A Premature Attempt at the 21st Century Canon

This is one of the 759 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.

About this list

Vulture, 100 Books

A panel of critics tells us what belongs on a list of the 100 most important books of the 2000s … so far.

here's a list of the voters:

Alice Bolin, essayist
Sloane Crosley, author, most recently of Look Alive Out There
Molly Fischer, senior editor, the Cut
John Freeman, author, editor of Freeman’s
Dagoberto Gilb, author of several short-story collections
Mark Greif, author, Against Everything
Lidija Haas, New Books columnist, Harper’s
Edward Hart, senior editor, New York
Michiko Kakutani, former chief book critic, the New York Times
Hillary Kelly, critic and essayist
Dan Kois, editor of the Slate Book Review
Maris Kreizman, book critic and essayist
Laura Lippman, crime novelist
Christian Lorentzen, book critic, New York
Tom Lutz, editor-in-chief, Los Angeles Review of Books
Wyatt Mason, contributing writer, The New York Times Magazine
Heller McAlpin, book reviewer for the Washington Post, NPR, and others
Laura Miller, books and culture columnist, Slate
Eileen Myles, poet
Sarah Nicole Prickett, critic for Artforum, Bookforum, et al.
Nathaniel Rich, author, most recently, of King Zeno
Jess Row, novelist and critic
Luc Sante, critic and author of Low Life
Nikil Saval, co-editor, n+1
Lila Shapiro, culture journalist
Christine Smallwood, critic and writer
Adam Sternbergh, contributing editor, New York
Kate Tuttle, president, National Book Critics Circle
David Velasco, editor-in-chief, Artforum
Oscar Villalon, editor and critic
Sarah Weinman, author, The Real Lolita
Thomas Chatterton Williams, contributing writer, The New York Times Magazine

This list was originally published in 2018 and was added to this site almost 8 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
874 The Last Samurai Helen DeWitt 2000 American English
237 The Corrections Jonathan Franzen 2001 American English
266 Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ishiguro 2005 British English
4501 How Should a Person Be? Sheila Heti 2010 Canadian English
2618 The Neapolitan Novels Elena Ferrante 2011 Italian Italian
1703 The Argonauts Maggie Nelson 2015 American English
232 2666 Roberto Bolaño 2004 Chilean Spanish
837 The Sellout Paul Beatty 2015 American English
1101 Outline Rachel Cusk 2014 British English
248 Atonement Ian McEwan 2001 British English
370 The Year of Magical Thinking Joan Didion 2005 American English
4055 Leaving the Atocha Station Ben Lerner 2011 American English
2001 The Flamethrowers Rachel Kushner 2013 American English
1272 Erasure Percival Everett 2001 American English
418 Middlesex Jeffrey Eugenides 2002 American English
2426 Platform Michel Houellebecq 2001 French French
3590 Do Everything in the Dark Gary Indiana 2003 American English
574 The Known World Edward P. Jones 2003 American English
918 The Plot Against America Philip Roth 2004 American English
723 The Line of Beauty Alan Hollinghurst 2004 British English
1369 Veronica Mary Gaitskill 2005 American English
290 The Road Cormac McCarthy 2006 American English
6711 Ooga-Booga Frederick Seidel 2006 American English
396 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Junot Diaz 2007 Dominican English
397 Wolf Hall Hilary Mantel 2009 British English
3576 The Possessed Elif Batuman 2010 Turkish English
4460 The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake Aimee Bender 2010 American English
7754 Mr. Fox Helen Oyeyemi 2011 British English
4067 Lives Other Than My Own Emmanuel Carrère 2009 French French
5012 Zone One Colson Whitehead 2011 American English
791 Gone Girl Gillian Flynn 2012 American English
1751 NW Zadie Smith 2012 British English
5344 White Girls Hilton Als 2013 American English
898 My Struggle Karl Ove Knausgård 2009 Norwegian Norwegian
741 The Goldfinch Donna Tartt 2013 American English
3164 Dept. of Speculation Jenny Offill 2014 American English
3526 All My Puny Sorrows Miriam Toews 2014 Canadian English
1861 Citizen Claudia Rankine 2014 American English
8885 Black and Blur Fred Moten 2017 American English
314 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay Michael Chabon 2000 American English
2970 The Amber Spyglass Philip Pullman 2000 British English
1154 True History of the Kelly Gang Peter Carey 2000 Australian English
1472 The Beauty Of The Husband Anne Carson 2001 Canadian English
4638 The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse Louise Erdrich 2001 American English
262 Austerlitz W. G. Sebald 2001 German German
1010 Fingersmith Sarah Waters 2002 British English
4675 The Time of Our Singing Richard Powers 2003 American English
4889 The Book of Salt Monique Truong 2003 American English
2498 Mortals Norman Rush 2003 American English
3063 Home Land Sam Lipsyte 2004 American English
3174 Oblivion David Foster Wallace 2004 American English
5032 Honored Guest Joy Williams 2004 American English
1448 Suite Française Irène Némirovsky 2004 French French
5032 The Sluts Dennis Cooper 2004 American English
1315 Voices from Chernobyl Svetlana Alexievich 1997 Belarusian Russian
3453 Magic for Beginners Kelly Link 2005 American English
6731 The Afterlife Donald Antrim 2006 American English
3609 Winter's Bone Daniel Woodrell 2006 American English
1648 Wizard of the Crow Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o 2006 Kenyan English
4152 American Genius Lynne Tillman 2006 American English
6731 Eat the Document Dana Spiotta 2006 American English
236 Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone J. K. Rowling 1997 British English
6984 Sleeping It Off in Rapid City August Kleinzahler 2008 American English
2973 The White Tiger Aravind Adiga 2008 Indian English
5598 The Lazarus Project Aleksandar Hemon 2008 Bosnian English
1876 Home Marilynne Robinson 2008 American English
6984 Fine Just the Way It Is Annie Proulx 2008 American English
2874 Boyhood J. M. Coetzee 1997 South African English
3573 Notes from No Man's Land Eula Biss 2009 American English
7900 Spreadeagle Kevin Killian 2012 American English
3103 Super Sad True Love Story Gary Shteyngart 2010 American English
7115 Seven Years Peter Stamm 2009 Swiss German
2219 The Sense of an Ending Julian Barnes 2011 British English
1723 1Q84 Haruki Murakami 2009 Japanese Japanese
7900 The Gentrification of the Mind Sarah Schulman 2012 American English
3139 Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk Ben Fountain 2012 American English
7900 Capital John Lanchester 2012 British English
4889 The MaddAddam Trilogy Margaret Atwood 2003 Canadian English
5408 A Constellation of Vital Phenomena Anthony Marra 2013 American English
8072 Taipei Tao Lin 2013 American English
1752 Men We Reaped Jesmyn Ward 2013 American English
2295 Family Life Akhil Sharma 2014 Indian English
2336 How to be both Ali Smith 2014 British English
1390 A Brief History of Seven Killings Marlon James 2014 Jamaican English
6663 Preparation for the Next Life Atticus Lish 2014 American English
922 The Sympathizer Viet Thanh Nguyen 2015 American English
8459 The Light of the World Elizabeth Alexander 2015 American English
3436 The Broken Earth Trilogy N. K. Jemisin 2015 American English
4293 What Belongs to You Garth Greenwell 2016 American English
7020 Albert Murray Albert Murray 2016 American Unknown
3438 The Needle's Eye Fanny Howe 1970 American English
3228 Ghachar Ghochar Vivek Shanbhag 2015 Indian Kannada
3281 The Hate U Give Angie Thomas 2017 American English
8917 All Grown Up Jami Attenberg 2017 American English
6122 The Best We Could Do Thi Bui 2017 American English
4740 Tell Me How It Ends Valeria Luiselli 2017 Mexican English
3178 Priestdaddy Patricia Lockwood 2017 American English
9182 Red Clocks Leni Zumas 2018 American English
4828 The Largesse of the Sea Maiden Denis Johnson 2018 American English
4156 Asymmetry Lisa Halliday 2018 American English