Not that they asked, but if they had, I went through my reading log and did the painful winnowing down of books I’ve read published in 2000 or later down to ten “best” books (the last seven to get cut really hurt) to the following (in order by publication date):
- Housekeeping: A Novel by Marilynne Robinson (2004)
- Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami (2006)
- 2666 by Roberto Bolaño (2008)
- The Instructions by Adam Levin (2011)
- Beautiful Ruins: A Novel by Jess Walter (2012)
- Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine (2014)
- 1919 by Eve L. Ewing (2019)
- Absolution: A Novel by Alice McDermott (2023)
- Tom Lake: A Novel by Ann Patchett (2023)
- James: A Novel by Percival Everett (2024)
A reasonable spread across the 25 years. There’s a bit of a tendency towards some recency bias at least in part because once I decided to get an MFA I began reading a lot more recently published work. It’s nine novels and one book of poetry. The long list included more poetry and a couple memoirs and some non-fiction, but those didn’t make the cut in the end. It’s 50/50 men and women which was not a conscious choice. 40% PoC, again, not a conscious choice.
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