At about the 20th century’s three-quarter mark, say about 1973, I read Christopher Morley’s The Haunted Bookshop, probably by borrowing a physical copy from the public library.
The Haunted Bookshop (you can read the whole thing here for free, or download it to the phone on which you are likely reading this) was written in 1919, but set in 1918, and the main character, Roger Mifflin, writes
Literary critics are queer birds. There’s Professor Phelps of Yale, for instance. He publishes a book in 1918 and calls it The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century. To my way of thinking a book of that title oughtn’t to be published until 2018.
Starting today through Friday July 12, The @nytimes Book Review will be revealing “The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century” a project that came together with the help of over 500 literary luminaries: https://t.co/q2jbzeG1ZJ
— NYTimes Communications (@NYTimesPR) July 8, 2024
The voting was heavily tilted toward fiction (72 of the top 100) plus a vague category I call literary nonfiction, with 12 more picks.
What do I mean by literary nonfiction? Whereas you might read Walter Isaacson’s biographies Elon Musk or Steve Jobs (neither of which made the NYT’s Top 100 list) because you want to learn about Elon Musk or Steve Jobs because they are important and interesting (and the fact that Isaacson’s books are well-done is just a bonus); in contrast, literary nonfiction are books, like the Official 36th Best Book of This Century, Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, that you’d read not because you are dying to find out more about that world-historical Escalator Incident involving Ta-Nehisi Coates’ kid and the mean white lady who said “C’mon,” but because lots of people told you TNC was a great writer and thinker.
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21 of the top 100 are by blacks. Does anybody really think blacks wrote 21% of the best books of this century? And of course almost all the books by blacks are about blacks. (Zadie Smith is a rare black writer who doesn’t always write about blacks.)
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Among the 84 works of fiction and literary nonfiction, only 18 are by straight white men.
As far as we can tell, Coates' book, despite NYT bestseller status, is not only not one of the 100 greatest books of the quarter-century, it’s probably not one of 100 greatest books released in July of 2015. For the rest, it’s too soon to tell.
