Tenderly, observantly, incisively, Edith Pearlman captures life on the page like few other writers. She is a master of the short story, and this is a spectacular collection.
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54 . The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg: Stories by Deborah Eisenberg
Twenty-seven short stories by "a contemporary master" (The New York Times). Since 1986 with the publication of her first story collection, Deborah Eisenberg has devoted herself to writing "exquisit...
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55 . Fortune Smiles: Stories by Adam Johnson
Fortune Smiles is a 2015 collection of short stories by American author and novelist Adam Johnson. It is Johnson's second published short story collection, after his 2002 book Emporium and his firs...
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56 . Collected Poems by Jack Gilbert
Jack Gilbert (February 18, 1925 – November 13, 2012) was an American poet. Born and raised in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania neighborhood of East Liberty, he attended Peabody High School before fa...
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57 . My Name Is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
My Name is Lucy Barton is a 2016 New York Times Bestselling novel and the fifth novel by the American writer Elizabeth Strout.[1] It was first published in the United States on January 12, 2016 thr...
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58 . Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
Presents a collection of short stories about contradiction and conflict in the lives of those who reside on the border lands around the Rio Grande.
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59 . Lord of Misrule: The Morganville Vampires by Rachel Caine
In the college town of Morganville, vampires and humans coexist in (relatively) bloodless harmony. Then comes Bishop, the master vampire who threatens to abolish all order, revive the forces of the...
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60 . Lila by Marilynne Robinson
Lila is a novel written by Marilynne Robinson that was published in 2014. Her fourth novel, it is the third installment of the Gilead series, after Gilead and Home. The novel focuses on the courtsh...
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61 . The Overstory by Richard Powers
The Overstory is a novel by Richard Powers published in 2018 by W.W. Norton. It is Powers's twelfth novel. The novel is about nine Americans whose unique life experiences with trees bring them toge...
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62 . Everything Inside: Stories by Edwidge Danticat
A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD One of the Best Books of the Year NPR, Time, Esquire, BuzzFeed, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel A roman...
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63 . The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka
The Buddha in the Attic is a 2011 novel written by American author Julie Otsuka about Japanese picture brides immigrating to America in the early 1900s.
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64 . We are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
Coming of age in middle America, 18-year-old Rosemary evaluates how her entire youth was defined by the presence and forced removal of an endearing chimpanzee who was secretly regarded as a family ...
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65 . The Round House by Louise Erdrich
National Book Award Winner One Sunday in the spring of 1988, a woman living on a reservation in North Dakota is attacked. The details of the crime are slow to surface as Geraldine Coutts is traumat...
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66 . Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
A multi-award-winning middle grade novel about the author’s own coming of age as an African American in the ’60s and ’70s growing up in South Carolina and Brooklyn, N.Y.
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67 . The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin
The Fifth Season is a 2015 science fantasy novel by N. K. Jemisin. It was awarded the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2016. It is the first volume in the Broken Earth series and is followed by The Obe...
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68 . Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
Fates and Furies is a 2015 novel by American author Lauren Groff. It is Groff's third novel and fourth book. The book takes place in New York and examines how the different people in a relationship...
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69 . The Stories of Ray Bradbury by Ray Bradbury
A volume of 100 top-selected stories by the iconic writer includes Martian tales, pieces inspired by life in Mexico and offbeat reminiscences of a childhood in Green Town, Illinois. By the National...
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70 . A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
A Little Life is a 2015 novel by American novelist Hanya Yanagihara. The novel was written over the course of eighteen months. Despite the length and difficult subject matter it became a bestseller.
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71 . Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
Little Fires Everywhere is a 2017 novel by American author Celeste Ng. It is her second novel and takes place in Shaker Heights, Ohio where Ng grew up. She described writing about her hometown as "...
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72 . Circe by Madeline Miller
"A bold and subversive retelling of the goddess's story," this #1 New York Times bestseller is "both epic and intimate in its scope, recasting the most infamous female figure from the Odyssey as a ...
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73 . Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
Swamplandia! is a 2011 novel by Karen Russell. Set in the Ten Thousand Islands, off the southwest coast of Florida, it is the story of the Bigtree family of alligator wrestlers who live on Swamplan...
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74 . The Leavers by Lisa Ko
Lisa Ko is an American writer. Her debut novel, The Leavers, won the 2016 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction and was a finalist for the 2017 National Book Award for Fiction. She has ...
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75 . The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
The Way of Kings is an epic fantasy novel written by American author Brandon Sanderson and the first book in The Stormlight Archive series. The novel was published on August 31, 2010 by Tor Books. ...
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76 . Wolf in White Van by John Darnielle
Wolf in White Van is the first novel by the American author and singer-songwriter John Darnielle. Wolf in White Van tells the story of Sean Phillips, a reclusive game designer whose face has been s...
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77 . The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
The Water Dancer is a 2019 novel by Ta-Nehisi Coates. It is his first novel and was published on September 24, 2019, by One World, an imprint of Random House. It is a surrealist story set in the pr...
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78 . The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
The Night Circus is a 2011 fantasy novel by Erin Morgenstern. It was originally written for the annual writing competition NaNoWriMo over the span of three NaNoWriMos. The novel has a nonlinear nar...
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79 . The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss
The Wise Man's Fear, also called The Kingkiller Chronicle: Day Two, is a fantasy novel written by American author Patrick Rothfuss and the second volume in The Kingkiller Chronicle. It was publish...
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80 . Commonwealth by Ann Patchett
Commonwealth is the seventh novel by American author Ann Patchett, published in 2016. The novel begins with an illicit kiss that leads to an affair that destroys two marriages and creates a relucta...
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81 . The Destroyers by Christopher Bollen
When Charlie and I were young, we played a game called Destroyers. . . . We were sharpening our instincts, jettisoning attachments. We were honing strategies for survival. . . . Arriving on the Gre...
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82 . Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson
"Gorgeous, moving…A story of love—romantic and familial—and alienation, grief and triumph, disaster and surviva." —Nylon "For those still mourning the loss of Toni Morrison, it’s essential that you...
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83 . Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh
Eileen is a 2015 novel by Ottessa Moshfegh, published by Penguin Press. It is Moshfegh's first novel.In September 2016, it was shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize.
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84 . The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang
The Poppy War is a 2018 novel by R. F. Kuang, published by Harper Voyager. The Poppy War, a grimdark fantasy, draws its plot and politics from mid-20th-century China, with the conflict in the novel...
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85 . Bowlaway by Elizabeth McCracken
A sweeping and enchanting new novel from the widely beloved, award-winning author Elizabeth McCracken about three generations of an unconventional New England family who own and operate a candlepin...
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86 . An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing is a novel by Hank Green. It was published on September 25, 2018, and is Green's debut novel. Announced on September 19, 2017, the novel is the first of a two-book deal.
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87 . The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley by Hannah Tinti
“A gripping American-on-the-run thriller . . . a brilliant coming-of-age tale and a touching exploration of father-daughter relationships.”—Newsweek “One part Quentin Tarantino, one part Scheheraza...
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88 . Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor
Who Fears Death is a science fantasy novel by Nigerian-American writer Nnedi Okorafor, published in 2010 by DAW, an imprint of Penguin Books. It was awarded the 2011 World Fantasy Award for Best No...
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89 . An Untamed State by Roxane Gay
An Untamed State is the debut novel of writer Roxane Gay, first published in 2014 by Grove Atlantic.
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90 . Anything Is Possible by Elizabeth Strout
Anything Is Possible is a 2017 novel of related stories by Elizabeth Strout. It returns to the fictional rural town of Amgash, Illinois, the protagonist's hometown in Strout's 2016 novel My Name Is...
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91 . My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a 2018 novel by American author Ottessa Moshfegh. Moshfegh's second novel, it is set in New York City in 2000 and 2001 and follows an unnamed protagonist as she gr...
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92 . The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer
Named a best book of the year by Entertainment Weekly, Time, and The Chicago Tribune, and named a notable book by The New York Times Book Review and The Washington Post “Remarkable . . . With this ...
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93 . Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver
Flight Behavior is a 2012 novel by Barbara Kingsolver. It is her seventh novel, is a New York Times Bestseller, and was declared "Best book of the year" by the Washington Post and USA Today.
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94 . Savages: A Novel by Don Winslow
Running a lucrative marijuana operation in Laguna Beach, environmentalist Ben and mercenary Chon confront an adversary in the Mexican Baja cartel who kidnaps their playmate and confidante Ophelia, ...
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95 . Building Stories by Chris Ware
Presents an illustrated tale, told in various books and folded sheets, about the residents in a three-story Chicago apartment building, including a lonely single woman, a couple who are growing to ...
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96 . The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt
Named one of the New York Times Book Review’s 100 Notable Books of the Year ** Publishers Weekly’s Best Fiction Books of 2014 ** NPR Best Books of 2014 ** Kirkus Reviews Best Literary Fiction Books...
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97 . I Loved You More by Tom Spanbauer
Tom Spanbauer’s first novel in seven years is a love story triangle akin to The Marriage Plot and Freedom, only with a gay main character who charms gays and straights alike. I Loved You More is a ...
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