I'm the opposite, I preferred Babel. The story in the Poppy War was great, but I struggle when I don't like any of the characters and there are few likeable characters (intentionally)
Some personal favorites that didn’t make the list:
1. The Dog Stars, Peter Heller. Easily the novel I recommend to people most often
2. The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, Dinaw Mengestu. A haunting novel about the experience of the African diaspora coming to terms with life in Washington DC
3. People of the Whale, Linda Hogan. For my money one of the great American novels, tying together the indigenous experience in America with the horrors of the Vietnam War
4. On the Move, Oliver Sacks. His last memoir and my favorite thing he ever wrote
I think I've talked about There Will Be Fire already, but if not, gotta recommend it for folks who liked Say Nothing. It's not as good as Say Nothing, but it's still really good, and it's about the IRA plot to kill Margaret Thatcher!
Chain Gang All Stars has rightfully gotten a lot of buzz. What if the Hunger Games was about the fact that the prison system is INCREDIBLY racist and exploitative, with actual real world stats in the footnotes to boot?
The House in the Cerulean Sea is a cozy, queer fantasy, which is nice given the *gestures broadly*
If you want to learn about poverty in this country: Evicted and Poverty, By America by Matthew Desmond, Maid and Class by Stephanie Land, and The Meth Lunches by Kim Foster are great places to start. I also recently read The Injustice of Place by Edin, Shaefer, and Nelson, and it's interesting but I wanted more out of their analysis; they're making a good argument about structural disadvantage by geography but I feel like it needs a tighter bow on it or something. Edin also wrote Living on $2 a Day, which I read several years ago and thought was very good.
Some books I was surprised didn't make the Times List: Scar Tissue, Life of Pi (just learned it was published on 9/11), The Kite Runner, and anything by Gaiman.
For you, Scott, have you read anything by Christopher Moore? If not, start with Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal
I'm currently reading Enemy of All Mankind by Steven Johnson which has been a fascinating read about the pirate Henry Every and his attack on a Mughal Empire Treasure ship, and the impact that had on the rise of multinational corporations. Cannot recommend it enough.
idk if this fits on any list, but here are some recommendations;
-The Secret Life of Groceries, by Benjamin Lorr--a narrative investigation and discussion of the insane, wonderful, scary miracle that is the american grocery store. i loved every second of it.
-Chain Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah--thinly (if at all) veiled allegory fiction of the prison industrial complex and sports culture. enthralling stuff, i blazed through it in two days.
-Goodbye, Eastern Europe by Jacob Mikanowski--the subtitle here is "an intimate history of a divided land" and i could not agree more.
-Fire Weather by John Vaillant--discussion of climate change's impact on wildfires generally set inside a narrative account of the Canadian Fort McMurray wildfire from a few years ago. great book, maybe don't read IMMEDIATELY before you and your wife go to Alaska during fire season in case you get freaked out. just a completely random piece of advice in no way inspired by my own experience.
As someone who works in education and marketing, I am haunted daily by that exact stock photo of the open book in the library, so thank you for that.
Crying in H Mart has been sitting atop my TBR stack for a while, so consider this the push I needed to actually start it.
When people ask for book recs, I can't help but always offer up The Love of Singular Men by Victor Heringer. It's stuck with me in both a sweet and uneasy way. Chilean Poet by Alejandro Zambra is another I love to shout from the rooftops. I have also recently revisited Middlesex (on the NYT list), which I read back in a mythical time when my knees didn't crackle when I stood up. I'm notorious for reading things and then immediately forgetting them (especially after 20ish years), so, in a way, I'm getting to experience this book for the first time again, and I'm loving it just as much as I did the first time.
I also didn’t see the NYT list since it’s behind a paywall but I do have a few recs and I am thankful for all the recs mentioned here!
I’m currently reading The Distance Between Us by Reyna Grande and I’m only about 1/4 through but it’s gripping. It’s about a girl who comes to the US from Mexico in the 80s (but I haven’t gotten to that part yet) and I’m riveted. I know this book is going to be an important read.
I loved Agent Josephine by Damien Lewis which is all about Josephine Baker, mainly focused on her spying activities during WWII. She is a fascinating character and I am so glad he dug so deeply into her story because it is worth telling.
And I also will always talk about Amor Towles with The Lincoln Highway and A Gentleman in Moscow because both books were delightful.
I can't see the list, as I'm currently uncomfortable giving the NYT any more of my info than I absolutely must--so I'll just comment on some books from this century that I think are great:
1. The Gone-Away World, Nick Harkaway. My personal choice for best post-apocalyptic book; at turns touching and hilarious, and with a twist that, regardless of if you see it coming, is thought-provoking and deeply human.
2. High on the Hog, Jessica Harris. A powerful and vital book on food in America. (The most likely book from my list to actually have made the NYT100.) Makes for an interesting comparison group with John T. Edge's The Potlikeer Papers and Michael Twitty's The Cooking Gene.
3. The Hydrogen Sonata, Iain M. Banks. Banks' last book before he passed, this reads like his personally written elegy, a space opera that manages to be slow and contemplative. Maybe not the best of his Culture novels to start with, but the one that, for me, is the most powerful.
4. The Pigeon Tunnel, John le Carre. A collection of essays by one of my favorite authors. He had some very interesting experiences.
I would have nominated the Monk and Robot duology (I've almost finished reading it), but was beaten to the punch. Also Ann Leckie (Ancillary Justice or Translation State) and Ada Palmer (Too Like the Lightning) for a couple of modern science fiction series that address some big topics in today's society but which I cannot due justice in the time I have right now.
I still can't wait to see that you've read Beartown by Fredrik Backmann. Friday Night Lights meets Swedish youth hockey. The writing is amazing and similar to what you said about Interior Chinatown there are several times that I had to put down a line to properly digest. A Man Called Ove is also tops on my list as well.
One that should be on the NYT list is John Green's "A Fault in Our Stars". It is YA and that usually means it gets the short stick, but it is phenomenal writing that was a sucker punch. I think it is the first book that moved me to tears. Not to mention that John Green is such a genuine person himself. Can't recommend enough.
Like a few other folks here, I've been stymied by the paywall, so here are just a list of some of my faves (I resisted including Famous Men Who Never Lived and The Effort, two books that I think about a lot, but I know you already read and loved). I'm only slightly sorry that I mostly read fantasy, sci-fi, horror, and romance, so my suggestions are Of A Type:
1) This Is How You Lose the Time War (which charmingly(?) got a bump in popularity last year after a Twitter user named Bigolas Dickolas tweeted about it lol)
2) A Memory Called Empire and its sequel A Desolation Called Peace
3) ok so this is cheating because only half the books were written in the 21st century but THE STEERSWOMAN BOOKS ARE SO GOOD
Meant to get to this earlier, but, you know, Mondays. Anyway, a little surprised All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr is off the NYT list, given all the praise I’ve ever heard about it. It’s next on my list to read, and if it’s anywhere near as good as Cloud Cuckoo Land, which I have read, then I’m in for a treat.
I was disappointed Dark Matter didn’t make the list. I thought it was a fresh take on a topic that is becoming increasingly done to death (dancing around spoilers because it’s better if you don’t know where you’re going).
/pounds table
MONK AND ROBOT. MONK AND ROBOT. I'm glad you love those books as much as I did.
Finally getting around to Station 11, and it's really good so far.
I love Station 11, and the HBO adaptation is the rare one that totally does a great book justice
I just finished RF Kuang's Babel and loved it.
It balances being an unsubtle critique of colonialism with a love of languages, a great core group of characters, and some magic on the side.
I enjoyed her Poppy War trilogy and Babel has been on my radar for a while now.
Babel is good! I liked the poppy war trilogy more but it’s still very good
I'm the opposite, I preferred Babel. The story in the Poppy War was great, but I struggle when I don't like any of the characters and there are few likeable characters (intentionally)
Some personal favorites that didn’t make the list:
1. The Dog Stars, Peter Heller. Easily the novel I recommend to people most often
2. The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, Dinaw Mengestu. A haunting novel about the experience of the African diaspora coming to terms with life in Washington DC
3. People of the Whale, Linda Hogan. For my money one of the great American novels, tying together the indigenous experience in America with the horrors of the Vietnam War
4. On the Move, Oliver Sacks. His last memoir and my favorite thing he ever wrote
Pitt out here catching strays on a Monday morning ):
You have good book recommendations and I had to make sure you were paying attention.
I am!
In terms of book recs:
I think I've talked about There Will Be Fire already, but if not, gotta recommend it for folks who liked Say Nothing. It's not as good as Say Nothing, but it's still really good, and it's about the IRA plot to kill Margaret Thatcher!
Chain Gang All Stars has rightfully gotten a lot of buzz. What if the Hunger Games was about the fact that the prison system is INCREDIBLY racist and exploitative, with actual real world stats in the footnotes to boot?
The House in the Cerulean Sea is a cozy, queer fantasy, which is nice given the *gestures broadly*
If you want to learn about poverty in this country: Evicted and Poverty, By America by Matthew Desmond, Maid and Class by Stephanie Land, and The Meth Lunches by Kim Foster are great places to start. I also recently read The Injustice of Place by Edin, Shaefer, and Nelson, and it's interesting but I wanted more out of their analysis; they're making a good argument about structural disadvantage by geography but I feel like it needs a tighter bow on it or something. Edin also wrote Living on $2 a Day, which I read several years ago and thought was very good.
Some books I was surprised didn't make the Times List: Scar Tissue, Life of Pi (just learned it was published on 9/11), The Kite Runner, and anything by Gaiman.
For you, Scott, have you read anything by Christopher Moore? If not, start with Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal
Some of my favorites to not make the Big List:
Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson
Impossible Owls by Brian Phillips
Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brennan
Harlem Shuffle (and its sequel) by Colson Whitehead
Gringos by Charles Portis
I'm currently reading Enemy of All Mankind by Steven Johnson which has been a fascinating read about the pirate Henry Every and his attack on a Mughal Empire Treasure ship, and the impact that had on the rise of multinational corporations. Cannot recommend it enough.
Absolutely thought this was going to be a humorous riff on the all books now are either tiny things we know to be small, or the darkest wife tweet.
idk if this fits on any list, but here are some recommendations;
-The Secret Life of Groceries, by Benjamin Lorr--a narrative investigation and discussion of the insane, wonderful, scary miracle that is the american grocery store. i loved every second of it.
-Chain Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah--thinly (if at all) veiled allegory fiction of the prison industrial complex and sports culture. enthralling stuff, i blazed through it in two days.
-Goodbye, Eastern Europe by Jacob Mikanowski--the subtitle here is "an intimate history of a divided land" and i could not agree more.
-Fire Weather by John Vaillant--discussion of climate change's impact on wildfires generally set inside a narrative account of the Canadian Fort McMurray wildfire from a few years ago. great book, maybe don't read IMMEDIATELY before you and your wife go to Alaska during fire season in case you get freaked out. just a completely random piece of advice in no way inspired by my own experience.
As someone who works in education and marketing, I am haunted daily by that exact stock photo of the open book in the library, so thank you for that.
Crying in H Mart has been sitting atop my TBR stack for a while, so consider this the push I needed to actually start it.
When people ask for book recs, I can't help but always offer up The Love of Singular Men by Victor Heringer. It's stuck with me in both a sweet and uneasy way. Chilean Poet by Alejandro Zambra is another I love to shout from the rooftops. I have also recently revisited Middlesex (on the NYT list), which I read back in a mythical time when my knees didn't crackle when I stood up. I'm notorious for reading things and then immediately forgetting them (especially after 20ish years), so, in a way, I'm getting to experience this book for the first time again, and I'm loving it just as much as I did the first time.
I also didn’t see the NYT list since it’s behind a paywall but I do have a few recs and I am thankful for all the recs mentioned here!
I’m currently reading The Distance Between Us by Reyna Grande and I’m only about 1/4 through but it’s gripping. It’s about a girl who comes to the US from Mexico in the 80s (but I haven’t gotten to that part yet) and I’m riveted. I know this book is going to be an important read.
I loved Agent Josephine by Damien Lewis which is all about Josephine Baker, mainly focused on her spying activities during WWII. She is a fascinating character and I am so glad he dug so deeply into her story because it is worth telling.
And I also will always talk about Amor Towles with The Lincoln Highway and A Gentleman in Moscow because both books were delightful.
I can't see the list, as I'm currently uncomfortable giving the NYT any more of my info than I absolutely must--so I'll just comment on some books from this century that I think are great:
1. The Gone-Away World, Nick Harkaway. My personal choice for best post-apocalyptic book; at turns touching and hilarious, and with a twist that, regardless of if you see it coming, is thought-provoking and deeply human.
2. High on the Hog, Jessica Harris. A powerful and vital book on food in America. (The most likely book from my list to actually have made the NYT100.) Makes for an interesting comparison group with John T. Edge's The Potlikeer Papers and Michael Twitty's The Cooking Gene.
3. The Hydrogen Sonata, Iain M. Banks. Banks' last book before he passed, this reads like his personally written elegy, a space opera that manages to be slow and contemplative. Maybe not the best of his Culture novels to start with, but the one that, for me, is the most powerful.
4. The Pigeon Tunnel, John le Carre. A collection of essays by one of my favorite authors. He had some very interesting experiences.
I would have nominated the Monk and Robot duology (I've almost finished reading it), but was beaten to the punch. Also Ann Leckie (Ancillary Justice or Translation State) and Ada Palmer (Too Like the Lightning) for a couple of modern science fiction series that address some big topics in today's society but which I cannot due justice in the time I have right now.
I still can't wait to see that you've read Beartown by Fredrik Backmann. Friday Night Lights meets Swedish youth hockey. The writing is amazing and similar to what you said about Interior Chinatown there are several times that I had to put down a line to properly digest. A Man Called Ove is also tops on my list as well.
One that should be on the NYT list is John Green's "A Fault in Our Stars". It is YA and that usually means it gets the short stick, but it is phenomenal writing that was a sucker punch. I think it is the first book that moved me to tears. Not to mention that John Green is such a genuine person himself. Can't recommend enough.
Like a few other folks here, I've been stymied by the paywall, so here are just a list of some of my faves (I resisted including Famous Men Who Never Lived and The Effort, two books that I think about a lot, but I know you already read and loved). I'm only slightly sorry that I mostly read fantasy, sci-fi, horror, and romance, so my suggestions are Of A Type:
1) This Is How You Lose the Time War (which charmingly(?) got a bump in popularity last year after a Twitter user named Bigolas Dickolas tweeted about it lol)
2) A Memory Called Empire and its sequel A Desolation Called Peace
3) ok so this is cheating because only half the books were written in the 21st century but THE STEERSWOMAN BOOKS ARE SO GOOD
Meant to get to this earlier, but, you know, Mondays. Anyway, a little surprised All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr is off the NYT list, given all the praise I’ve ever heard about it. It’s next on my list to read, and if it’s anywhere near as good as Cloud Cuckoo Land, which I have read, then I’m in for a treat.
I was disappointed Dark Matter didn’t make the list. I thought it was a fresh take on a topic that is becoming increasingly done to death (dancing around spoilers because it’s better if you don’t know where you’re going).