21st Century Literature discussion

As we approach the end of 2022, what books that were published in this century (since January 2000) were among your favorite reads in 2022? Besides literary fiction, any genre and nonfiction count as well. Feel free to edit your list if you want to add any other book you read later this month.

In no particular order:

- The Colony (2022) by Audrey Magee
- The Pachinko Parlour (2018) and Winter in Sokcho (2016) by Elisa Shua Dusapin
- The Trees (2021) by Percival Everett
- Time Shelter (2020) and The Physics of Sorrow (2011) by Georgi Gospodinov
- The English Understand Wool (2022) by Helen DeWitt
- Cold Enough for Snow (2022) by Jessica Au
- Temple of the Scapegoat: Opera Stories (2018) by Alexander Kluge
- Paper Houses by Dominique Fortier
- The Famous Magician (2013) by César Aira
- A Mountain to the North, a Lake to the South, Paths to the West, a River to the East (2003) by László Krasznahorkai

Dec. 29 update - adding two more:
- At the Lucky Hand: aka The Sixty-Nine Drawers by Goran Petrović
- Pollak's Arm by Hans von Trotha

Here are mine, in order of when I read them. I always like lists of "favorites" rather than "best". Pressure is off to defend anything that was just stupid fun.

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark
Devil House by John Darnielle
Such a Pretty Smile by Kristi DeMeester
I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid
Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre Max Brooks
The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy

Call Me Cassandra by Marcial Gala
The Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet
The Only Daughter by A.B. Yehoshua
Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au
Pure Colour by Sheila Heti
Didn't Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta by James Hannaham
The Hike by Drew Magary
Harrow by Joy Williams
We Spread by Iain Reid
Radiant Terminus by Antoine Volodine (reread)

I think I've plugged many of these books in previous discussions. But oh well:

J.A.W. McCarthy, Sometimes We're Cruel and Other Stories
Bruce Benderson, Urban Gothic: The Complete Stories
Renee Gladman, Event Factory
Richard Butner, The Adventurists: And Other Stories
David Nutt, Summertime in the Emergency Room
Michael DeForge, Very Casual
Kathryn Harlan, Fruiting Bodies: Stories
R.E. Katz, And Then The Gray Heaven
Mariana Enriquez, Things We Lost in the Fire (reread)
John Elizabeth Stintzi, My Volcano
Percival Everett, The Trees

This year I read mostly modern and earlier classics, but thanks to this group I read a few monthly picks and enjoyed them all. Besides these, two more translations and a couple of Booker long-listed books were my favorites from this century.

EEG by Daša Drndić
The Physics of Sorrow by Georgi Gospodinov
The Colony by Audrey Magee
The Trees by Percival Everett
Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (a re-read from last year)
Winter in Sokcho by Elisa Shua Dusapin
The White Book by Han Kang

Love your list Joe - several of those may have been on my list except I read them pre 2022 (in particular EEG, Small Things, Winter in Sokcho, The White Book). The Colony was a 2022 read for me and made my list:

Mine would be from 2022 reads - all of which are (in English) 2021-22 books.

Waypoints by Adam Ouston
Bolla by Pajtim Statovci tr. David Hackston
Imagine a Death: a novel by Janice Lee
Saint Sebastian's Abyss by Mark Haber
Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree tr. Daisy Rockwell
Strega by Johanne Lykke Holm tr. Saskia Vogel
I'm a Fan by Sheena Patel
MUEUM by S.J. Fowler
Treacle Walker by Alan Garner
The Colony by Audrey Magee

The Things We've Seen by Agustín Fernández Mallo
A New Name: Septology VI-VII by Jon Fosse
Mrs. Pollifax Unveiled by Dorothy Gilman
The President and the Frog by Carolina De Robertis
Our Lady of the Nile by Scholastique Mukasonga
The Orphanage by Serhiy Zhadan
Divergence by C.J. Cherryh
Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies by Maddie Mortimer
The Dirty South by John Connolly
Indiana, Indiana by Laird Hunt
Companion Piece by Ali Smith
The Colony by Audrey Magee
Horse by Geraldine Brooks
For Rouenna by Sigrid Nunez
El Hacho by Luis Carrasco
The Trees by Percival Everett
Pollaks Arm by Hans von Trotha
Thread Ripper by Amalie Smith
Interiors by Jessica Widner
Dead Lands by Núria Bendicho Giró
The Last One by Fatima Daas
Little Boy by John Smith
I am not Raymond Wallace: one man's mistake is another man's making by Sam Kenyon
Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout
Margaret Chase Smith: A Woman for President by Lynn Plourde

I read very little from the 21st century this year, but these were my favorites:

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk
The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson
My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russel
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
After Dark by Haruki Murakami

I read so many great books this year!

My favorite fiction published in 21st century:
- The Immortal King Rao by Vauhini Vara
- The Colony by Audrey Magee
- We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies by Tsering Yangzom Lama
- The Winter Soldier by Daniel Mason
- The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka
- Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
- The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng
- Glory: A Novel by NoViolet Bulawayo
- Speak by Louisa Hall
- A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne
- Seven Steeples by Sara Baume
- The Italian Teacher by Tom Rachman
- What We Fed to the Manticore by Talia Lakshmi Kolluri
- The Master by Colm Tóibín
- Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry
- The Tenth Muse by Catherine Chung
- Scattered All Over the Earth by Yōko Tawada
- Intimacies by Katie Kitamura
- Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris
- Dinosaurs by Lydia Millet
- Joan Is Okay by Weike Wang
- The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman
- Sepharad: A Novel by Antonio Muñoz Molina
- Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli

Favorite non-fiction published in 21st century (excluding a few American histories):
- Underland: A Deep Time Journey by Robert Macfarlane
- Madhouse at the End of the Earth: The Belgica's Journey into the Dark Antarctic Night by Julian Sancton
- Charles Dickens and the Great Theatre of the World by Simon Callow

I love these threads! Thanks for posting, Vesna.

Favorite 21st century reads from this year (in no order):
- Maybe: A Story About the Endless Potential in All of Us by Kobi Yamada
- Jack by Marilynne Robinson
- The Walking Dead: Compendium Four by Robert Kirkman
- Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica
- Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro
- Winter in Sokcho by Elisa Shua Dusapin
- The Colony by Audrey Magee
- The Trees by Percival Everett
- Parenthesis by Élodie Durand
- Alone by Christophe Chabouté
- Field Study by Chet'la Sebree

Percival Everett's novel is a hit here. I really liked it, though I had some reservations.

The Trees and Winter in Sokcho have both gotten a lot of love here.

This thread is not helping to reduce my TBR.

Whitney, exactly my thoughts! I was looking up the books from everyone's lists that I haven't read and I have the feeling some of them will end up among my favorite reads in the future :-)

Bill, you read more of Everett's novels and you can place The Trees in the context of his other writings. I suspect The Trees was the first exposure to his work for many of us thanks to his Booker nomination and hopefully will motivate many to continue reading him. I know I will. Great to know that even more good things are coming.

Some of these favorites I read last year, or else they would be on my list!

Favorites:
Kaveena by Boubacar Boris Diop, trans. from the French by Bhakti Shringarpure & C. Hanaburgh. Scathing look at colonialism, post-colonial dictators, humanitarian aid, & more in a fictitious West African country during a civil war. Unreliable narrators & brutal, spot-on commentary with an unexpected yet perfectly executed ending. Hard, excellent, & recommended. (Author from Senegal. Book originally published in French in 2006. English translated version published in 2016.)

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin. A mystery/thriller whose real strengths are the setting, dialogue (& silences), characters, & pacing. An aching, haunting story in the rural South. (Published in 2010.)

My Annihilation by Fuminori Nakamura, trans. from the Japanese by Sam Bett. Detached, bleak, & harrowing but fascinating nested-story construction & an unreliable narrator. What is the “self” & how far can a brain be manipulated for that? (Originally published in Japanese in 2016. English translated version published in 2022.)

Motherfucking Sharks by Brian Allen Carr. Weird. Horrifying. Oddly lyrical. And I sometimes laughed. (Probably shouldn’t admit that.) Um…. (Published in 2013.)

The Exquisite by Laird Hunt. Alternating chapters visit a dream-like, murky world of crime & deception in post-9/11 NYC with shades of Sebald, Kafka & Rembrant's painting "The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp". What is true & what is not? (Published in 2006.)

Feed by Tommy Pico. A stream-of-consciousness, word association long poem that reads like a mix of spoken word poetry & rap circling on love, food, queerness, loneliness, indigenous ancestors, music, relationships & the cosmos. A dizzying delight that I read in one breathless sitting. (Published in 2019.)

Whisper by Yu-Ko Chang. Taiwanese horror that also tackles colonialism, indigenous groups, forced assimilation, economic strife, beliefs & more. Creepy vibe & quite a fascinating book. (First published in Chinese in 2018. English translated version published in 2021.)

Found Audio by N.J. Campbell. A slightly enigmatic & compelling tale examining the line where realities & dreams cross, coexist, or even switch places. (Published in 2017.)

Triangulum by Masande Ntshanga. A layered book set in the South Africa of the 1990s into the 2040s. This multi-genre book (coming of age & sci-fi mostly) tackles colonialism, colonization, & conquest, along with abduction & assimilation in the past, as well as in an uncertain & collapsing future. (Published in 2019.)

Brain Candy:
Men to Avoid in Art and Life by Nicole Tersigni. Pretty damn funny. (Published in 2020.)

Organizing for the Rest of Us: 100 Realistic Strategies to Keep Any House Under Control by Dana K. White. I find decluttering books soothing. And, honestly? I can totally read a book about decluttering while lounging amongst my piles o'stuff. :-p (Published in 2022.)

Favorite quotes from this year's reading:
"If someone asks me what I did last year, I can safely answer that I smoked." (From Georgi Gospodinov, Natural Novel)

“Ndumbe stares at me. Before answering, he wants to know if I woke up on the right side of the bed. Of course, he's going to lie, but he doesn't want to tell the wrong lie. That's his forte.” (From Boubacar Boris Diop, Kaveena)

“Only here's the thing: there is no law that forbids a citizen to speak to his president. Apparently, in a democracy it's even recommended.” (From Boubacar Boris Diop, Kaveena)

“Words are what drives the world. Don't ever forget that, boy. People want words, and the less they understand them, the more effective they are.” (From Boubacar Boris Diop, Kaveena)

“Murigande was a tough opponent, the kind you were obliged to respect while dreaming every night of cutting him into little pieces.” (From Boubacar Boris Diop, Kaveena)

I don't read as much 21st Century Literature as some of you, although I've been filling my Wish List up with some of the suggestions above. I hope I can add a few to your lists as well.

This Thing of Darkness by Harry Thompson is an excellent Booker-longlisted historical novel about the 2nd Voyage of the HMS Beagle. Thompson, who died suddenly around the time of publication, contrasts Darwin with Captain FitzRoy, as both make scientific discoveries, while history and fate clearly favor one over the other. There are some mild historical inaccuracies that do nothing to diminish how captivating a read this is. (We read it as a group last year, but there was not an overwhelming amount of participation.)

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead is reimagined as an actual physical railroad under the surface of the earth. Some of the story describes events that didn't actually occur in the Antebellum South but that didn't stop the Pulitzer Prize committee from naming this book Best Novel.

Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor (translated) - long run-on sentences (some go on for pages) and graphic violence permeate this tale of a "witch" in a Mexican small town. It's short but memorable.

Winter's Bone and The Death of Sweet Mister by Daniel Woodrell - from the White Trash wonderland of the Missouri Ozarks come these two grit-lit stories of the underclass. There is 100% less dumpster-diving than a Larry Brown book, but more squirrel eatin.' Yum yum.

I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down: Collected Stories by William Gay - also in the Southern-lit vein are these short gems from the author of Provinces of Night and Twilight. The title story was made into an independent film "That Evening Sun" with Hal Holbrook.

The Hod King by Josiah Bancroft - the third novel in the four-part Books of Babel "steampunk" fantasy series is surprisingly well-written, as is the first volume (Senlin Ascends). I'll be reading the series conclusion in 2023 so I'll let you know if it's worth the effort but the answer so far is yes.

The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu - Liu's stories span many different genres including historical, fantasy, and science-fiction, sometimes all at once. Each story has at least one interesting idea and his simple yet lovely prose holds it all together.

Songs of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honour of Jack Vance edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois - for those who are fans of the Dying Earth series by Jack Vance, these stories are like love letters from some of the biggest names in modern Science-Fiction and Fantasy. Enjoy revisiting favorite characters and settings from the original series which was originally published from 1950 through 1984. Vance himself adds a brief acknowledgement of the anthology.

In the order I read them, mine are:

News of the Dead by James Robertson
Somebody Loves You by Mona Arshi
Our Lady of the Nile by Scholastique Mukasonga
Salt Lick by Lulu Allison
Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro
Seven Steeples by Sara Baume
The Magician by Colm Tóibín
The Slowworm's Song by Andrew Miller
A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies by Maddie Mortimer
After Sappho by Selby Wynn Schwartz
The Colony by Audrey Magee
My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is by Paul Stanbridge
Thread Ripper by Amalie Smith

RJ - Slayer of Trolls wrote: "Winter's Bone and The Death of Sweet Mister by Daniel Woodrell - from the White Trash wonderland of the Missouri Ozarks come these two grit-lit stories of the underclass. There is 100% less dumpster-diving than a Larry Brown book, but more squirrel eatin.' Yum yum..."

I love to see mention of Daniel Woodrell, one of my favorite authors. His last book was published in 2013, and I've been hoping for more since then (and worrying about him - hope he's okay). He must be a very private person, because there's precious little about him online.

In addition to the two books RJ mentions, I also especially loved Tomato Red. My next book of his will be Woe to Live on. I didn't enjoy his first book, The Bayou Trilogy: Under the Bright Lights, Muscle for the Wing, and The Ones You Do nearly as much as his later books set in the Ozarks - I'm glad it wasn't my first Woodrell, although certainly not a bad book - just not as good as what followed, for me. If anyone has any Woodrell updates, please share!

Thanks Nadine. I want to get to Tomato Red also. Have you read anything by William Gay or Larry Brown? You might enjoy their work as well.