The New York Times has selected the 100 best books of the century. These Texas authors made it onto the list.

At the turn of the century, amid the first moral panic over the advent of the digital age, many people wondered whether books would become obsolete.

But in the years that followed, there was no shortage of good reading material. Today, one can almost feel overwhelmed by the choice.

Now the New York Times Book Review has to come to the rescue with a list of the 100 best books of the 21st century – at least for now. And this extremely selective list includes books by quite a few Texas authors.

Gilbert Cruz, editor of the New York Times Book Review, said the review reached out to authors, librarians and other writers for help building its list.

“Instead of just doing it, the 30 of us at the Book Review, we should reach out to all the people we communicate with on a regular basis and see what they think,” he said. “So we sent a survey to more than 1,000 authors, novelists, nonfiction writers, poets, librarians – you know, people who read a lot – and 503 of them responded.”

The review staff then counted the votes for each title.

“We asked each person we sent a survey to choose up to 10 books that they thought were the best of the century so far. We intentionally left the definition of the word ‘best’ up to the participants to make it as broad as possible,” Cruz said. “Some people interpreted that as the most entertaining books. Others interpreted that as the most influential books, the most important. It was really up to each individual.”

This list includes some pretty big names from Texas. Amarillo native George Saunders has three books on this list.

“He was one of the few authors who had three books on the list,” Cruz said. “He writes primarily short stories. He writes fantastically strange short stories. And two of those short story collections made the list.”

But he also wrote a great novel called Lincoln in the Bardo, which was pretty highly critically acclaimed, about Abraham Lincoln and his grief after the death of his son. That’s a very simple explanation for a book that is actually, like his short stories, very strange.”

Texas author Lawrence Wright also made the list with “The Looming Tower,” a nonfiction book about the rise of al-Qaeda and the road to 9/11. Cruz said the goal of the project is to include both fiction and nonfiction.

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“A quarter of the list was nonfiction,” he said. “It was fascinating to think about the early years of this century – the years after 9/11, the years of the Iraq War. Before the list was put together, all of us at Book Review wondered if there would be any books on this list that reflected what we were all thinking about at the time in terms of nonfiction writing and nonfiction reading. But I think Lawrence Wright’s book, which was also published as a miniseries, really stands the test of time.”

Another titan of Texas literature to make the list is Cormac McCarthy. McCarthy is arguably one of the most influential writers of this century and has strong ties to El Paso. His book, The Road, came in at number 13.

“Cormac McCarthy was one of the great American stylists. He is known for his sometimes spare style. He is known for his sometimes flowery and exaggerated style. But he is also known for his sometimes quite dark style,” Cruz said.

“‘The Road’ is his post-apocalyptic novel. It’s essentially about a man and a boy on the road trying to survive in a post-nuclear war America. And it’s grim and disturbing. But there’s also a little bit of hope in it – like a tiny bit of hope, which maybe isn’t what people think of when they think of Cormac McCarthy. But I think, you know, when he died, everyone said he was one of the greats.”

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Cruz said that for those who were upset that their favorites were not on the list, the Times will release a new list that takes into account reader feedback.

“When a list like this comes out – and people have a lot of opinions about lists: they’re good, they’re bad, you can’t rate art – I think the point of something like this is to introduce people to things they haven’t seen yet,” Cruz said.

“So if you read this and find even one book out of 100 that fascinates you and you end up buying it, borrowing it from the library or listening to the audiobook, then that was a success.”

Cruz said he noticed some trends among the 100 books on the list. First, there is a lot of historical fiction.

“Even if you look at the top ten books, there’s ‘Wolf Hall,’ an English book about the reign of King Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell,” he said. “There’s ‘The Known World’ and ‘The Underground Railroad’ – two books about American slavery.”

Cruz also noticed numerous post-apocalyptic or dystopian novels – Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin and All We Had to Give by Kazuo Ishiguro are three examples.

“There is also a lot of translated literature here. Books from other countries are translated into English and have become popular here,” Cruz said. “The number one book on our list is ‘My Brilliant Friend’ by Elena Ferrante, the name of an Italian author who writes under a pseudonym.

Nobody knows who Elena Ferrante is. But to see this book, an Italian book translated into English and then become the basis for a quartet of books that caught the attention of many readers here in America, I found quite surprising, but also very telling of how important translated literature has become in this century.”