Best Books of the 21st Century

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The blockbuster debut novel from "a preternaturally gifted" writer (The New York Times) and author of On Beauty and Swing Time—set against London's racial and cultural tapestry, reveling in the ecstatic...

'And then we heard the rain falling and that was the blood falling; and when we came to get in the crops, it was dead men that we reaped' Harriet Tubman.Jesmyn Ward's acclaimed memoir shines a light on the community she comes from in the small town of...

A darkly humorous and touching study in grief and companionship, Nunez’s award-winning novel follows a woman who unexpectedly loses her mentor and best friend and inherits his huge, bereaved Great Dane. A moving story of love, friendship, grief,...

Empire's Pick for The Best Books Made By Women in Fiction 2021.WINNER OF THE GOLDSMITHS PRIZE 2014.SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2014.WINNER OF THE 2014 COSTA NOVEL AWARD.WINNER OF THE SALTIRE SOCIETY LITERARY BOOK OF THE YEAR...

Shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2019 Considered by many to be the iconic French memoirist's defining work, The Years is a narrative of the period 1941 to 2006 told through the lens of memory, impressions past and...

Gorgeous prose woven into the breakneck pace of a page-turning thriller. Set in Los Angeles among Vietnamese refugees after the fall of Saigon, this is a story steeped in stakes and begging to be read. Don’t miss it. Now an HBO Limited Series...

Both an utterly unique exercise in dystopian fiction and a powerful portrayal of friendship at its most intimate, Never Let Me Go follows three students at the woozily pleasant Hailsham School as their preordained futures begin to unfold.    In one of...

This Pulitzer Prize winning masterpiece is the story of a father and son's survival in a post-apocalyptic America and is an urgent observation of the best and worst of humanity. At once a brutal vision of the future and a profound meditation on love,...

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • The acclaimed memoir about fathers and sons, a legacy of loss, and, ultimately, healing—one of The New York Times Book Review’s ten best books of the year, winner of the PEN/Jean Stein Book...

A NATIONAL BESTSELLER and an award-winning novel in stories surrounding a young, half-white, half-Puerto Rican boy grappling with life, love, and identity as he comes of age.In this groundbreaking debut, Justin Torres plunges us into the chaotic heart of...

Winner of the 2004 Man Booker Prize and a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award and the NBCC award. From Alan Hollinghurst, the acclaimed author of The Sparsholt Affair, The Line of Beauty is a sweeping novel about class, sex, and money during four...

A NEW YORK TIMES "TEN BEST BOOKS OF 2022" An Oprah’s Book Club Selection • An Instant New York Times Bestseller • An Instant Wall Street Journal Bestseller • A #1 Washington Post Bestseller  "Demon...

If you believe in a thing called love (in all of its forms), hop into this journey across time and distance (and pixels) and dig into the universal importance of friendship, human connection, and beyond.NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • Sam and...

A biting satire that's equally intellectually stimulating, this is a story of race in America and what it means to be Black. With sympathy and sarcasm, Percival Everett creates an entirely real narrative about identity, community, ambition and so much...

What if you could live again and again, until you got it right?On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born to an English banker and his wife. She dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is...

Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel 2018. The Moon will soon return. Whether this heralds the destruction of humankind or something worse will depend on two women. Essun has inherited the phenomenal power of Alabaster Tenring. With it, she hopes to...

One of a handful of graphic novels that elevate the form into an intensely personal artistic statement, Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi’s astonishing visual memoir of growing up in Iran. Intertwining the intimate with the political and compelling drama...

WINNER of the NATIONAL BOOK AWARD and A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BEST BOOK OF THE YEARA finalist for the Kirkus Prize, Andrew Carnegie Medal, Aspen Words Literary Prize, and a New York Times bestseller, this majestic, stirring, and widely praised novel from...

Essun's missing daughter grows more powerful every day, and her choices may destroy the world in this "magnificent" Hugo Award winner and NYT Notable Book. (NPR)The season of endings grows darker, as civilization fades into the long cold night.Essun —...

Named one of the Most Anticipated Books of 2021New York Magazine, Chicago Tribune, BookPage, Literary Hub, New Statesman, Times of LondonA heartrending new novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winning and #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Overstory...