Ah, 1999… We laughed along with Chandler and Phoebe, invested our surplus Benjamins with Lehman Brothers, danced a national macarena. Those days seem like the distant past now, and in many ways, the first decade of the 21st Century has been quite different from the giddy future we might have projected. In one way, though, the new millennium has delivered: we’ve gotten great fiction, often from unexpected quarters. When The New York Times named “The Best Work of American Fiction of the Last 25 Years” in 2006, none of the finalists was younger than 69, and the most recent publication date was 1997. But the ’00s have introduced us to new voices, spurred others to new levels of achievement, and ushered in the late masterworks that have capped distinguished careers.
It’s a bit early, of course, to pass definitive judgment on the literary legacy of the ’00s, or how it stacks up against that of the 1930s, or 1850s. Who knows what will be read 50 years from now? But, with the end of the decade just a few months away, it seemed to us at The Millions a good time to pause and take stock, to call your attention to books worthy of it, and perhaps to begin a conversation.
To that end, we’ve conducted a poll of our regular contributors and 48 of our favorite writers, editors, and critics (listed below), asking a single question: “What are the best books of fiction of the millennium, so far?” The results were robust, diverse, and surprising.
We’ve finished tabulating them, and this week, we’ll be counting down the Top 20 vote-getters, at a rate of five per day. Each book will be introduced by one of the panelists who voted for it. On Friday, we’ll reveal Number One, along with the results of a parallel reader poll conducted via our Facebook group. And next week, we’ll run follow-up posts including Honorable Mention and “Best of the Rest” lists.
This page, updated as we post the list, will become an index. You can use it to navigate the series, or can check back at our home page; we also invite you to consider subscribing to The Millions via RSS feed or Kindle. We hope you’ll share your thoughts here or on the entries for the individual books throughout the week as our list is revealed.
The List
#20: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
#19: American Genius, A Comedy by Lynne Tillman
#18: Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link
#17: The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
#16: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
#15: Varieties of Disturbance by Lydia Davis
#14: Atonement by Ian McEwan
#13: Mortals by Norman Rush
#12: Twilight of the Superheroes by Deborah Eisenberg
#11: The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
#10: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
#9: Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage by Alice Munro
#8: Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson
#7: Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald
#6: The Road by Cormac McCarthy
#5: Pastoralia by George Saunders
#4: 2666 by Roberto Bolaño
#3: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
#2: The Known World by Edward P. Jones
#1: The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
The Panel
- Sam Anderson is the book critic for New York Magazine.
- Rosecrans Baldwin is the author of the forthcoming You Lost Me There and a founding editor of The Morning News.
- Elif Batuman is the author of the forthcoming The Possessed: Adventures With Russian Books and the People Who Read Them
- Mark Binelli is the author of Sacco and Vanzetti Must Die and is a contributor to Rolling Stone.
- Elise Blackwell is the author of Hunger and other books
- Patrick Brown is a contributor to The Millions.
- Sonya Chung is the author of Long for This World and is a contributor to The Millions.
- Elizabeth Crane is the author of You Must Be This Happy to Enter and other works of fiction.
- Ben Dolnick is the author of Zoology.
- Ben Ehrenreich is the author of The Suitors.
- Stephen Elliot is the author of The Adderall Diaries and other books and is founding editor of The Rumpus.
- Scott Esposito is the founding editor of Conversational Reading and The Quarterly Conversation.
- Joshua Ferris is the author of Then We Came to the End and the forthcoming The Unnamed.
- Rivka Galchen is the author of Atmospheric Disturbances.
- Lauren Groff is the author of Delicate Edible Birds and The Monsters of Templeton.
- Garth Risk Hallberg is the author of A Field Guide to the North American Family and is a contributor to The Millions.
- John Haskell is the author of Out of My Skin and American Purgatorio.
- Jeff Hobbs is the author of The Tourists.
- Michelle Huneven is the author of Blame and other novels.
- Samantha Hunt is the author of The Invention of Everything Else and The Seas.
- Sara Ivry is a senior editor of Tablet.
- Bret Anthony Johston is the author of Corpus Christi: Stories and is director of the Creative Writing Program at Harvard University.
- Porochista Khakpour is the author of Sons and Other Flammable Objects.
- Lydia Kiesling is a contributor to The Millions.
- Benjamin Kunkel is the author of Indecision and is a founding editor of N+1.
- Paul La Farge is the author of Haussmann, or The Distinction.
- Reif Larsen is the author of The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet.
- Dorothea Lasky is the author of Awe and other books.
- Edan Lepucki is a contributor to The Millions.
- Yiyun Li by The Vagrants
- Margot Livesey is the author of The House on Fortune Street and other books.
- Fiona Maazel is the author of Last Last Chance.
- C. Max Magee is the founding editor of The Millions.
- Sarah Manguso is the author of the memoir The Two Kinds of Decay and other books.
- Laura Miller is the author of The Magician’s Book and is the book critic at Salon.
- Meghan O’Rourke is the author of Halflife: Poems and is a founding editor of DoubleX.
- Ed Park is the author of Personal Days and is a founding editor of The Believer.
- Emre Peker is a contributor emeritus to The Millions.
- Arthur Phillips is the author of The Song is You and three other novels.
- Nathaniel Rich is the author of The Mayor’s Tongue and is a senior editor at The Paris Review.
- Marco Roth is a founding editor of N+1.
- Andrew Saikali is a contributor to The Millions.
- Mark Sarvas is the author of Harry, Revised and is the proprietor of The Elegant Variation.
- Matthew Sharpe is the author of Jamestown and other works of fiction.
- Gary Shteyngart is the author of Absurdistan and The Russian Debutante’s Handbook.
- Joan Silber is the author of The Size of the World.
- Martha Southgate is the author of Third Girl From the Left and other books.
- Lorin Stein is a senior editor at Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
- Felicia Sullivan is the author of The Sky Isn’t Visible from Here and is the founding editor of Small Spiral Notebook.
- Jean Thompson is the author of Do Not Deny Me and other books.
- David Ulin is book editor of the Los Angeles Times
- Amanda Eyre Ward is the author of Love Stories in This Town and other books.
- Dan Wickett is executive director and publisher of Dzanc Books.
- John Williams is founding editor of The Second Pass
- Anne K. Yoder is a contributor to The Millions.
- Todd Zuniga is the founding editor of Opium Magazine
Methodology
Each panelist could name up to five books available in English with an original-language publication date no earlier than Jan. 1, 2000. We then tabulated the votes of our panelists, along with those of our contributors. Books were ranked according to number of votes received. In the few cases where more than one book received the same number of votes, our contributors, believing firmly that ties are like “kissing your sister,” voted to break them.
E-mail
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Support the Millions
subscribe to our RSS feed
become a fan on Facebook
at 10:47 am on September 21, 2009
[...] Gilead by Marilynne Robinson 19 American Genius, a Comedy, by Lynne Tillman 18 Stranger Things Happen, by Kelly [...]
at 11:37 am on September 21, 2009
[...] top 20 novels since the turn of the millennium. The methodology and a general intro to the project can be found here. I was flattered to be on the list of respondents to their poll, and further honored when they [...]
at 1:07 pm on September 21, 2009
[...] Fiction of the Millennium (so far) Jump to Comments The Millions is unveiling their choices for the best fiction of 2000s. Looks like a fine way to ramp up your reading list (not that most of us need any assistance on [...]
at 1:45 pm on September 21, 2009
[...] out the Best Fiction of the Millenium (So Far) Top 20 at The Millions this week. Panelists [...]
at 1:50 pm on September 21, 2009
[...] since, you know, the millennium is only one decade long so far. Anyway, Max has put together an impressive panel of about 60 experts to vote for the best. Each day, they’re posting five books, with the number one book coming on Friday, so stay [...]
at 3:43 pm on September 21, 2009
[...] heavy site I had the opportunity to design for them this past summer – is generating an amazing index of the best books of the new [...]
at 5:21 pm on September 21, 2009
[...] makes me sit up and take notice when they put together a list. This week they launched their “Best Fiction of the Millennium So Far” list, a reaction to the fact that “When The New York Times named ‘The Best Work [...]
at 2:13 am on September 22, 2009
I predict nineteen books originally written in English topped by Bolano at number one. Unmitigated Yankee home field advantage aside, a useful exercise, and I hope you’ll let us see the ballots.
at 2:40 am on September 22, 2009
[...] redesigned lit blog The Millions is revealing its picks for the 20 best fiction books of the millennium this week. They assembled a neat panel of experts (FSG editor Lorin Stein, novelist Gary [...]
at 6:42 am on September 22, 2009
[...] The Millions picks the “Best Fiction of the Millennium (so far)“ [...]
at 8:21 pm on September 22, 2009
[...] Prize, Man Booker short list | Leave a Comment The Millions is compiling a list of the millennium’s best fiction so far–they are through #11 [...]
at 11:04 pm on September 22, 2009
Ron Carlson, Five Skies
Percival Everett, American Desert, Wounded
Colson Whitehead, The Intuitionist
Nowhere Man, Alexander Hemon
Men in Space, Tom McCarthy
Joseph McNeil, Netherland
Jonathan Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Kathryn Davis, The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf
at 2:44 am on September 23, 2009
So difficult. Possibly Never Let Me Go, The Great Fire, The Road, Kavalier and Clay, Persepolis, White Teeth, Blind Assassin, Kafka on the Shore. A Neil Gaiman, a David Mitchell, or a Geraldine Brooks?. Stieg Larsson and Joseph O’Neill too soon? Bolano seems a shoo-in.
at 6:03 am on September 23, 2009
Assuming more than one book by an author is allowed, my guess is that shoo-ins for the top 10 are:
2666
The Savage Detectives
The Corrections
The Road
Austerlitz
And the ones I hope also make it:
Oblivion
Eat the Document
Everything is Illuminated
The Human Stain
Never Let Me Go
American-Centric I know, but that’s what I tend to read.
at 11:36 am on September 23, 2009
Savage Detectives actually doesn’t make the cut-off:
“Each panelist could name up to five books available in English with an original-language publication date no earlier than Jan. 1, 2000.”
at 11:53 am on September 23, 2009
[...] author Kelly Link (issue #59, “The Great Divorce”) made it into the Top 20 countdown of The Best Fiction of the Millenium (So Far) as reported by The Millions! Her 2001 short story collection Stranger Things Happen was voted #18 [...]
at 11:57 am on September 23, 2009
[...] Millions is celebrating our approach to 2010 by naming “The Best Fiction of the Millennium (So Far).” Positions 11 through 20 have been announced, and a new title will be added daily until [...]
at 3:41 pm on September 23, 2009
Predictions for the top 5 vote-getters: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell; 2666 by Roberto Bolano; The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon; The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen; John Henry Days by Colson Whitehead.
at 3:52 pm on September 23, 2009
[...] Best Books of the Millennium (So Far)? The literary blog The Millions has tabulated the results of its survey of the Top 20 recently-published best books among its readers and selected book reviewers. If you need a quick way to pick your next read, you could do worse than choose one or more of these titles. [...]
at 8:01 pm on September 23, 2009
[...] mentioning it again: The Millions will begin the Top 5 of its countdown of the best fiction of the young millennium tomorrow, with number 1 coming on Friday. In the meantime, post your own Top 5 in the comments of [...]
at 9:28 pm on September 23, 2009
[...] books of the Millennium less than ten years after the Y2K scare? Yes, yes it is. Keep an eye out on The Millions as the post their top twenty of the past nine years. So far, my personal favorites of this list are [...]
at 9:15 am on September 24, 2009
[...] should probably go over to The Millions and see their list of “The Best Fiction of The Millennium (So Far)“ I feel like we should have a countdown to [...]
at 10:44 am on September 24, 2009
The Story of Edgar Sawelle- Wroblewski
Life of Pi- Martell
Blindness – Saramago
Fortress of Solitude – Lethem
The Horned Man – Lasdun
Elegance of the Hedgehog – Barbery
I upset myself not to have more women here – Katharine Weber is really wonderful and if we were considering a body of work versus only one novel, she would be on the list. Also Annie Proulx.
at 1:19 pm on September 24, 2009
Given #s 2-20, Kavalier and Clay has to be number 1, right?
at 1:37 pm on September 24, 2009
[...] 24, 2009 · Leave a Comment The Millions is counting down the 20 best books of the century (”so far,” as they add). They’re only halfway through, and I’m curious what [...]
at 3:06 pm on September 24, 2009
I would assume Franzen’s The Corrections?
Not that that would be my vote, but I’d think it would get on.
at 3:59 pm on September 24, 2009
D F Wallace’s Infinite Jest?
at 4:03 pm on September 24, 2009
the Jest was 90s.
at 6:20 pm on September 24, 2009
“Ten minutes later she was naked, fifteen minutes later she was moaning, eighteen minutes later she was whispering words of love that she no longer needed to feign, after twenty minutes she began to lose her head, after twenty-one minutes she felt her body was being lacerated with pleasure, after twenty-two minutes she called out, Now, now, and when she regained consciousness she said, exhausted and happy, I can still see everything white.” – Blindness by Jose Saragamo
at 12:14 am on September 25, 2009
Tree of Smoke will probably be #1.
at 12:32 am on September 25, 2009
I was going to pick 2666 as #1 at first, but then it came out at #4 yesterday. So, my toss up for #1 now will either be Netherland by Joseph O’Neill or The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. Dave Eggers might have a chance too if A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is regarded by the panel as fiction instead of a memoir as promoted by the book’s publisher. But still, being a Bolano fan(and if more than one work from a single author is allowed) I am holding out for By Night In Chile simply because The Savage Detectives which was originally published in Spanish in 1998 is not eligible.
at 1:15 pm on September 25, 2009
[...] Best Fiction of the Millennium List Jump to Comments The Millions has revealed its full list of their Best Fiction of the Millennium. Reviewing the books they selected, I’ve read seven of the 20, with another four or five [...]
at 2:09 pm on September 25, 2009
[...] September 25, 2009 — tc Another one of the establishment’s stunted lists of fiction: The Millions’ “best books of fiction of the millennium” [2000-2009]. Wizard of the Crow, the 2006 novel by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, stands head and [...]
at 10:43 pm on September 25, 2009
[...] for that Millions list of the best books of the past decade… i don’t have much right to comment on that. It turns out that I haven’t read all [...]
at 12:39 pm on September 26, 2009
[...] Best fiction of the millennium Jump to Comments Over at The Millions, they’re revealing the fiction they feel is the best of the millennium so far. [...]
at 3:16 pm on September 26, 2009
Shout out to “Gould’s Book of Fish”, by Richard Flanagan.
at 9:30 pm on September 26, 2009
No Tree of Smoke on the above list? Shame, shame. There are some great books on that list but Johnson’s is better than most of them, if not all.
at 11:23 am on September 27, 2009
Not impressed with the list at all. I still prefer Franzen’s Strong Motion over Corrections, the latter getting more and more angry as I pick through it.
A better list would have included:
Shirley Hazzard’s The Great Fire
Roth’s Human Stain & Everyman
Arthur Phillip’s The Egyptologist
John Crowley’s Daemonomania
Houellebecq’s Platform
Pete Dexter’s Train
at 1:42 pm on September 27, 2009
[...] As for the remaining selections made by the panel: [...]
at 7:01 am on September 28, 2009
[...] friends over at The Millions got a jump start on decade-in-review countdowns, ranking the best novels of the last 10 years. For those who, like us, enjoyed Roberto Bolano’s 2666, No. 4 on The Millions’ list, [...]
at 9:37 am on September 28, 2009
[...] of The Millions, everyone’s talking about their Best Fiction of the Millennium (So Far) list. Franzen’s The Corrections was named number one last week, and they’ve now got a [...]
at 11:02 am on September 29, 2009
Where’s Murakami? Kafka on the Shore and After Dark both appeared this side of the millennium and of course 1Q84 (though that has yet to be translated into English).
To be quite honest, Atonement appearing on the list seems to suggest laziness on the part of the individuals polled. It’s certainly a well-known book, but it’s hardly well-written what with its conclusion being a cheap trick. Ah well, I guess McEwan’s anti-feminism is appealing enough to overcome such stylistic deficiencies.
at 12:15 pm on September 29, 2009
[...] anyone else been checking out “The best Books of the Millenium (So Far) at The Millions? Plenty to fight about [...]
at 7:23 pm on September 29, 2009
[...] da primeira década do século XXI, de entre os que foram publicados nos EUA (método explicado aqui). Mais tarde, o The Millions também consultou os seus leitores, através do Facebook, elaborando [...]
at 8:22 pm on October 1, 2009
[...] does an excellent job picking The Best Fiction of the Millennium (So [...]
at 4:30 pm on October 2, 2009
[...] their list of the top twenty. The top five were Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections, Edward P. Jones’ The Known [...]
at 11:11 pm on October 12, 2009
[...] The countdown to the best books of the millennium continues Junot Diaz and Ishiguro make it. (via) [...]
at 7:22 am on October 20, 2009
[...] comments follow some earlier comments by Andrew Seal about the Millions’ list of the best fiction of the new millennium. (I haven’t followed the discussion closely, but I gather Seal believes the list is [...]
at 12:02 pm on October 23, 2009
[...] (I still don’t understand why it’s called that). They published a list last month of the best books of the first decade of the 21st century. The list (actually two [...]
at 3:03 am on November 9, 2009
[...] They created two lists — one with reader favorites and one with the favorites of “experts.” I double-starred (**) the titles I read (and loved) and single-starred (*) the titles I [...]
at 7:20 pm on November 14, 2009
[...] intriguing subject, but never picked it up. Something else was always more pressing. Then, over at The Millions, this book came in slotted as #2 on their list of “The Best Fiction of the Millenium (So [...]
at 5:50 pm on November 16, 2009
[...] based on a similar one conducted not too long ago over at The Millions, where they listed the top 20 Best Fiction of the Millenium (I’ve managed four of the twenty). I was especially chuffed to see that Deborah [...]
at 9:35 am on December 9, 2009
Some good choices, some bad. What else is new? The best are never known until years later.
at 6:24 pm on December 15, 2009
[...] to kick off a discussion, I submit the year 2001, using The Millions “Best Books of the Millenium (So Far)“. From that list, we have: The Corrections, Austerlitz, Atonement, Hateship, Friendship, [...]
at 11:13 am on December 17, 2009
[...] Pitchfork launched its music retrospective over the summer, while The Millions started considering the millennium’s best books as early as [...]
at 9:22 pm on December 20, 2009
[...] The Millions best of the decade (#1 = The Corrections) plus a readers’ list (#1 = Oscar Wao) [...]
at 4:46 pm on December 21, 2009
[...] few months ago, I took part in The Millions Best of the Millennium series, which asked writers, critics and readers to submit their picks for five best works of [...]
at 7:05 am on December 27, 2009
[...] world works. This thematic notion of the world “correcting” itself seems particularly relevant at the end of the Aughts: financial disasters are the corrections of long-tolerated mistakes in the economy; bloody wars and [...]
at 6:15 pm on December 28, 2009
The best novel I’ve ever read, a fabulous book that anyone with a uterus ought to own is The Lost Daughter by Daralyse Lyons. It is the most fabulous work of literature I’ve ever read, rich with character, plot, and subtext…
at 7:35 pm on January 2, 2010
[...] The Millions: The Best Fiction of the Millennium (So Far): An Introduction [...]
at 7:10 am on January 3, 2010
Wow. No J.M Coetzee. In fact, no African authors whatsoever. Well done! *facetious laughter*
at 2:38 am on January 4, 2010
Anathem sorely missing.
at 2:45 am on January 18, 2010
[...] is The Millions list of the best fiction of the millenium. I’ve starred those titles I’ve read twice [...]
at 2:42 pm on June 20, 2010
[...] or uproar arose — entirely predictably — after The Millions released its "Best Fiction of the Millennium" list last year. To what degree should we accept such lists and prizes as a natural part of [...]
at 3:00 pm on June 23, 2010
[...] on all the great books you haven’t had the chance to read, look to the Millions’ “Best Fiction of the Millennium (So Far).” The list gives a quick rundown (voted on by readers) of the hottest titles of the past [...]
A Year in Reading 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005
Best of the Millennium; Readers' List
A new way to browse The Millions! Books and Reviews
Bookmark these links to stay on top of the hottest books:
Hot 100 | Awards | Movers & Shakers | Bargain Books | Kindle Bestsellers
More From Best of the Millennium
More From Notable Articles
Other Recent Articles
Recent Comments
2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005
Readers' List
© Mmix The Millions. Some rights reserved. This work is licensed under a cc attribution-noncommercial-Sharealike 2.5 License.