Who are these big book lists for?

This week, The New York Times publishes a big list of the 100 best books of the 21st century. It’s a little odd to do this in 2024 instead of 2025, a nice, even quarter century from now, but that’s OK, maybe Trump will make reading something other than The art of the deal illegal next year anyway. The list is being released piece by piece to build suspense. Each day this week, 20 more books will be revealed. All of the top 100 books will be released by Friday. At the time of publication, only 60 of the books have been announced. The books were chosen based on top 10 lists submitted by “503 novelists, nonfiction writers, poets, critics and other book lovers – with a little help from the staff of the New York Times Book Review.” 503 seems like too many, but what do I know?

There are plenty of problems with the list, as with every list ever made. It is very English-speaking. So far only a handful of books have been published in translation, and two of them are by Elena Ferrante: Days of abandonment And The story of the lost child. I like Elena Ferrante very much, but it seems very unlikely to me that any The author would have written two of the 100 best books of the century. There is hardly any genre literature included so far, and no poetry either. But as I read the list, I came across something else that annoyed me, something that itched just beneath the surface.

There is nothing new or controversial about rejecting a cultural ranking produced by a news organization. Every list is fake. Book lists—like their cousins, album lists—are designed to generate engagement. People will click on the list. People will talk about the list. People will write blogs like this one about the list. When Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom will be crowned the best book of the 21st century, women in dresses will tell you excitedly: “Do you have bags!” like his novel will Just Building. That’s the kind of reaction the newspaper wants. After all, commitment is money.

What is new is how obvious The New York Times tries to achieve this kind of engagement. The list has two checkbox options under each book: “I’ve read it” or “I want to read it.” These are the only options, because you’ll certainly want to read these universally popular books! Once you’ve checked off all your truths, you’ll be presented with a beautiful, shareable graphic at the bottom of the list that uses an algorithm to add the covers of the books you’ve read.

This is what mine looked like on Tuesday:

It is no secret that the sales engine of Just is cooking and games, and it seems that the books section, whether clever or crass, has learned a lesson from Wordle’s success: people like to brag about their score. On GoodReads and TikTok and elsewhere, reading is increasingly understood as a measurable endeavor. The more books, the better! Consumption is the only thing that matters.

In addition, this is in many ways The New York Times Ranking New York Times Bestsellers reviewed in The New York TimesThe only interesting exception that somewhat confirms the rule is Torrey Peters Detransition, babya book I really enjoyed. Although I was pleased to see it on this list, there is something almost revisionist about its inclusion.

“I am truly grateful to all readers over the past few years for making this possible. (Detransition, baby) came out when Pamela Paul was head of NYTimes Books – and D,B wasn’t even reviewed there at first (later got a short review when it was nominated for the Women’s Prize). It’s encouraging to see that a major company/institution can recognize a work of art – based on readership and care – even despite that institution’s initial disinterest,” Peters wrote on Instagram.

Detransition, baby was a highly acclaimed book. It sold well. It was nominated for awards. Of course it would be added to this list. It is Good in my opinion. What these lists completely ignore, however, is the fact that art can only be subjectively good. There is no such thing as objectively good.

And yet book culture wants them to exist. Book culture in America, as it currently exists, wants everyone to read the same books, talk about the same books, and agree that those books are uniformly and undeniably good. And that leads us to a plethora of lists and recommendations that are all identical and have no interest whatsoever in the goals of literature. This reminds me of this tweet I saw last week that I found very funny:

The list has a similar problem to the book recommendation cards: all recommendations are now the same. There isn’t a book on the top 100 list so far that I haven’t seen on dozens of lists before. So who is the audience for this list if not people who read a lot? What is its goal?

Because it really feels like the goal is not to sell books or to promote great books, but to codify a kind of public opinion that already feels completely settled.