Jaclyn Crupi shares her very personal list of the 21st century's finest fiction.
ALL lists, including this one, are fundamentally flawed. Why do we feel the need to rank and score the things we love? How is that even possible with art? It is, of course, completely subjective and mutable.
When we agree with lists, we celebrate them; when we don’t, we’re quick to outrage. In July, The New York Times released what it called the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century (I would never use the word “best”). It sparked so much interesting discussion. I was delighted, I was appalled (no A Little Life! No Louise Erdrich! No Australian-authored books!).
It wasn’t so much the list itself that captivated me but the conversations about books sparked by the list. I wanted to be a part of all of them. Anything that gets a large group of people talking about books is a good thing in my world. For the record (and to brag just a little), I had read 80 books of The New York Times’s top 100. Some of them appear on my list; many do not.
For my own list, I set some rules. Try to limit it to one book per author (I failed a few times – turns out I love what I love) and stick to fiction only (my main criticism of the Times’s list is that they should have separated fiction and non-fiction). I also decided to randomise where the books appear on the list. I chose 20 books that are my absolute favourites and then had the following 80 appear in any order. Their order felt arbitrary and random so I made it arbitrary and random. This immediately felt right to me.
I am not an institution like The New York Times; I am just a person, just a reader. So this list is simply a reflection of my personal reading tastes. That said (and to brag just a little again), I have read almost 3800 books since the year 2000. Some of those books were non-fiction so ineligible for my list, but the vast majority were fiction.
The 100 listed here are the books that stuck, the ones I hold close to my chest, the ones I re-read or dream of re-reading, the ones that brought me to my knees. These books are a part of me, and my hope is that seeing them here might spur you to get reading, or even to create your own list. For as imperfect as they are, lists show us what books mean to us; they help us understand our reading preferences and they illuminate who we are as readers.
Reading is a unique pleasure. I hope this list inspires you to enjoy some summer reading, or commit to new reading goals next year.
