Truelit's 100 Best Books of the Quarter Century
This is one of the 743 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.
About this list
/r/truelit, 102 Books
The /r/truelit subreddit with many people from around the globe, all voted on the 100 best books of the 21st century in 2024. These are the results.
Note: Users could not list an author twice, so authors like Tokarczuk with multiple masterpieces suffered as a result. The “Favorite authors” list only includes authors who had multiple books reach two votes.
Voters: 252 unknown voters
This list was originally published in 2024 and was added to this site over 1 year ago.
| Rank | Book | Authors | Year | Country | Language | Actions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 232 | 2666 | Roberto Bolaño | 2004 | Chilean | Spanish | |
| 2615 | The Neapolitan Novels | Elena Ferrante | 2011 | Italian | Italian | |
| 896 | My Struggle | Karl Ove Knausgård | 2009 | Norwegian | Norwegian | |
| 2304 | Solenoid | Mircea Cărtărescu | 2015 | Romanian | Romanian | |
| 2876 | Septology | Jon Fosse | 2019 | Norwegian | Norwegian | |
| 1019 | Lincoln in the Bardo | George Saunders | 2017 | American | English | |
| 261 | Austerlitz | W. G. Sebald | 2001 | German | German | |
| 858 | The Sellout | Paul Beatty | 2015 | American | English | |
| 291 | The Road | Cormac McCarthy | 2006 | American | English | |
| 4997 | Against the Day | Thomas Pynchon | 2006 | American | English | |
| 267 | Never Let Me Go | Kazuo Ishiguro | 2005 | British | English | |
| 2641 | Hurricane Season | Fernanda Melchor | 2017 | Mexican | Spanish | |
| 432 | Cloud Atlas | David Mitchell | 2004 | British | English | |
| 3227 | The Books Of Jacob | Olga Tokarczuk | 2014 | Polish | Polish | |
| 475 | Gilead | Marilynne Robinson | 2004 | American | English | |
| 221 | White Teeth | Zadie Smith | 2000 | British | English | |
| 874 | The Last Samurai | Helen DeWitt | 2000 | American | English | |
| 9204 | The Passenger | Cormac McCarthy | 2022 | American | English | |
| 11573 | Stella Maris | Cormac McCarthy | 2022 | American | English | |
| 237 | The Corrections | Jonathan Franzen | 2001 | American | English | |
| 740 | The Goldfinch | Donna Tartt | 2013 | American | English | |
| 10149 | The Pale King | David Foster Wallace | 2011 | American | English | |
| 1456 | Flights | Olga Tokarczuk | 2007 | Polish | Polish | |
| 3935 | Piranesi | Susanna Clarke | 2020 | British | English | |
| 597 | The Years | Annie Ernaux | 2008 | French | French | |
| 1199 | Kafka On The Shore | Haruki Murakami | 2002 | Japanese | Japanese | |
| 1238 | Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead | Olga Tokarczuk | 2009 | Polish | Polish | |
| 607 | House of Leaves | Mark Z. Danielewski | 2000 | American | English | |
| 11240 | Seiobo There Below | László Krasznahorkai | 2008 | Hungarian | Hungarian | |
| 6554 | Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming | László Krasznahorkai | 2016 | Hungarian | Hungarian | |
| 5939 | Inherent Vice | Thomas Pynchon | 2009 | American | English | |
| 1389 | A Brief History of Seven Killings | Marlon James | 2014 | Jamaican | English | |
| 6936 | Ducks, Newburyport | Lucy Ellmann | 2019 | British | English | |
| 2177 | No Country for Old Men | Cormac McCarthy | 2005 | American | English | |
| 1997 | Freedom | Jonathan Franzen | 2010 | American | English | |
| 1099 | Outline | Rachel Cusk | 2014 | British | English | |
| 9867 | Trieste | Daša Drndić | 2007 | Croatian | Croatian | |
| 2337 | Small Things Like These | Claire Keegan | 2021 | Irish | English | |
| 8045 | Maniac | Benjamin Labatut | 2023 | Chilean | Spanish | |
| 6980 | The Employees | Olga Ravn | 2018 | Danish | Danish | |
| 4049 | Leaving the Atocha Station | Ben Lerner | 2011 | American | English | |
| 2311 | Milkman | Anna Burns | 2018 | Irish | English | |
| 248 | Atonement | Ian McEwan | 2001 | British | English | |
| 7663 | The Netanyahus | Joshua Cohen | 2021 | American | English | |
| 1646 | Wizard of the Crow | Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o | 2006 | Kenyan | English | |
| 1204 | Pachinko | Min Jin Lee | 2017 | American | English | |
| 1380 | Station Eleven | Emily St John Mandel | 2014 | Canadian | English | |
| 6996 | Tyll | Daniel Kehlmann | 2017 | German | German | |
| 1024 | Secondhand Time | Svetlana Alexievich | 2013 | Belarusian | Russian | |
| 1682 | Train Dreams | Denis Johnson | 2002 | American | English | |
| 803 | The Vegetarian | Han Kang | 2007 | Korean | Korean | |
| 11539 | Nox | Anne Carson | 2010 | Canadian | English | |
| 3168 | Oblivion | David Foster Wallace | 2004 | American | English | |
| 1272 | Erasure | Percival Everett | 2001 | American | English | |
| 1621 | Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell | Susanna Clarke | 2004 | British | English | |
| 1896 | Tenth of December | George Saunders | 2013 | American | English | |
| 9487 | Our Lady Of The Nile | Scholastique Mukasonga | 2012 | French | French | |
| 11393 | A Naked Singularity | Sergio De La Pava | 2008 | American | English | |
| 4583 | The Nickel Boys | Colson Whitehead | 2019 | American | English | |
| 3107 | Foster | Claire Keegan | 2010 | Irish | English | |
| 4528 | Annihilation | Jeff VanderMeer | 2014 | American | English | |
| 1696 | Stories of Your Life and Others | Ted Chiang | 2002 | American | English | |
| 5975 | The Idiot | Elif Batuman | 2017 | American | English | |
| 10628 | Belladonna | Daša Drndić | 2012 | Croatian | Croatian | |
| 12452 | EEG | Daša Drndić | 2016 | Croatian | Croatian | |
| 3622 | Convenience Store Woman | Sayaka Murata | 2016 | Japanese | Japanese | |
| 769 | The Underground Railroad | Colson Whitehead | 2016 | American | English | |
| 3395 | Brothers | Yu Hua | 2005 | Chinese | Chinese | |
| 3538 | Her Body and Other Parties | Carmen Maria Machado | 2017 | American | English | |
| 11589 | The Prague Cemetery | Umberto Eco | 2010 | Italian | Italian | |
| 9751 | Animal Money | Michael Cisco | 2015 | American | English | |
| 4411 | Detransition, Baby | Torrey Peters | 2021 | American | English | |
| 2522 | On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous | Ocean Vuong | 2019 | American | English | |
| 668 | Persepolis | Marjane Satrapi | 2000 | French | French | |
| 3045 | By Night in Chile | Roberto Bolaño | 2000 | Chilean | Spanish | |
| 3199 | When We Cease To Understand The World | Adrian Nathan West, Benjamin Labatut | 2020 | Chilean | Spanish | |
| 6216 | Happening | Annie Ernaux | 2000 | French | French | |
| 12722 | Border Districts | Gerald Murnane | 2017 | Australian | English | |
| 2132 | Demon Copperhead | Barbara Kingsolver | 2022 | American | English | |
| 921 | The Sympathizer | Viet Thanh Nguyen | 2015 | American | English | |
| 10809 | Bleeding Edge | Thomas Pynchon | 2013 | American | English | |
| 418 | The Human Stain | Philip Roth | 2000 | American | English | |
| 395 | The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao | Junot Diaz | 2007 | Dominican | English | |
| 441 | Americanah | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie | 2013 | Nigerian | English | |
| 2213 | My Year of Rest and Relaxation | Ottessa Moshfegh | 2018 | American | English | |
| 1392 | Evicted | Matthew Desmond | 2016 | American | English | |
| 9762 | Seeing | José Saramago | 2004 | Portuguese | Portuguese | |
| 6607 | Zone | Mathias Enard | 2008 | French | French | |
| 3201 | Submission | Michel Houellebecq | 2015 | French | French | |
| 10390 | H Hh H | Laurent Binet | 2010 | French | French | |
| 3177 | Minor Detail | Adania Shibli | 2017 | Palestinian | Arabic | |
| 11606 | The Instructions | Adam Levin | 2010 | American | English | |
| 1363 | The Adversary | Emmanuel Carrère | 2000 | French | French | |
| 6430 | Tomb Of Sand | Geetanjali Shree | 2018 | Indian | Hindi | |
| 12035 | Cannonball | Joseph McElroy | 2013 | American | English | |
| 5304 | A General Theory Of Oblivion | José Eduardo Agualusa | 2012 | Angolan | Portuguese | |
| 12132 | My Work | Olga Ravn | 2023 | Danish | Danish | |
| 9620 | Tram 83 | Fiston Mwanza Mujila | 2014 | Congolese | French | |
| 1996 | The Flamethrowers | Rachel Kushner | 2013 | American | English | |
| 11049 | Heaven | Mieko Kawakami | 2023 | Japanese | Japanese | |
| 10902 | Trilogy | Jon Fosse | 2014 | Norwegian | Norwegian | |
| 10254 | Capitalist Realism | Mark Fisher | 2009 | British | English |