The Outline Trilogy by Rachel Cusk (2014–2018)
Cusk’s trilogy featuring titles Outline, Transit, and Kudos, is a series of largely plotless books centering around a protagonist named Faye, a British writer about whom the reader learns almost nothing. Despite this, Faye manages to coerce magnificent stories and confessions from those around her. The Outline trilogy is about the profundity of human experience.
The Idiot by Elif Batuman (2017)
A semi-autobiographical recounting of the author’s own experience, Elif Batuman’s second book follows a Turkish college freshman at Harvard in the 1990s, Selin, as she finds herself falling for someone through the brand new medium of email. However, her fearful counterpart is reluctant to bring their fantasies to life.
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (2005)
Joan Didion chronicles her own account of the year following the death of her husband, John Gregory Dunne. The Year of Magical Thinking has been heralded as a classic book about grief and mourning.
Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner (2011)
At face value, Leaving the Atocha Station follows a young poet from Kansas, Adam Gordon, living in Spain during the 2004 terrorist bombings and suffering from imposter syndrome about his authenticity as a man and a poet. The title of Ben Lerner’s debut novel is a nod to the late John Ashbery; during the protagonist’s time spent on a prestigious poetry fellowship in Madrid, he is often carrying a copy of Ashbery’s Selected Poems.
Atonement by Ian McEwan (2001)
A 13-year-old upper-class girl tells a terrible lie. This somewhat innocent mistake unravels her family at the seams, and the girl is forced to grow up in the shadow of her actions. In an attempt to atone for the misinformed decision she made in her youth, she weaves a heartbreaking narrative that will weigh on your chest like a landmine.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2006)
The author of Blood Meridian and No Country for Old Men tackles the same themes of good vs. evil through the vessel of a father-son relationship. As the pair traverse through post-apocalyptic America, rampant with cannibalism and violence, the dying father seeks to instill in his son an understanding of good guys and bad guys.
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (2012)
After seven years and a film adaptation, Gillian Flynn’s third novel was truly a game-changer. New York transplant Nick Dunne finds himself pinned for murder when his wife, Amy, disappears on the couple’s fifth anniversary, upending what seems like an idyllic marriage from the outside. However, everything is far from what it appears to be.
1Q84 by Haruki Marukami (2009)
A woman named Aomame assassinates a guest as a luxurious hotel, but faces a serious reality check when she ends up in a dystopian Tokyo called 1Q84. This epic tale is three separate volumes, each following her account of a fictionalized 1984 parallel with the supposedly “real” one.
Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood (2017)
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (2005)
American poet Patricia Lockwood recounts her upbringing as the daughter of a married Catholic priest. Lockwood wrote the book shortly after she and her husband moved back in with her parents at her father’s rectory due to illness and financial struggles. Priestdaddy has been hailed as one of the best novels of the past fifty years.
This dystopian science fiction novel is set in a grim world where human clones are created specifically for the purpose of being able to donate their organs as young adults. Never Let Me Go follows the life of Kathy, a clone raised at a boarding school for future organ donors—although it’s not quite a “donation” in the first place.
The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson (2015)
Maggie Nelson’s genre-bending memoir The Argonauts tells many stories, the primary of which being the author’s relationship with artist Harry Dodge, her journey to pregnancy, and the complexities of building a family outside of a heteronormative narrative.
2666 by Roberto Bolaño (2004)
Roberto Bolano’s legacy is 2666, which was released one year after his death. Its 1,229 pages revolve around the mystery of an elusive German author and the ongoing, unsolved murders of women in Santa Teresa, a violent city inspired by the epidemic of female homicides in Ciudad Juarez. 2666 showcases what is truly possible when form interacts with content.
The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt (2000)
The Last Samurai explores the relationship between a young boy, Ludo, and his mother, Sibylla. Ludo commences rigorous training at the age of 4 and eventually sets off on a quest to find his father. Sibylla questions whether Ludo is a genius or if everyone else has simply gone out of their way to remain uninformed.
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen (2001)
Franzen’s tragicomic analysis of the American dream finds itself settled comfortably between two midpoints: middle-class in the midwest. Published only ten days before the September 11 terrorist attacks, The Corrections traces the lives of one family to “one last Christmas” together at the turn of the century.
The Largesse of the Sea Maiden by Denis Johnson (2018)
Johnson’s short story collection The Largesse of the Sea Maiden was published posthumously in 2018. It contains five short stories meditating on mortality, transcendence, hallucinations, and hot dogs. This was his first story collection in 25 years.
Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart (2010)
Lenny Abramov, the son of a Russian immigrant whose mind is still in the previous century, falls in love with Eunice Park, a twenty-something struggling to navigate superficiality in the modern world. Set in a dystopian New York where life is dominated by media and materialism, Park and Abramov are different sides of the same coin—one governed by corporate America.
American Gods by Neil Gaiman (2017)
Shadow, the book’s protagonist, is released from prison early to mourn the tragic death of his wife. He soon falls in with a grifter known as Mr. Wednesday, who recruits Shadow as his bodyguard. As it turns out, Mr. Wednesday is actually a god.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon (2003)
A 15-year-old boy on the autism spectrum, self-described as “a mathematician with some behavioural difficulties,” discovers the neighbor’s dead dog in the yard. What unfolds is an immense and winding tale in which Christopher John Francis Boone discovers his father has told a terrible lie. His trust in his father irreparably fractured, Christopher goes on a journey to discover what really happened to his mother two years ago.
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders (2017)
George Saunders’ first full-length novel is a venture in experimental fiction, inspired by a story Saunders heard about how Lincoln visited his son’s crypt at the cemetery on several occasions to hold the boy’s body. Much of the novel takes place in the bardo, a liminal space between death and reincarnation. “Without giving anything away, let me say this: I made a bunch of ghosts,” said Saunders.
White Teeth by Zadie Smith (2000)
White Teeth follows two wartime friends, Bagladeshi Samad Iqbal and Englishman Archie Jones, as well as their families in London. The novel focuses on Britain’s relationship with people from formerly-colonized countries in Asia, Africa, and the Carribbean.
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (2003)
Audrey Niffenegger’s debut novel follows Henry, a librarian with a genetic disorder that causes him to time travel unpredictably, and Clare, his artist wife who finds it difficult to cope with his frequent absences and perilous experiences.
Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer (2002)
Jonathan Safran Foer is both the author and the titular character in Everything is Illuminated, a novel describing the journey of a young American Jew who travels to Ukraine in search of the woman who saved his grandfather’s life. Everything is Illuminated was Safran Foer’s debut novel, later being adapted into a film of the same name in 2005 starring Eliah Wood.
Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney (2017)
Sally Rooney’s debut novel follows college students Frances and Bobbi as they navigate the perils of infidelity, sexuality, class, and chronic illness. Frances finds herself involved with Nick, a married man who can’t seem to decide what he wants, while his wife Melissa seems to have taken a liking to the fiery and acerbic Bobbi. Rooney masterfully defies the conventions of traditional prose in this messy, beautiful work of fiction.
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (2002)
A teenage girl suffers a terrible fate and watches from Heaven has her family struggles to move on with their lives after her death while her killer roams free. The film adaptation, directed by Peter Jackson, was released in 2009.
Rapture by Carol Ann Duffy (2005)
The UK’s first female poet laureate won the TS Eliot prize for Rapture in 2005, a moving, book-length poem exploring all the stages of a failed romance—falling in love, betrayal and separation.
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (2000–2003)
This incredible autobiographical graphic novel reveals a hidden story through Sartapi’s childhood and early adult years in Iran after the Islamic Revolution. Originally published in French, the graphic novel has been translated into a number of different languages.
The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt (2014)
Harriet Burden is an artist weighed down with fury at the lack of recognition she has received from the New York art establishment. Inspired, Burden conducts her own experiment: she hides her identity behind three male fronts who pretend as though her work is their own—but when Burden finally reveals the truth, not everyone believes her.
Night Watch by Terry Pratchett (2002)
The late Pratchett’s Discworld series has been hailed the height of modern fiction. The 29th book, Night Watch, focuses on Sir Samuel Vimes, commander of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch. Pratchett intended the contents of the novel, like the secret police and the torture chamber, to seem like a bunch of gags gone terribly awry.
The Echo Maker by Richard Powers (2005)
27-year-old Mark Schluter wakes up from a near-fatal truck accident convinced that his sister, Karin, is really an impostor who looks, sounds, and acts just like his “real” sister. Diagnosed with a rare case of Capgras syndrome by renowned neurologist Gerald Weber, Mark must discover what happened to him the night of his accident.
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (2009)
Wolf Hall is a sympathetic fictionalized account of Thomas Cromwell’s rapid rise to power in the court of Henry VIII through the death of Sir Thomas More. The novel has been named by The Observer as one of “the 10 best historical novels.”
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen (2015)
In Viet Thanh Nguyen’s debut best-selling novel, The Sympathizer wears a number of hats: political, mystery, metafiction, historical, spy, war, and more. An anonymous narrator acts as a North Vietnamese mole in the South Vietnamese army. The narrator stays embedded in a South Vietnamese community in exile in Los Angeles, California, where he describes being an expatriate and cultural advisor on the set of a film resembling Apocalypse Now. Later, he returns to Vietnam as part of a guerilla raid against the communists.
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward (2011)
In Salvage the Bones, Ward examines the plight of a working-class African-American family in Mississippi as they prepare for Hurricane Katrina to hit. Afterward, the novel follows their lives in the aftermath of the storm’s destruction.
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (2004)
Six interconnected stories carry the reader from 19th century South Pacific to Hawaii in a distant post-apocalyptic future. The characters in Cloud Atlas are all interrupted at a pivotal moment, each of their stories containing references to the past.
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson (2017)
Part memoir and part admonition for necessary reform to the U.S. criminal justice system, Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy is a call to arms. The book primarily follows the relationship between activist lawyer Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, and Walter McMillian, a black man falsely accused of murder and sentenced to death in the late 1980s.
The Altruists by Andrew Ridker (2019)
Middling Midwestern professor Arthur Alter can’t afford his mortgage. He’s tired of his young girlfriend and his children have cut him out of their lives. There’s a secret fortune bequeathed to Arthur’s kids by his wife Francine. Under the guise of reconciling their pasts, Arthur invites his kids to St. Louis—and, in the process, opens a Pandora's Box of resentments.
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (2002)
This bildungsroman chronicles the effect of a mutated gene that spans three generations of a Greek family. Narrator and protagonist Cal Stephanides is a Grecian intersex man with 6-alpha-reductase deficiency, causing him to have feminine traits. The novel follows Stephanides’ family from their migration to the U.S. in 1922 to their societal assimilation, eventually culminating in an exploration of Cal’s own experiences as a person with a modified gender identity.
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (2007)
Oscar de Leon is an overweight Dominican boy growing up in Paterson, New Jersey. With themes of magic realism, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao tells the story of Oscar Wao, a hopeless romantic whose luck seems to run out at every turn.
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2006)
Half of a Yellow Sun tells the story of the Biafran War through the lens of three characters: Olanna, Ugwu, and Richard. The book jumps between events during the early and late 1960s, when the war took place, and extends until the end of the war.
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (2003)
Amir, a young boy from Kabul, witnesses something terrible happen to his friend Hassan and fails to stop it of his own volition. Set against the backdrop of war and the rise of the Taliban, The Kite Runner tells a story of tragedy, redemption, and friendship.
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (2018)
Rumors of the “Marsh Girl” haunt a quiet town on the coast of North Carolina. In late 1969, the handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, and the town points to Kya Clark, the supposed Marsh Girl. However, Kya is a deeply intelligent, sensitive woman who survived for years alone in the marsh she calls home—when the unthinkable happens, she must navigate what to do in the wake of tragedy.
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (2005)
Narrated by the character of Death, the plot follows Liesel Memiger as she comes of age in 1939 Nazi Germany. Liesel is fostered by a family after her brother dies, and manages to survive the times by stealing books. Liesel learns to read and shares the books with her neighbors and the Jewish man hidden in her basement.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (2005)
40 years ago, Harriet Vanger, a young scion of one of Sweden’s wealthiest families, vanished without a trace. Mikael Blomkvist is hired to get to the bottom of things with the help of Lisbeth Salander, a 24-year-old pierced and tattooed supergenius hacker. The unlikely duo discovers unbelievable corruption within the upper echelon of Swedish industrialism.
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (2010)
Aging punk-rocker-turned-record-executive Bennie employs Sasha, a passionate, troubled young woman. Bennie and Sasha’s lives intertwine with a host of other characters’, and their paths intersect in a magnificent symphony of destruction and redemption.
Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald (2001)
Jacques Austerlitz knows nothing of his real family. He is raised by a Methodist minister and his wife; however, years later, the memories return to Austerlitz, and he follows them to a void at the heart of twentieth-century Europe.
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (2014)
Maurie-Laure and her father live together in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as a lockmaster. Marie-Laure goes blind at the age of 6 and her father builds an identical miniature replica of their neighborhood in order for his daughter to memorize it by touch and find her way home. Six years later, Paris becomes occupied by Nazis. In Germany, an orphan’s timeline converges with Maurie-Laure’s.
Life of Pi by Yann Martel (2001)
The only survivors of a shipwreck are a 16-year-old boy named Pi, a hyena, a wounded zebra, an orangutan, and a 450-pound Royal Bengal Tiger. What unfolds is a testament to philosophy, spirituality, and metaphysics.
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer (2005)
One year after his father died in the September 11 attacks, 9-year-old Oskar Schell discovers a key in a vase that once belonged to him. Oskar embarks on a mission to find the lock that matches the key, taking him on an adventure through all five boroughs of New York.
The Plot Against America by Philip Roth (2004)
In an alternate universe where Franklin D. Roosevelt loses the 1940 presidential election to pilot and isolationist Charles A. Lindbergh, a cordial “understanding” is negotiated with Adolf Hitler, and the new government enacts a program of unassuming antisemitism.
The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner (2013)
It’s the 1970s, and Reno is traveling to New York with the intention to turn her fixation with speed and motorcycles into art. Reno arrives just in time for an explosion of radical politics, activism, and civil dissent.
Normal People by Sally Rooney (2018)
Rooney’s second novel Normal People is about a complex and intricate relationship forged between Connell and Marianne, set during the 2000s downturn period. Connell may be a popular, intelligent high school student, but his mother still cleans the home of bookish outsider Marianne. A heartbreaking narrative about two people who weave in and out of one another’s lives for years on end.
The Sellout by Paul Beatty (2015)
After spending his childhood as a subject in racially-charged psychological studies thanks to his controversial sociologist father, the narrator of The Sellout resigns himself to the fate of all lower-middle-class Californians. The narrator then pulls a stunt so egregious that it lands him in the Supreme Court.
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (2013)
Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New York boy, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. His father abandons him, and Theo is shipped off to live with the family of a wealthy friend. Surrounded by unfamiliarity, Theo clings to the only tangible memory of his other: a single painting. As Theo gets sucked into the world of art and love, he finds himself struggling to keep his head above water.
Life After Life by Katie Atkinson (2013)
Ursula Todd is born in 1910. Almost immediately, she dies. And then she’s born again. Ursula continues to grow and die over and over again. Caught between two of the greatest wars in history, Ursula must exert her power over the fate of civilization.
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (2016)
A young slave on a plantation in Georgia, Cora, is on the cusp of womanhood. When new arrival Caesar asks Cora to join him on the Underground Railroad, she seizes the opportunity. However, in this story, the Underground Railroad is no metaphor—engineers and conductors operate a secret network of trains deep beneath the surface of the earth.
The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes (2011)
Two of middle-aged Tony Webster’s childhood friends return with a vengeance—one from the grave, the other unrelentingly present. Tony believed he left his past behind when he resigned himself to security and normalcy, but after being presented with a mysterious legacy, he must reassess his purpose on earth.
The Martian by Andy Weir (2011)
Mark Watney becomes one of the first people to walk on Mars. Six days later, he’s not sure if he’ll be the first person to die there, too. After a dust storm causes his crew to evacuate and leave him for dead, Mark is alone on Mars with zero resources, unsure how he’s going to survive.
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (2000)
House of Leaves is Mark Z. Danielewski's debut novel. A young family moves into a house on Ash Tree Lane where they soon learn something is extremely wrong: the house is much bigger on the inside than it is outside.
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (2003)
The Da Vinci Code follows “symbologist” Robert Langdon and cryptologist Sophie Neveu. A murder takes place in the Lourve, and the pair become involved in a fight between the Priory of Sion and Opus Dei over the possibility of Jesus Christ having been Mary Magdalene’s companion.
The Help by Kathryn Stockett (2009)
A black maid named Aibileen in 1962 Jackson, Mississippi finds herself unable to bite her tongue. Aibileen’s friend Minny is a gossip, but she’s now forced to keep unbelievable secrets about her employer. Socialite Skeeter just graduated college; despite her ambition, she’s husbandless and considered a failure for it.
Looking for Alaska by John Green (2005)
Miles Halter leaves for boarding school to search for the “Great Perhaps.” One of the adventures awaiting Miles at Culver Creek is Alaska Young, a mysterious young woman with a troubled past.