100 Best Books?

Full of chutzpah as usual, the New York Times decided now was the time to discover The Best Books of the 21st Century.  

It's not 25 years into the century.  What prompted them to query hundreds of literary luminaries?  Did they grow tired of promoting false equivalencies in the news section, so decided to swing their attention to literature?

There are no poetry collections (if I missed something let me know) nor histories.  The marvelous new translations of the ancients are missing, too.

I've read 10 of them, and put down two of them (Atonement  and The Corrections

I found familiar authors and missed many of the African and Indian novelists I've read over the last few years (Tomi Obaro, Akwaeke Emezi, Vauhini Vara, Sopan Deb, Omolola Ogunyemi).

It's an interesting list, but it's paywalled.  Because that offends me and because I'm aggravated with The Paper of Record and because I can, here's the list, in case you care.

100. Tree of Smoke - Denis Johnson

99. How to Be Both - Ali Smith

98. Bel Canto - Ann Patchett

97. Men We Reaped - Jesmyn Ward

96. Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments - Saidiya Hartman

95. Bring Up the Bodies - Hilary Mantel

94. On Beauty - Zadie Smith

93. Station Eleven - Emily St. John Mandel

92. The Days of Abandonment - Elena Ferrante

91. The Human Stain - Philip Roth

90. The Sympathizer - Viet Thanh Nguyen

89. The Return - Hisham Matar

88. The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis - Lydia Davis

87. Detransition, Baby - Torrey Peters

86. Frederick Douglass - David W. Blight

85. Pastoralia - George Saunders

84. The Emperor of All Maladies - Siddhartha Mukherjee

83. When We Cease to Understand the World - Benjamín Labatut

82. Hurricane Season - Fernanda Melchor

81. Pulphead - John Jeremiah Sullivan

80. The Story of the Lost Child - Elena Ferrante

79. A Manual for Cleaning Women - Lucia Berlin

78. Septology - Jon Fosse

77. An American Marriage - Tayari Jones

76. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow - Gabrielle Zevin

75. Exit West - Mohsin Hamid

74. Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout

73. The Passage of Power - Robert Caro

72. Secondhand Time - Svetlana Alexievich

71. The Copenhagen Trilogy - Tove Ditlevsen

70. All Aunt Hagar’s Children - Edward P. Jones

69. The New Jim Crow - Michelle Alexander

68. The Friend - Sigrid Nunez

67. Far From the Tree - Andrew Solomon

66. We the Animals - Justin Torres

65. The Plot Against America - Philip Roth

64. The Great Believers - Rebecca Makkai

63. Veronica - Mary Gaitskill

62. 10:04 - Ben Lerner

61. Demon Copperhead - Barbara Kingsolver

60. Heavy - Kiese Laymon

59. Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides

58. Stay True - Hua Hsu

57. Nickel and Dimed - Barbara Ehrenreich

56. The Flamethrowers - Rachel Kushner

55. The Looming Tower - Lawrence Wright

54. Tenth of December - George Saunders

53. Runaway - Alice Munro

52. Train Dreams - Denis Johnson

51. Life After Life - Kate Atkinson

50. Trust - Hernan Diaz

49. The Vegetarian - Han Kang

48. Persepolis - Marjane Satrapi

47. A Mercy - Toni Morrison

46. The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt

45. The Argonauts - Maggie Nelson

44. The Fifth Season - N.K. Jemisin

43. Postwar - Tony Judt

42. A Brief History of Seven Killings - Marlon James

41. Small Things Like These - Claire Keegan

40. H Is for Hawk - Helen Macdonald

39. A Visit From the Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan

38. The Savage Detectives - Roberto Bolaño

37. The Years - Annie Ernaux

36. Between the World and Me - Ta-Nehisi Coates

35. Fun Home - Alison Bechdel

34. Citizen - Claudia Rankine

33. Salvage the Bones - Jesmyn Ward

32. The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst

31. White Teeth - Zadie Smith

30. Sing, Unburied, Sing - Jesmyn Ward

29. The Last Samurai - Helen DeWitt

28. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

27. Americanah - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

26. Atonement - Ian McEwan

25. Random Family - Adrian Nicole LeBlanc

24. The Overstory - Richard Powers

23. Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage - Alice Munro

22. Behind the Beautiful Forevers - Katherine Boo

21. Evicted - Matthew Desmond

20. Erasure - Percival Everett

19. Say Nothing - Patrick Radden Keefe

18. Lincoln in the Bardo - George Saunders

17. The Sellout - Paul Beatty

16. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - Michael Chabon

15. Pachinko - Min Jin Lee

14. Outline - Rachel Cusk

13. The Road - Cormac McCarthy

12. The Year of Magical Thinking - Joan Didion

11. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Díaz

10. Gilead - Marilynne Robinson

9. Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro

8. Austerlitz - W.G. Sebald

7. The Underground Railroad - Colson Whitehead

6. 2666 - Roberto Bolaño

5. The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen

4. The Known World - Edward P. Jones

3. Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel

2. The Warmth of Other Suns - Isabel Wilkerson

1.  My Brilliant Friend - Elena Ferrante

What do you think?  What do you think they left out? Do you care?