What Is the Best Work of American Fiction of the Last 25 Years?

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

About this list

The New York Times Book Review's editor, Sam Tanenhaus, sent out a short letter to a couple of hundred prominent writers, critics, editors and other literary sages, asking them to please identify...

This list was originally published in 2006 and was added to this site over 12 years ago.

View: List Grid Table

Rank	Book	Authors	Year	Country	Language
49	Beloved	Toni Morrison	1987	American	English
411	Underworld	Don DeLillo	1997	American	English
198	Blood Meridian	Cormac McCarthy	1985	American	English
784	Rabbit at Rest	John Updike	1990	American	English
686	Rabbit Is Rich	John Updike	1981	American	English
668	Rabbit Redux	John Updike	1971	American	English
174	Rabbit, Run	John Updike	1960	American	English
380	American Pastoral	Philip Roth	1997	American	English
203	A Confederacy of Dunces	John Kennedy Toole	1980	American	English
331	Housekeeping	Marilynne Robinson	1980	American	English
1373	Winter's Tale	Mark Helprin	1983	American	English
364	White Noise	Don DeLillo	1985	American	English
2853	The Counterlife	Philip Roth	1986	American	English
2336	Libra	Don DeLillo	1988	American	English
924	Where I'm Calling From	Raymond Carver	1988	American	English
648	The Things They Carried	Tim O'Brien	1990	American	English
1200	Mating	Norman Rush	1991	American	English
968	Jesus' Son	Denis Johnson	1992	American	English
2226	Operation Shylock	Philip Roth	1993	American	English
1484	Independence Day	Richard Ford	1995	American	English
1758	Sabbath's Theater	Philip Roth	1995	American	English
3902	Cities of the Plain	Cormac McCarthy	1998	American	English
2285	The Crossing	Cormac McCarthy	1994	American	English
751	All the Pretty Horses	Cormac McCarthy	1992	American	English
420	The Human Stain	Philip Roth	2000	American	English
918	The Plot Against America	Philip Roth	2004	American	English