A Table of Best Books of the 21st Century

So this month, the New York Times published their list of The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century.  They obviously got some pushback from readers (Readers Have Thoughts about 'The Best Books of the 21st Century) and consequently published Readers Pick Their 100 Best Books of the 21st Century.

Now I am a data geek.  I like to futz with lists. Unfortunately, for me, the New York Times doesn't publish their lists in a way that I can play with them, compare them, look at them relative to other lists. I have to do the grunt work of copying them to a Sheets file and cleaning them up. So that's what I did.

I also retrieved lists that represent Goodread readers, The Guardian, and Vulture. Now, granted, some of these lists are older, but they give me a sense of what other readers and critiques think of books published this century.

Column Name	SOURCE OF DATA
1	New York Times: The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century Jul 2024
2	Goodreads: list of best 21st Century Books created May 2008 (200 items)
3	Goodreads: Best Literary Fiction of the 21st Century created July 2016 (200 items)
4	The Guardian: The 100 best books of the 21st century Sep 2019
5	Vulture A Premature Attempt at the 21st Century Cannon Sep 2018
6	Goodreads: Best 21st Century Nonfiction created Jul 2012 (200 items)
7	count of inclusion on other lists

The table below is based on Readers Pick Their 100 Best Books of the 21st Century (the RANK column). The numbered columns include rankings from the sources listed above.

You'll notice that Column 7 is a count of how many of the six other lists the book showed up in. I've sorted the table based on these counts. Of the 100 NYT Readers' List, 80 are on at least one other list.

RANK	TITLE	AUTHOR	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
9	Never Let Me Go	Kazuo Ishiguro	9	33	7	4	26		5
15	The Road	Cormac McCarthy	13	15	2	17	35		5
17	Atonement	Ian McEwan	26	24	8	41	4		5
26	The Corrections	Jonathan Franzen	5	52	30	16	8		5
36	The Year of Magical Thinking	Joan Didion	12	91		40	28	81	5
4	The Goldfinch	Donna Tartt	46	103	6		72		4
14	Wolf Hall	Hilary Mantel	3		5	1	48		4
18	Middlesex	Jeffrey Eugenides	59	20	11		12		4
25	Gilead	Marilynne Robinson	10	89	12	2			4
34	Cloud Atlas	David Mitchell	28	35	9	9			4
42	The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao	Junot Díaz	11	53	14		39		4
88	The Plot Against America	Philip Roth	65	141		12	24		4
8	My Brilliant Friend	Elena Ferrante; translated by Ann Goldstein	1		1	11			3
13	The Underground Railroad	Colson Whitehead	7		28	30			3
20	The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay	Michael Chabon	16		23		1		3
24	Bel Canto	Ann Patchett	98	60	61				3
30	A Visit From the Goon Squad	Jennifer Egan	39	148		24			3
41	Life After Life	Kate Atkinson	51		42	20			3
43	Between the World and Me	Ta-Nehisi Coates	36			7		17	3
49	Gone Girl	Gillian Flynn		48		65	63		3
58	White Teeth	Zadie Smith	31		13	39			3
62	The Sympathizer	Viet Thanh Nguyen	90		40		85		3
81	The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks	Rebecca Skloot		105		63		4	3
2	All the Light We Cannot See	Anthony Doerr		61	3				2
10	Station Eleven	Emily St John Mandel	93		53				2
11	A Little Life	Hanya Yanagihara			32	96			2
16	Lincoln in the Bardo	George Saunders	18		111				2
19	Americanah	Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie	27		4				2
27	Normal People	Sally Rooney			50	25			2
33	The Book Thief	Markus Zusak		4	70				2
38	The Great Believers	Rebecca Makkai	64		141				2
39	Olive Kitteridge	Elizabeth Strout	74		95				2
40	The Kite Runner	Khaled Hosseini		3	16				2
46	The Song of Achilles	Madeline Miller		177	26				2
71	Sing, Unburied, Sing	Jesmyn Ward	30		87				2
78	Kafka on the Shore	Haruki Murakami; translated by Philip Gabriel		42	17				2
84	Tenth of December	George Saunders	54			22			2
86	Life of Pi	Yann Martel		9	29				2
89	The Glass Castle	Jeannette Walls		28				9	2
95	A Thousand Splendid Suns	Khaled Hosseini		8	116				2
1	Demon Copperhead	Barbara Kingsolver	61						1
3	A Gentleman in Moscow	Amor Towles			38				1
5	Pachinko	Min Jin Lee	15						1
6	Educated	Tara Westover						7	1
7	Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow	Gabrielle Zevin	76						1
12	The Overstory	Richard Powers	24						1
21	Homegoing	Yaa Gyasi			98				1
22	Hamnet	Maggie O’Farrell			144				1
23	The Warmth of Other Suns	Isabel Wilkerson	2						1
28	Cutting for Stone	Abraham Verghese		102					1
29	Say Nothing	Patrick Radden Keefe	19						1
31	Circe	Madeline Miller			44				1
37	The Nickel Boys	Colson Whitehead			148				1
45	There There	Tommy Orange			60				1
52	The Nightingale	Kristin Hannah		176					1
53	Trust	Hernan Diaz	50						1
56	The Hunger Games	Suzanne Collins		2					1
57	Small Things Like These	Claire Keegan	41						1
64	2666	Roberto Bolaño; translated by Natasha Wimmer	6						1
65	Evicted	Matthew Desmond	21						1
66	Just Kids	Patti Smith						24	1
68	The Devil in the White City	Erik Larson		54					1
74	Klara and the Sun	Kazuo Ishiguro			107				1
76	Just Mercy	Bryan Stevenson						98	1
79	1Q84	Haruki Murakami; translated by Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel					55		1
83	Let the Great World Spin	Colum McCann		156					1
85	When Breath Becomes Air	Paul Kalanithi						28	1
87	Girl, Woman, Other	Bernardine Evaristo			145				1
92	Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead	Olga Tokarczuk; translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones				75			1
96	The Vanishing Half	Brit Bennett			147				1
97	My Year of Rest and Relaxation	Ottessa Moshfegh			158				1
32	Cloud Cuckoo Land	Anthony Doerr							0
35	The Covenant of Water	Abraham Verghese							0
44	The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store	James McBride							0
47	Lessons in Chemistry	Bonnie Garmus							0
48	On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous	Ocean Vuong							0
50	James	Percival Everett							0
51	Caste	Isabel Wilkerson							0
54	11/22/63	Stephen King							0
55	Braiding Sweetgrass	Robin Wall Kimmerer							0
59	Where the Crawdads Sing	Delia Owens							0
60	The Dutch House	Ann Patchett							0
61	North Woods	Daniel Mason							0
63	The Fifth Seaso		.						0
67	Piranesi	Susanna Clarke							0
69	Killers of the Flower Moon	David Grann							0
70	Know My Name	Chanel Miller							0
72	Crying in H Mart	Michelle Zauner							0
73	Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallow		.						0
75	The Lincoln Highway	Amor Towles							0
77	SapiensYuval Noah Harari								0
80	Deacon King Kong	James McBride							0
82	Tom Lake	Ann Patchett							0
90	In the Dream House	Carmen Maria Machado							0
91	Project Hail Mary	Andy Weir							0
93	Remarkably Bright Creatures	Shelby Van Pelt							0
94	The Bee Sting	Paul Murray							0
98	Shuggie Bain	Douglas Stuart							0
99	Empire of Pain	Patrick Radden Keefe							0
100	A Man Called Ove	Fredrik Backman; translated by Henning Koch							0
		COUNTS	38	28	42	21	14	8

After my first attempt I decided to include Goodreads: Best 21st Century Nonfiction and increase the number of items on the Goodread lisst from 100 to 200. The result was an additional 15 items that are on at least two lists.