The 25 best books of the 2000s
The 25 highest-ranked books first published in the 2000s in our ranking of 2,816, scored on how much readers love them, their prize, best-list and bestseller record, and current buzz. We rank 490 books of the 2000s in all. How we rank
- 1
The Book Thief92.3Must-Read ScoreThe Book Thief
Germany, 1939.
Why it made the list281 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2020PBS Great American Read - 2
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer90.1Must-Read ScoreAmerican Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
The definitive biography of J.
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize (Biography) winner (2006)NBCC Award (Biography) winner (2005)#1 New York Times bestseller (5 weeks at #1) - 3
The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/1189.6Must-Read ScoreThe Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11
How did 9/11 happen?
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize (General Nonfiction) winner (2007)National Book Award (Nonfiction) finalist (2006)NYT 100 Best Books of the 21st CenturyTIME All-TIME 100 Nonfiction - 4
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea89.6Must-Read ScoreNothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
Journalist Barbara Demick spent years interviewing North Koreans who escaped, and here she follows six of them, all from the city of Chongjin, across fifteen years that included the death of Kim Il-sung and a famine that killed perhaps a million people.
Why it made the listBaillie Gifford Prize winner (2010)National Book Award (Nonfiction) finalist (2010)NBCC Award (Nonfiction) finalist (2010)Guardian 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - 5
The Help89.0Must-Read ScoreThe Help
Jackson, Mississippi, 1962.
Why it made the list#1 New York Times bestseller (21 weeks at #1)One of the ten best-selling books of 2009 and 2010 (Publishers Weekly)PBS Great American Read - 6
Master of the Senate88.8Must-Read ScoreMaster of the Senate
Book three of Robert Caro's The Years of Lyndon Johnson covers Johnson's twelve years in the Senate, from 1949 to 1960.
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize (Biography) winner (2003)National Book Award (Nonfiction) winner (2002)#1 New York Times bestseller (1 week at #1) - 7
Postwar: A History of Europe Since 194588.2Must-Read ScorePostwar: A History of Europe Since 1945
Tony Judt's history of Europe from the ruins of 1945 to the start of the twenty-first century covers the whole continent, from Lisbon to Leningrad: rebuilding after the war, the Cold War division into East and West, the welfare state, 1968, the collapse of communism, and the long, uneasy project of European union.
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize (General Nonfiction) finalist (2006)Baillie Gifford Prize finalist (2006)NYT 100 Best Books of the 21st CenturyGuardian 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - 8
A Thousand Splendid Suns87.9Must-Read ScoreA Thousand Splendid Suns
Mariam is the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy man in Herat, married off at fifteen to Rasheed, a much older shoemaker in Kabul.
Why it made the list#1 New York Times bestseller (15 weeks at #1)One of the ten best-selling books of 2007 (Publishers Weekly) - 9
266687.2Must-Read Score2666
Roberto Bolaño's last novel, published after his death, is made of five connected parts.
Why it made the listNBCC Award (Fiction) winner (2008)NYT 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - 10
The Hunger Games87.0Must-Read ScoreThe Hunger Games
In Panem, a nation built on the ruins of North America, the Capitol forces each of its twelve districts to send two teenagers every year to the Hunger Games, a televised fight to the death.
Why it made the listOne of the ten best-selling books of 2012 (Publishers Weekly)PBS Great American Read - 11
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay86.7Must-Read ScoreThe Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
In 1939, young magician-in-training Josef Kavalier escapes Nazi-occupied Prague in a daring Houdini-style escape and lands in Brooklyn with his cousin Sammy Clayman.
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize for Fiction winner (2001)NBCC Award (Fiction) finalist (2000)NYT 100 Best Books of the 21st CenturyGuardian 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - 12
Half of a Yellow Sun86.6Must-Read ScoreHalf of a Yellow Sun
In 1960s Nigeria, Ugwu, a thirteen-year-old village boy, goes to work as a houseboy for Odenigbo, a radical university professor.
Why it made the listWomen's Prize for Fiction winner (2007)Guardian 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - 13
The Glass Castle86.3Must-Read ScoreThe Glass Castle
Jeannette Walls grew up moving from one desert town to another with her brilliant, charming, alcoholic father, who promised to build the family a solar-powered glass castle, and her free-spirited artist mother, who refused to take care of anyone.
Why it made the list#1 New York Times bestseller (8 weeks at #1)136 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2011 - 14
The Kite Runner86.1Must-Read ScoreThe Kite Runner
Amir is the privileged son of a wealthy man in 1970s Kabul, and his closest companion is Hassan, the son of his father's servant.
Why it made the listOne of the best-selling books ever (about 31.5 million copies)156 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2008 - 15
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood86.1Must-Read ScorePersepolis: The Story of a Childhood
Marjane Satrapi was ten years old when the 1979 Islamic Revolution swept Iran.
Why it made the listNYT 100 Best Books of the 21st CenturyGuardian 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - 16
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals85.2Must-Read ScoreThe Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
Michael Pollan sets out to trace where four meals come from.
Why it made the listNBCC Award (Nonfiction) finalist (2006)TIME All-TIME 100 NonfictionGuardian 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - 17
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo85.2Must-Read ScoreThe Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Forty years ago, Harriet Vanger, a young member of one of Sweden's wealthiest families, disappeared, and her elderly uncle is sure she was murdered.
Why it made the listOne of the best-selling books ever (about 30 million copies)184 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2008Guardian 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - 18
The Name of the Wind84.9Must-Read ScoreThe Name of the Wind
Kvothe, a legendary wizard now hiding as an innkeeper, tells his own story at last: a childhood with a troupe of traveling players, years as a near-feral orphan in a crime-ridden city, a brazen bid to get into a legendary school of magic, and the events that made him a fugitive.
- 19
"A Problem From Hell": America and the Age of Genocide84.2Must-Read Score"A Problem From Hell": America and the Age of Genocide
Samantha Power, then a young journalist and later U.S.
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize (General Nonfiction) winner (2003)NBCC Award (Nonfiction) winner (2002) - 20
Night Watch84.2Must-Read ScoreNight Watch
Sir Sam Vimes, commander of the City Watch, is chasing a psychopath across the rooftops of Ankh-Morpork when a magical accident sends both of them thirty years into the past.
Why it made the listGuardian 100 Best Books of the 21st CenturyBBC's The Big Read - 21
The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression83.7Must-Read ScoreThe Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression
Andrew Solomon draws on his own experience of severe depression, which at its worst left him unable to get out of bed, and on years of interviews with patients, doctors, scientists and policymakers.
Why it made the listNational Book Award (Nonfiction) winner (2001)Pulitzer Prize (General Nonfiction) finalist (2002)Guardian 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - 22
Outliers: The Story of Success83.4Must-Read ScoreOutliers: The Story of Success
Malcolm Gladwell argues that success isn't just about talent and hard work, but about hidden advantages: when and where you were born, your family's culture, and the opportunities you happened to get.
Why it made the list#1 New York Times bestseller (15 weeks at #1)534 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2008 - 23
Slavery by Another Name83.2Must-Read ScoreSlavery by Another Name
After the Civil War ended slavery, Southern states found another way to force Black Americans to work: arresting them on vague charges like vagrancy and leasing them out as convict labor to mines, farms and factories, where many were worked to death.
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize (General Nonfiction) winner (2009) - 24
Moneyball83.0Must-Read ScoreMoneyball
In 2002, the Oakland A's had one of the smallest payrolls in baseball and kept winning anyway.
Why it made the list22 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2011Guardian 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - 25
Ghost Wars82.9Must-Read ScoreGhost Wars
Steve Coll tells the secret history of the CIA's involvement in Afghanistan, from the Soviet invasion of 1979 to the day before the September 11 attacks.
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize (General Nonfiction) winner (2005)
