Kirkus Takes on "The Best Books of The Century" and It Includes YOUTH

Kirkus threw their hat in the Best Books of the Century So Far conversation and  unlike the NYT, they considered books for all ages. And within their adult selections, graphic novels and genre titles are in abundance. Finally, unlike the NYT limit to 100 books, Kirkus has 500!

Here is the direct link to the page where you can choose the category and see the lists. Below I have also included the introduction to this special issue by editor-in-chief.

But before that I wanted to remind you that this can be used in a variety of ways at your library.

First, check your collections. You should have all of these books at your library across your collections. 

Second, what a great "forgotten favorites" this display would make, and you can make it intergenerational in order to show your community that you have a book for all ages at your library by highlighting these books in one centralized display. Click here for more on that topic.

Third, go to this post where I talked about using the NYT list from late last year as a conversation starter, to get your patrons to share with you their favorite books of this century. What better way to not only show them you care about what they like (and don't just care about what a magazine likes best), but also, for you to find out what books mean the most to your patrons. (Remember circulation statistics just show us what goes out and comes back, not how people felt about the items.)

And finally, fourth, lists are fun. We could all use some more fun in our library lives these days.

Please go to the landing page to see all the books. Or read the introduction first.

How do you recapture the past? You could flip through the pages of a photo album or old diary, or listen to an old playlist that evokes a particular time in your life. If you’re a hardcore reader, as I am, you might well scan your bookshelves and recall when and where you read certain titles.

I see my copy of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, for example, and remember speed-reading it over a few days in the summer of 2004—mostly on a blanket in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park—to prepare for an interview with debut author Susanna Clarke. Ordinarily, I’d have been stressed out by a long book (800 pages!) and a tight deadline, but I soon lost myself in Clarke’s absorbing work of historical fantasy, set in an early-19th-century England where the practice of magic is resurgent. It’s one of my favorite reading experiences ever.

On another shelf, I spy Jennifer Egan’s A Visit From the Goon Squad, which I read in long, blissfully uninterrupted sprints as I commuted daily by train out to Long Island in 2010, the scenery—and the pages—rushing by. It was thrilling to see what a contemporary novel could become in the hands of a gifted practitioner—there’s a chapter in the form of a PowerPoint presentation!—without sacrificing the old-fashioned investment we feel in Egan’s all-too-human characters. It’s certainly a top contender, in my opinion, for the best novel of the past 25 years.

Numerous other candidates appear—along with short fiction, nonfiction, children’s books, and young adult literature—in our special issue dedicated to the best books of the 21st century (so far). The staff of the magazine has been hard at work on the issue for months now, revisiting old favorites, unearthing neglected gems, and arguing the merits of this or that title. We’ve chosen 100 books in each category, all published in the U.S. between 2000 and 2024; also scattered throughout these pages are spotlight features with details about the creation, reception, and long-term impact of select titles.

What a pleasure to reflect on a quarter-century of great reads! (And what agony to whittle the list down to 500.) Among the other books that set off Proustian reveries for me personally were Alison Bechdel’s funny and moving graphic memoir, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (2008), Isabel Wilkerson’s magisterial yet intimate history, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration (2010), Viet Thanh Nguyen’s sly post-Vietnam spy novel, The Sympathizer (2015), and Jennifer Homans’ vivid biography of a ballet genius, Mr. B: George Balanchine’s 20th Century (2022). They’re such stellar books that I wish I could read them all again for the first time.

Fortunately, such an array of riches means that every reader will find something unfamiliar among our lists, along with beloved old favorites. If you discover a new favorite here, I hope you’ll let us know. And if you want to argue for a title that didn’t make the cut, please let us know that, too. What fun is a booklist without some debate? As always, my email is tbeer@kirkus.com.

Tom Beer is the editor-in-chief.

Click here to get to the books 

Fun April Fools Day Conversation Starter: What is a Book You Have Faked Reading

I was presenting the latest version of my Booktalking program the other day and we were talking about some of my favorite conversation starter questions.

And I mentioned this post: Display Idea: Books We Have Faked Reading. Click through to read the full post and see how you can have this "cheeky" conversation but turn it into a great display.

After that program I made a note in my calendar to bring back this fun post-- originally appeared 5/8/23. When I was looking at the week of blogging ahead, I realized this would make for a fun April Fool's Day post and idea. 

You don't have to do this only on April Fool's Day however, it is an evergreen idea that will be sure to grab your patron's attention. This question-- What Books Have you Faked Reading?-- will make your patrons do a double take and look at you as if saying, "Did you really just ask me that?" 

We need ways to shake people out of the same old, same old. This is why surprising them with authentic questions that are clearly meant to spark a conversation is key.

It is a GREAT idea for a display and/or an online conversation. Send around this question to all staff and explain that you want to get up a display of titles that answer this question, and you want to start with everyone who works at the library. Then get up the book display and make sure you ask patrons to add their own titles to the list. Have them add a post-it notes to a board, put a slip of paper in a box, or add their title online.

It can extend the April Fool's fun a bit longer. And look, goodness knows we all need an innocent laugh these days.

Click here for every post labeled "conversation starters." And click here to see the first post where I explain how to take conversation starters and turn them into interactive displays, including a link to a handout with example questions. 

Have fun with this. And reminder, don't fall for any jokes yourself today.