we're back now with the book list Making Waves this week over the last several days the New York Times slowly releasing its list of the top books of the 21st century so far they asked living literary icons for help with the rankings and today they dropped the very top picks almost a quarter Century's worth of stories and characters ranked one through 100 taking the New York Times top spot Elena fante's my brilliant friend which was turned into a hit HBO series and follows the lives of two friends in the outskirts of Naples in the 1950s
it's the first book in a four-part series and has sold more than 15 million copies worldwide it's been translated in dozens of languages it's rather a dynamic deep story and at times surprisingly philosophical also gripping the readers despite the series continued success is the real identity of the author it's unknown verante is using a pseudonym oh thank you the lists runner up warmth of other Sons by Isabelle Wilkerson which she calls the Epic story of The Great Migration when nearly 6 million African-Americans moved away from the south to other parts of the United States this
is in some ways a universal human story of longing and fortitude and courage and rounding out the list top three Wolf Hall by Hillary mantle Chronicle a fictionalized version of Thomas cromwell's Ascent to power in the court of Henry VII an expression of SLI Amusement the New York Times taking in votes from hundreds of quote literary luminaries including legendary authors poets essayist and journalist like NBC's own Jenna Bush Hager finish it in one reading and with iconic names like Stephen King submitting a ballot readers are also getting to see their favorite authors pics and for
more on this list marking the best books of the 21st century we're joined by editor of the New York Times book review Gilbert Cruz first of all it's an honor to have you I can't tell you how many times I have looked at uh an end of the year New York Times book review list and then bought half of them as presents for people so it's it's a great list but this one is really fascinating because you pulled a hundred books that are the best books according to this panel that you have compiled of the
21st century we mentioned in our piece before the top three but talk to us about why the decision was made to put this list together why now and in terms of the theme how did you guys come up with this idea of who would be involved in choosing them sure thing so we are on the verge of 2025 the quarter Century rapidly approaches and at the New York Times book review we reach out to authors every single day every single week asking them to review books for us we often get famous writers writing about famous
books um and so we said we have all these people we could try to tell our readers what the best books of the century are but why don't we go out to some other people that are experts and we started coming up with names wrote a couple hundred names down then that grewed to a couple hundred more and then in the end we asked over a thousand people we sent out over a thousand emails uh to authors novelists non-fiction writers critics poets etc etc etc we got 53 people to respond which I I think is
a pretty good response rate um and we counted up the votes and this is what this is what we came up with so talk to us about some of the top books or at least top 20 that maybe people hadn't heard of and should give a give a read to I brought this one from home because I was thrilled to see say nothing by Patrick Ren Keefe on the list I think it was number 19 and this is one of my favorite books of all time it's the book I tell everybody I meet you got
to read this it's really good what are some of the other top books uh so number 20 is a book called eraser this is by an author named pril Everett people might be familiar with this book because it is the book that was adapted into the film American fiction which was nominated for several Oscars last year pel Everett is an American Author who's been writing for a very long time and the film adaptation of American fiction and a book that he put out this year called James is really sort of elevating his profile uh so
I think eraser is one that after people read James which is a retelling of Huckleberry Finn from the slaves perspective they'll go back and check out eraser uh that's an amazing book uh Never Let Me Go which came in at number N is a book by the Nobel Prize winner Kazo ishi Guru was also made into a film and it's sort of a a dystopian story about a a bunch of kids at an English boarding school there's a secret that I'm not going to reveal here but once you find out that secret it's sort of
cast the entire book into a different light and it's also very sad at the end several of these books are you know Whenever there are these big lists that come out there's always a lot of talk online about what should have been there what is on the list that didn't deserve it what should have been higher it's inevitable of course uh when you're putting together a list like this is it more stressful or just an absolute labor of love it has to be a labor of love right I mean when you work in a place
like the New York Times book review when you work in books you work there because you love books and 100 seems like a lot yeah um but if you think about all the books that are published over the course of a year and then you multi that by more than two decades 100 is actually not that many and so I'm very proud of this list I'm aware that there are a lot of books that could have been on here the books that go from 101 to 150 are amazing books you sort of had to pick
a conceit 100 is a great number um but there are many many many amazing books that could have made this list when you were reaching out to people and saying hey will you give us your list of books that you really like people like Stephen King these authors that so many people know and love was there any anything you got from some of those big names that you were like oh that's interesting I didn't expect them to pick that book uh that is a good question I mean at this point um a lot of people
have noted that Stephen King um picked one of his own books uh which is great he's a master he's been writing for four decades he writes for the New York Times book review all the time he is allowed to pick his own book and I actually suspect and this is no not to any author that the reason that some people didn't want us to run their ballots is because they picked their own book and why wouldn't they if I was an author yeah I have to look out for myself first I would pick my own
book um and so we had a couple of authors who uh were able to get over their embarrassment and put their ballots out into the world and admit to that which I thought was very big of them yeah and then in our last 20 or 30 seconds here as someone who loves to read I love reading but I also know for a lot of people wanting to get into it it can feel daunting even when you have a really big list like this what is your advice to someone who's like should I start to be
a reader but I'm not really reader why books I think that anyone who thinks they are not a reader um is thinking of uh school and they're thinking of being forced to read um and that's not what this list is about this list I would argue has something for everyone from long books to short books fiction and non-fiction books that are genre books books that are literary books I think you should read our list you should see if any of these uh appeal to you and then give it a shot and if it doesn't put
the book down people feel obligated to finish a book once they pick it up don't do that life is too short there are lots of books to read but I think you should give one of these a shout yeah it is an amazing list and I have added so many to my summer to read list Gilbert Cruz thank you so much for being here we appreciate it thanks for watching stay updated about breaking news and top stories on the NBC News app or follow us on social media
