The New York Times published their list of the “100 Best Books of the 21st Century” in July. This list was compiled by about 500 critics and authors of their choice. “My Brilliant Friend” by Elena Ferrante took the number one spot, with the rest of the top five being “The Warmth of Other Suns,” “Wolf Hall,” “The Known World” and “The Corrections.”
At the very end of their list, The New York Times included a link for readers to vote on what they thought were the best books of the 21st century. Almost immediately after the Times unveiled their list, the video essays began to permeate YouTube, and the commentary TikToks began to flood the For You page, and opinions on the list veered towards the critical side.
Some felt the critics were picking books that most had never heard of, making the list feel phony and elitist. Others claimed there were too many literary fiction pieces on the list, and that the list was lacking in fantasy, dystopian, graphic novels and most notably, children’s novels. Others felt that the list lacked representation, with some YouTube comments calling it “The 100 Best American Books of the 21st Century” due to around 90 percent of the list centering on American narratives and authors.
Naturally, this commentary made the publishing of the Readers’ Choice version of this list that much more anticipated. However, similar criticisms flooded YouTube comments: lack of global representation, claims of recency bias making the list unfair and a focus on American narratives.
This has left the book community on the internet without any solid answers. Are these lists biased? Harmful? Even necessary in the first place? It is an ongoing, important conversation that boils down to these fundamental philosophical questions that have and will continue to plague consumers as time goes on.
As a life-long reader, I find lists like this to be important for this exact reason:it opens up a dialogue between readers both on the internet and in person, which is one of the main goals of literature in general. Additionally, I think these dialogues and pushback are a great sign for literacy and continued expansion of literature and reading in younger generationsl.
In every class I have had at college, I have had professors say, “I know your generation doesn’t read anymore,” or some variation of that statement. It can be frustrating for a person like me to hear this because I absolutely disagree, and lists like the Readers’ Choice and its corresponding dialogue directly prove this statement wrong. Maybe Gen Z doesn’t read as much, but a substantial amount certainly do, and with social media spaces like TikTok and YouTube being dominated by young people, it is more than likely that young people are the main proponents of these book-centered conversations.
While I certainly agree that lists like this struggle with representation globally, as well as in genre, I feel that there is no way to correct this issue other than by making more lists. There is no other way for them to get better, and better, and better. Maybe, this makes these lists necessary after all.
