Connect with us

Culture

Stephen King, Sarah Jessica Parker and More Share Their Top Books of the 21st Century

Published

on

Stephen King, Sarah Jessica Parker and More Share Their Top Books of the 21st Century

Stephen King

Stephen King has written more than 60 books, many of which have been adapted for film and television. His latest is the story collection YOU LIKE IT DARKER.

“Atonement,” by Ian McEwan “Christine Falls,” by Benjamin Black “The Goldfinch,” by Donna Tartt “Gone Girl,” by Gillian Flynn “No Country for Old Men,” by Cormac McCarthy “Oryx and Crake,” by Margaret Atwood “The Paying Guests,” by Sarah Waters “The Plot Against America,” by Philip Roth “The Sympathizer,” by Viet Thanh Nguyen “Under the Dome,” by Stephen King

1 of these, so far, appears on the 100 Best list.
(This page will update throughout the
week.)

Min Jin Lee

Min Jin Lee has written two novels: FREE FOOD FOR MILLIONAIRES and PACHINKO, which was one of The Times’s 10 Best Books of 2017.

“All the Light We Cannot See,” by Anthony Doerr “Behind the Beautiful Forevers,” by Katherine Boo “Brooklyn,” by Colm Tóibín “The Buddha in the Attic,” by Julie Otsuka “Educated,” by Tara Westover “Evicted,” by Matthew Desmond “Gilead,” by Marilynne Robinson “The Known World,” by Edward P. Jones “Nickel and Dimed,” by Barbara Ehrenreich “Redeployment,” by Phil Klay

Karl Ove Knausgaard

Karl Ove Knausgaard is a Norwegian writer and essayist best known for MY STRUGGLE, a series of six autobiographical novels.

“2666,” by Roberto Bolaño “The Argonauts,” by Maggie Nelson “The Days of Abandonment,” by Elena Ferrante “The Flame Alphabet,” by Ben Marcus “The Kingdom,” by Emmanuel Carrère “Never Let Me Go,” by Kazuo Ishiguro “Small Things Like These,” by Claire Keegan “Storm Still,” by Peter Handke “Train Dreams,” by Denis Johnson “Voices from Chernobyl,” by Svetlana Alexievich

Advertisement

1 of these, so far, appears on the 100 Best list.
(This page will update throughout the
week.)

Bonnie Garmus

Bonnie Garmus is the author of LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY, which was named Barnes & Noble’s book of the year in 2022.

“Between the World and Me,” by Ta-Nehisi Coates “Demon Copperhead,” by Barbara Kingsolver “Educated,” by Tara Westover “Genome,” by Matt Ridley “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” by J.K. Rowling “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius,” by Dave Eggers “Henry David Thoreau,” by Laura Dassow Walls “Pobby and Dingan,” by Ben Rice “The Underground Railroad,” by Colson Whitehead “The Worst Hard Time,” by Timothy Egan

Nana Kwame Adjei‑Brenyah

Nana Kwame Adjei‑Brenyah’s debut novel, CHAIN-GANG ALL-STARS, was one of The Times’s 10 Best Books of 2023.

“Drinking Coffee Elsewhere: Stories,” by ZZ Packer “Ghost Of,” by Diana Khoi Nguyen “Greenwood,” by Michael Christie “Look,” by Solmaz Sharif “Pachinko,” by Min Jin Lee “Pastoralia,” by George Saunders “Sing, Unburied, Sing,” by Jesmyn Ward “Stories of Your Life and Others,” by Ted Chiang “Tenth of December,” by George Saunders “The Underground Railroad,” by Colson Whitehead

1 of these, so far, appears on the 100 Best list.
(This page will update throughout the
week.)

Advertisement

Junot Díaz

Junot Díaz is an author whose books include THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO, which won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

“Americanah,” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie “Behind the Beautiful Forevers,” by Katherine Boo “Brother, I’m Dying,” by Edwidge Danticat “Kingdom Animalia,” by Aracelis Girmay “The Known World,” by Edward P. Jones “Out,” by Natsuo Kirino “The Savage Detectives,” by Roberto Bolaño “Say Her Name,” by Francisco Goldman “Stories of Your Life and Others,” by Ted Chiang “Tuff,” by Paul Beatty

Sarah Jessica Parker

Sarah Jessica Parker is an Emmy-winning actress and the founder of Zando’s literary imprint, SJP Lit.

“An American Marriage,” by Tayari Jones “The Bee Sting,” by Paul Murray “A Burning,” by Megha Majumdar “A Constellation of Vital Phenomena,” by Anthony Marra “The Corrections,” by Jonathan Franzen “The Goldfinch,” by Donna Tartt “A History of Burning,” by Janika Oza “The Nickel Boys,” by Colson Whitehead “Say Nothing,” by Patrick Radden Keefe “Wave,” by Sonali Deraniyagala

James Patterson

James Patterson has written more than 200 books across various genres, including collaborations with Bill Clinton and Dolly Parton. His latest books include CONFESSIONS OF THE DEAD, which he wrote with J.D. Barker, and TIGER, TIGER.

“11/22/63,” by Stephen King “The Book Thief,” by Markus Zusak “Educated,” by Tara Westover “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” by Stieg Larsson “Gone Girl,” by Gillian Flynn “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,” by J.K. Rowling “Kitchen Confidential,” by Anthony Bourdain “Life,” by Keith Richards with James Fox “Mystic River,” by Dennis Lehane “Seabiscuit,” by Laura Hillenbrand

Advertisement

Elin Hilderbrand

Elin Hilderbrand, often referred to as the queen of beach reads, recently announced that SWAN SONG, released in June, would be the last of her Nantucket summer novels.

“Alice & Oliver,” by Charles Bock “American Wife,” by Curtis Sittenfeld “Dirt Music,” by Tim Winton “Euphoria,” by Lily King “Every Last One,” by Anna Quindlen “Fates and Furies,” by Lauren Groff “Hamnet,” by Maggie O’Farrell “Luster,” by Raven Leilani “May We Be Forgiven,” by A.M. Homes “The Night Circus,” by Erin Morgenstern

Annette Gordon‑Reed

Annette Gordon-Reed is a professor at Harvard University whose 2008 history, THE HEMINGSES OF MONTICELLO, won both a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award…

… and she also included it on her ballot, telling us,
“I couldn’t help it.”

“Between the World and Me,” by Ta-Nehisi Coates “The Emperor of All Maladies,” by Siddhartha Mukherjee “Gilead,” by Marilynne Robinson “The Hemingses of Monticello,” by Annette Gordon-Reed “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” by Rebecca Skloot “The Metaphysical Club,” by Louis Menand “The Plot Against America,” by Philip Roth “The Underground Railroad,” by Colson Whitehead “The Warmth of Other Suns,” by Isabel Wilkerson “Wolf Hall,” by Hilary Mantel

Advertisement

1 of these, so far, appears on the 100 Best list.
(This page will update throughout the
week.)

Rebecca Roanhorse

Rebecca Roanhorse is a Hugo- and Nebula-winning science fiction and fantasy novelist whose works include BLACK SUN and TRAIL OF LIGHTNING.

“Ancillary Justice,” by Ann Leckie “Exhalation,” by Ted Chiang “The Fifth Season,” by N.K. Jemisin “The Ministry for the Future,” by Kim Stanley Robinson “The Only Good Indians,” by Stephen Graham Jones “The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories,” by Ken Liu “Ring Shout,” by P. Djèlí Clark “The Round House,” by Louise Erdrich “The Saint of Bright Doors,” by Vajra Chandrasekera “Selected Stories,” by Theodore Sturgeon

Marlon James

Marlon James is the author of five novels, including A BRIEF HISTORY OF SEVEN KILLINGS, which won the 2015 Booker Prize.

“2666,” by Roberto Bolaño “As Meat Loves Salt,” by Maria McCann “Evicted,” by Matthew Desmond “The Fifth Season,” by N.K. Jemisin “The Good Lord Bird,” by James McBride “The Line of Beauty,” by Alan Hollinghurst “Pachinko,” by Min Jin Lee “Skippy Dies,” by Paul Murray “Wolf Hall,” by Hilary Mantel “The World Is What It Is,” by Patrick French

Advertisement

Roxane Gay

Roxane Gay is an editor, essayist and author whose best-selling nonfiction includes BAD FEMINIST and HUNGER. She is also a contributing Opinion writer for The New York Times.

“The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay,” by Michael Chabon “The Brutal Language of Love,” by Alicia Erian “Girl, Woman, Other,” by Bernardine Evaristo “Heavy,” by Kiese Laymon “Her Body and Other Parties,” by Carmen Maria Machado “NW,” by Zadie Smith “Pachinko,” by Min Jin Lee “Room,” by Emma Donoghue “Salvage the Bones,” by Jesmyn Ward “State of Wonder,” by Ann Patchett

Jonathan Lethem

Jonathan Lethem is a writer best known for his 1999 novel MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN.

“Aurora,” by Kim Stanley Robinson “Dear Cyborgs,” by Eugene Lim “The Employees,” by Olga Ravn “Erasure,” by Percival Everett “Hawthorn & Child,” by Keith Ridgway “Houses of Ravicka,” by Renee Gladman “How the Dead Dream,” by Lydia Millet “The Last Samurai,” by Helen DeWitt “Pity the Beast,” by Robin McLean “Trance,” by Christopher Sorrentino

Sarah MacLean

Sarah MacLean is an award-winning romance writer whose most recent novel is KNOCKOUT.

“After Hours on Milagro Street,” by Angelina M. Lopez “Again the Magic,” by Lisa Kleypas “Bet Me,” by Jennifer Crusie “Circe,” by Madeline Miller “Dark Needs at Night’s Edge,” by Kresley Cole “Forbidden,” by Beverly Jenkins “Georgie, All Along,” by Kate Clayborn “Hana Khan Carries On,” by Uzma Jalaluddin “A Heart of Blood and Ashes,” by Milla Vane “Ravishing the Heiress,” by Sherry Thomas

Advertisement

Ed Yong

Ed Yong is a Pulitzer Prize-winning science journalist and the author of AN IMMENSE WORLD and I CONTAIN MULTITUDES.

“Bel Canto,” by Ann Patchett “Chain-Gang All-Stars,” by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah “A Day in the Life of Abed Salama,” by Nathan Thrall “Exit West,” by Mohsin Hamid “H Is for Hawk,” by Helen Macdonald “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” by Rebecca Skloot “Saving Time,” by Jenny Odell “The Swimmers,” by Julie Otsuka “This Is How You Lose the Time War,” by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone “Trust,” by Hernan Diaz

1 of these, so far, appears on the 100 Best list.
(This page will update throughout the
week.)

Thomas Chatterton Williams

Thomas Chatterton Williams, a staff writer at The Atlantic, is the author of LOSING MY COOL and SELF-PORTRAIT IN BLACK AND WHITE.

“All Aunt Hagar’s Children,” by Edward P. Jones “Biography of X,” by Catherine Lacey “Eat the Document,” by Dana Spiotta “Ideas of Heaven: A Ring of Stories,” by Joan Silber “Malcolm X,” by Manning Marable “The Round House,” by Louise Erdrich “Runaway,” by Alice Munro “Stay True,” by Hua Hsu “Veronica,” by Mary Gaitskill “The Warmth of Other Suns,” by Isabel Wilkerson

Advertisement

Paul Tremblay

Paul Tremblay is an award-winning horror novelist whose latest book is HORROR MOVIE.

“2666,” by Roberto Bolaño “House of Leaves,” by Mark Z. Danielewski “Lady Joker, Vol. 1,” by Kaoru Takamura “The Maniac,” by Benjamín Labatut “Never Let Me Go,” by Kazuo Ishiguro “No Country for Old Men,” by Cormac McCarthy “The Only Good Indians,” by Stephen Graham Jones “Our Share of Night,” by Mariana Enriquez “Treasure Island!!!,” by Sara Levine “The Underground Railroad,” by Colson Whitehead

Nick Hornby

Nick Hornby is best known for comic novels like HIGH FIDELITY and ABOUT A BOY.

“The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay,” by Michael Chabon “Austerity Britain,” by David Kynaston “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk,” by Ben Fountain “Empire Falls,” by Richard Russo “Gilead,” by Marilynne Robinson “Olive Kitteridge,” by Elizabeth Strout “On Beauty,” by Zadie Smith “Pictures at a Revolution,” by Mark Harris “Random Family,” by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc “Say Nothing,” by Patrick Radden Keefe

1 of these, so far, appears on the 100 Best list.
(This page will update throughout the
week.)

Scott Turow

Scott Turow is an attorney and writer best known for legal thrillers like PRESUMED INNOCENT and THE BURDEN OF PROOF.

“Bel Canto,” by Ann Patchett “Dreamland,” by Sam Quinones “The Good Lord Bird,” by James McBride “My Brilliant Friend,” by Elena Ferrante. Translated by Ann Goldstein. “On Tyranny,” by Timothy Snyder “The Orphan Master’s Son,” by Adam Johnson “The Story of a New Name,” by Elena Ferrante. Translated by Ann Goldstein “The Story of the Lost Child,” by Elena Ferrante. Translated by Ann Goldstein “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” by Daniel Kahneman “Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay,” by Elena Ferrante. Translated by Ann Goldstein

Advertisement

1 of these, so far, appears on the 100 Best list.
(This page will update throughout the
week.)

Daniel Alarcón

Daniel Alarcón is a novelist (LOST CITY RADIO) and contributing writer at The New Yorker whose long-running Spanish-language podcast, Radio Ambulante, is distributed by NPR.

“The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,” by Junot Díaz “Citizen,” by Claudia Rankine “Exit West,” by Mohsin Hamid “The Known World,” by Edward P. Jones “Lincoln in the Bardo,” by George Saunders “My Brilliant Friend,” by Elena Ferrante. Translated by Ann Goldstein. “NW,” by Zadie Smith “Random Family,” by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc “The Savage Detectives,” by Roberto Bolaño “Say Nothing,” by Patrick Radden Keefe

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers is a poet and professor of English at the University of Oklahoma. Her debut novel, THE LOVE SONGS OF W.E.B. DU BOIS, was one of The Times’s 10 Best Books of 2021.

“Brother, I’m Dying,” by Edwidge Danticat “Built from the Fire,” by Victor Luckerson “Feminism Is For Everybody,” by bell hooks “Gathering Blossoms,” by Alice Walker “The Known World,” by Edward P. Jones “A Mercy,” by Toni Morrison “The Source of Self-Regard,” by Toni Morrison “Stamped from the Beginning,” by Ibram X. Kendi “Ties that Bind,” by Tiya Miles “The Warmth of Other Suns,” by Isabel Wilkerson

Advertisement

Lucy Sante

Lucy Sante is a writer whose last book, I HEARD HER CALL MY NAME, is a memoir of her gender transition.

“Anniversaries,” by Uwe Johnson. Translated by Damion Searls “Feral City,” by Jeremiah Moss “The Friend,” by Sigrid Nunez “It Gets Me Home, This Curving Track,” by Ian Penman “Jacket Weather,” by Mike DeCapite “The Mars Room,” by Rachel Kushner “Same Bed Different Dreams,” by Ed Park “The Savage Detectives,” by Roberto Bolaño “Stay True,” by Hua Hsu “Voices from Chernobyl,” by Svetlana Alexievich

Gary Shteyngart

Gary Shteyngart has written five novels, one of which, ABSURDISTAN, was named one of The Times’s 10 Best Books of 2006.

“Bangkok Wakes to Rain,” by Pitchaya Sudbanthad “The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel,” by Amy Hempel “Educated,” by Tara Westover “Exit West,” by Mohsin Hamid “The Master,” by Colm Tóibín “Netherland,” by Joseph O’Neill “Outline,” by Rachel Cusk “Postwar,” by Tony Judt “Veronica,” by Mary Gaitskill “The Warmth of Other Suns,” by Isabel Wilkerson

Anand Giridharadas

Anand Giridharadas is a writer and former foreign correspondent whose books include THE PERSUADERS and WINNERS TAKE ALL.

“The Argonauts,” by Maggie Nelson “Behind the Beautiful Forevers,” by Katherine Boo “Dark Money,” by Jane Mayer “Far From the Tree,” by Andrew Solomon “A Little Life,” by Hanya Yanagihara “Maximum City,” by Suketu Mehta “My Struggle: Book 2,” by Karl Ove Knausgaard “One of Us,” by Asne Seierstad “Random Family,” by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc “The Year of Magical Thinking,” by Joan Didion

Advertisement

Jessamine Chan

Jessamine Chan’s debut novel, THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD MOTHERS, was named by Barack Obama as one of his favorite books of 2022.

“Chain-Gang All-Stars,” by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah “Cinema Love,” by Jiaming Tang “Easy Beauty,” by Chloé Cooper Jones “Invisible Child,” by Andrea Elliott “Kairos,” by Jenny Erpenbeck “Matrix,” by Lauren Groff “Minor Feelings,” by Cathy Park Hong “Never Let Me Go,” by Kazuo Ishiguro “Pure Colour,” by Sheila Heti “Torn Apart,” by Dorothy Roberts

Michael Robbins

Michael Robbins is the author of several poetry collections, including WALKMAN and THE SECOND SEX.

“Alien vs. Predator,” by Michael Robbins “Communal Luxury,” by Kristin Ross “Cruel Optimism,” by Lauren Berlant “Fossil Capital,” by Andreas Malm “Keats’s Odes,” by Anahid Nersessian “Lila,” by Marilynne Robinson “Planet of Slums,” by Mike Davis “Poemland,” by Chelsey Minnis “Stolen Life,” by Fred Moten “Veronica,” by Mary Gaitskill

Advertisement

Alma Katsu

Alma Katsu is a genre-spanning writer whose books include RED WIDOW and THE HUNGER.

“Gone Girl,” by Gillian Flynn “Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell,” by Susanna Clarke “Lincoln in the Bardo,” by George Saunders “The Little Friend,” by Donna Tartt “The Little Stranger,” by Sarah Waters “Never Let Me Go,” by Kazuo Ishiguro “The Only Good Indians,” by Stephen Graham Jones “The Swimmers,” by Julie Otsuka “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” by Audrey Niffenegger “Wolf Hall,” by Hilary Mantel

Megan Abbott

Megan Abbott is the Edgar-winning author of 11 novels, including DARE ME, THE TURNOUT and BEWARE THE WOMAN.

“Blonde,” by Joyce Carol Oates “Gone Girl,” by Gillian Flynn “Life After Life,” by Kate Atkinson “A Little Life,” by Hanya Yanagihara “Lost Girls,” by Robert Kolker “My Sister, the Serial Killer,” by Oyinkan Braithwaite “Nemesis,” by Philip Roth “Random Family,” by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc “Winter’s Bone,” by Daniel Woodrell “The Year of Magical Thinking,” by Joan Didion

Joshua Ferris

Joshua Ferris has written five novels, including THEN WE CAME TO THE END, which won the 2008 PEN/Hemingway Award.

“The Corrections,” by Jonathan Franzen “The Gathering,” by Anne Enright “Gilead,” by Marilynne Robinson “The Known World,” by Edward P. Jones “No Country for Old Men,” by Cormac McCarthy “No One Is Talking About This,” by Patricia Lockwood “NW,” by Zadie Smith “The Savage Detectives,” by Roberto Bolaño “Tinkers,” by Paul Harding “Wolf Hall,” by Hilary Mantel

Advertisement

Ann Napolitano

Ann Napolitano is a novelist whose last book, HELLO BEAUTIFUL, was the 100th pick of Oprah’s Book Club.

“Americanah,” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,” by Junot Díaz “Cloud Atlas,” by David Mitchell “Demon Copperhead,” by Barbara Kingsolver “Far From the Tree,” by Andrew Solomon “Homegoing,” by Yaa Gyasi “The Master,” by Colm Tóibín “Station Eleven,” by Emily St. John Mandel “The Underground Railroad,” by Colson Whitehead “Wolf Hall,” by Hilary Mantel

1 of these, so far, appears on the 100 Best list.
(This page will update throughout the
week.)

John Irving

John Irving is the author of THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP, THE CIDER HOUSE RULES and A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY, among other novels.

“The Absolutist,” by John Boyne “Burma Sahib,” by Paul Theroux “Cutting for Stone,” by Abraham Verghese “Last Night,” by James Salter “The Nix,” by Nathan Hill “Peeling the Onion,” by Günter Grass “A Saint from Texas,” by Edmund White “Shadow Country,” by Peter Matthiessen “Warlight,” by Michael Ondaatje “Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?,” by Jeanette Winterson

Advertisement

Tiya Miles

Tiya Miles is a professor of history at Harvard University whose books include ALL THAT SHE CARRIED, which won the 2021 National Book Award for nonfiction, and the just-published NIGHT FLYER.

“Frederick Douglass,” by David W. Blight “The Hemingses of Monticello,” by Annette Gordon-Reed “Less,” by Andrew Sean Greer “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” by Michael Pollan “People Love Dead Jews,” by Dara Horn “The Round House,” by Louise Erdrich “Salvage the Bones,” by Jesmyn Ward “The Swerve,” by Stephen Greenblatt “The Underground Railroad,” by Colson Whitehead

1 of these, so far, appears on the 100 Best list.
(This page will update throughout the
week.)

Jami Attenberg

Jami Attenberg is a writer whose new novel, A REASON TO SEE YOU AGAIN, comes out in September.

“Bright Dead Things,” by Ada Limón “The Corrections,” by Jonathan Franzen “Fun Home,” by Alison Bechdel “Grief Is For People,” by Sloane Crosley “Heavy,” by Kiese Laymon “How to Write an Autobiographical Novel,” by Alexander Chee “Just Kids,” by Patti Smith “Pachinko,” by Min Jin Lee “There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé,” by Morgan Parker “True Biz,” by Sara Novic

Stephen L. Carter

Stephen L. Carter, a professor at Yale Law School, has written critically acclaimed nonfiction as well as six novels, including THE EMPEROR OF OCEAN PARK.

“Bourgeois Dignity,” by Deirdre McCloskey “Exit West,” by Mohsin Hamid “The Fabric of Civilization,” by Virginia Postrel “The Human Stain,” by Philip Roth “Inventing The Enemy,” by Umberto Eco “March,” by Geraldine Brooks “The Overstory,” by Richard Powers “Silence,” by Jane Brox “That All Shall Be Saved,” by David Bentley Hart “What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky,” by Lesley Nneka Arimah

Advertisement

1 of these, so far, appears on the 100 Best list.
(This page will update throughout the
week.)

Sarah Schulman

Sarah Schulman is a novelist, playwright and nonfiction writer whose most recent book is LET THE RECORD SHOW.

“Citizen,” by Claudia Rankine “The Freezer Door,” by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore “Memorial Drive,” by Natasha Trethewey “Minor Detail,” by Adania Shibli “The Rediscovery of America,” by Ned Blackhawk “They Were Her Property,” by Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers “Vanguard,” by Martha S. Jones “The Viral Underclass,” by Steven W. Thrasher “We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I,” by Raja Shehadeh “The Women’s House of Detention,” by Hugh Ryan

Elizabeth Hand

Elizabeth Hand is the author of 20 novels, most recently A HAUNTING ON THE HILL.

“The Enchanted,” by Rene Denfeld “Henry Darger,” by John M. MacGregor “Ill Will,” by Dan Chaon “James Tiptree Jr.,” by Julie Phillips “Just Kids,” by Patti Smith “The Little Stranger,” by Sarah Waters “Magic for Beginners,” by Kelly Link “Night of the Living Rez,” by Morgan Talty “The Old Ways,” by Robert Macfarlane “Pattern Recognition,” by William Gibson

Advertisement

Dion Graham

Dion Graham is an actor whose award-winning audiobook narrations include Jonathan Eig’s KING and Colson Whitehead’s CROOK MANIFESTO.

“American War,” by Omar El Akkad “Black Leopard, Red Wolf,” by Marlon James “Chasing Me to My Grave,” by Winfred Rembert “The Dark Forest,” by Cixin Liu “Evicted,” by Matthew Desmond “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius,” by Dave Eggers “His Name Is George Floyd,” by Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa “King: A Life,” by Jonathan Eig “Washington Black,” by Esi Edugyan

Jeremy Denk

Jeremy Denk is a classical pianist and the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant.” His memoir, EVERY GOOD BOY DOES FINE, was published in 2022.

“Austerlitz,” by W.G. Sebald “Consider the Lobster,” by David Foster Wallace “Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi,” by Geoff Dyer “A Little Devil in America,” by Hanif Abdurraqib “Luster,” by Raven Leilani “The Possessed,” by Elif Batuman “Random Family,” by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc “The Rest Is Noise,” by Alex Ross “Runaway,” by Alice Munro “Sound Within Sound,” by Kate Molleson

Morgan Jerkins

Morgan Jerkins is a journalist, editor and the author of several books, including THIS WILL BE MY UNDOING.

“Barracoon,” by Zora Neale Hurston “Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage,” by Haruki Murakami “Erasure,” by Percival Everett “The Future Is History,” by Masha Gessen “Girl, Woman, Other,” by Bernardine Evaristo “How to Say Babylon,” by Safiya Sinclair “In the Dream House,” by Carmen Maria Machado “Looking for Lorraine,” by Imani Perry “Sing, Unburied, Sing,” by Jesmyn Ward

Advertisement

Michael Roth

Michael Roth is the president of Wesleyan University.

“The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay,” by Michael Chabon “The Argonauts,” by Maggie Nelson “In Love,” by Amy Bloom “Lose Your Mother,” by Saidiya Hartman “Lost Children Archive,” by Valeria Luiselli “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous,” by Ocean Vuong “Septology,” by Jon Fosse. Translated by Damion Searls “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” by Daniel Kahneman “The Topeka School,” by Ben Lerner “A Visit From the Goon Squad,” by Jennifer Egan

Ryan Holiday

Ryan Holiday is the author of 12 books, including RIGHT THING, RIGHT NOW and THE DAILY STOIC, and co-owns a bookstore in Bastrop, Texas.

“Caste,” by Isabel Wilkerson “The Choice,” by Edith Eger “Deep Work,” by Cal Newport “How the Word Is Passed,” by Clint Smith “Mastery,” by Robert Greene “The River of Doubt,” by Candice Millard “The Road,” by Cormac McCarthy “So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed,” by Jon Ronson “The Tiger,” by John Vaillant “Tunnel 29,” by Helena Merriman

Advertisement

Culture

Poetry Challenge: Memorize “The More Loving One” by W.H. Auden

Published

on

Poetry Challenge: Memorize “The More Loving One” by W.H. Auden

Advertisement

Let’s memorize a poem! Not because it’s good for us or because we think we should, but because it’s fun, a mental challenge with a solid aesthetic reward. You can amuse yourself, impress your friends and maybe discover that your way of thinking about the world — or even, as you’ll see, the universe — has shifted a bit.

Over the next five days, we’ll look closely at a great poem by one of our favorite poets, and we’ll have games, readings and lots of encouragement to help you learn it by heart. Some of you know how this works: Last year more Times readers than we could count memorized a jaunty 18-line recap of an all-night ferry ride. (If you missed that adventure, it’s not too late to embark. The ticket is still valid.)

This time, we’re training our telescopes on W.H. Auden’s “The More Loving One” — a clever, compact meditation on love, disappointment and the night sky.

Advertisement

Here’s the first of its four stanzas, read for us by Matthew McConaughey:

Advertisement

The More Loving One by W.H. Auden 

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well 

That, for all they care, I can go to hell, 

But on earth indifference is the least 

Advertisement

We have to dread from man or beast. 

Matthew McConaughey, actor and poet

In four short lines we get a brisk, cynical tour of the universe: hell and the heavens, people and animals, coldness and cruelty. Commonplace observations — that the stars are distant; that life can be dangerous — are wound into a charming, provocative insight. The tone is conversational, mixing decorum and mild profanity in a manner that makes it a pleasure to keep reading.

Advertisement

Here’s Tracy K. Smith, a former U.S. poet laureate, with the second stanza:

Advertisement

How should we like it were stars to burn 

With a passion for us we could not return? 

If equal affection cannot be, 

Let the more loving one be me. 

Advertisement

Tracy K. Smith, poet

These lines abruptly shift the focus from astronomy to love, from the universal to the personal. Imagine how it would feel if the stars had massive, unrequited crushes on us! The speaker, couching his skepticism in a coy, hypothetical question, seems certain that we wouldn’t like this at all.

This certainty leads him to a remarkable confession, a moment of startling vulnerability. The poem’s title, “The More Loving One,” is restated with sweet, disarming frankness. Our friend is wearing his heart on his well-tailored sleeve.

Advertisement

The poem could end right there: two stanzas, point and counterpoint, about how we appreciate the stars in spite of their indifference because we would rather love than be loved.

But the third stanza takes it all back. Here’s Alison Bechdel reading it:

Advertisement

Admirer as I think I am 

Of stars that do not give a damn, 

I cannot, now I see them, say 

Advertisement

I missed one terribly all day. 

Alison Bechdel, graphic novelist

The speaker downgrades his foolish devotion to qualified admiration. No sooner has he established himself as “the more loving one” than he gives us — and perhaps himself — reason to doubt his ardor. He likes the stars fine, he guesses, but not so much as to think about them when they aren’t around.

Advertisement

The fourth and final stanza, read by Yiyun Li, takes this disenchantment even further:

Advertisement

Were all stars to disappear or die, 

I should learn to look at an empty sky 

And feel its total dark sublime, 

Though this might take me a little time. 

Advertisement

Yiyun Li, author

Wounded defiance gives way to a more rueful, resigned state of mind. If the universe were to snuff out its lights entirely, the speaker reckons he would find beauty in the void. A starless sky would make him just as happy.

Though perhaps, like so many spurned lovers before and after, he protests a little too much. Every fan of popular music knows that a song about how you don’t care that your baby left you is usually saying the opposite.

Advertisement

The last line puts a brave face on heartbreak.

So there you have it. In just 16 lines, this poem manages to be somber and funny, transparent and elusive. But there’s more to it than that. There is, for one thing, a voice — a thinking, feeling person behind those lines.

Advertisement

W.H. Auden in 1962. Sam Falk/The New York Times

When he wrote “The More Loving One,” in the 1950s, Wystan Hugh Auden was among the most beloved writers in the English-speaking world. Before this week is over there will be more to say about Auden, but like most poets he would have preferred that we give our primary attention to the poem.

Advertisement

Its structure is straightforward and ingenious. Each of the four stanzas is virtually a poem unto itself — a complete thought expressed in one or two sentences tied up in a neat pair of couplets. Every quatrain is a concise, witty observation: what literary scholars call an epigram.

This makes the work of memorization seem less daunting. We can take “The More Loving One” one epigram at a time, marvelling at how the four add up to something stranger, deeper and more complex than might first appear.

Advertisement

So let’s go back to the beginning and try to memorize that insouciant, knowing first stanza. Below you’ll find a game we made to get you started. Give it a shot, and come back tomorrow for more!

Your first task: Learn the first four lines!

Play a game to learn it by heart. Need more practice? Listen to Ada Limón, Matthew McConaughey, W.H. Auden and others recite our poem.

Question 1/6

Advertisement

Let’s start with the first couplet. Fill in the rhyming words.

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well 

Advertisement

That, for all they care, I can go to hell, 

Advertisement

Tap a word above to fill in the highlighted blank.

Advertisement

Ready for another round? Try your hand at the 2025 Poetry Challenge.

Advertisement

Edited by Gregory Cowles, Alicia DeSantis and Nick Donofrio. Additional editing by Emily Eakin,
Joumana Khatib, Emma Lumeij and Miguel Salazar. Design and development by Umi Syam. Additional
game design by Eden Weingart. Video editing by Meg Felling. Photo editing by Erica Ackerberg.
Illustration art direction by Tala Safie.

Illustrations by Daniel Barreto.

Text and audio recording of “The More Loving One,” by W.H. Auden, copyright © by the Estate of
W.H. Auden. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd. Photograph accompanying Auden recording
from Imagno/Getty Images.

Advertisement

Continue Reading

Culture

Famous Authors’ Less Famous Books

Published

on

Famous Authors’ Less Famous Books

Literature

‘Romola’ (1863) by George Eliot

Advertisement

Karl Leitz for Anthony Cotsifas Studio

Who knew that there’s a major George Eliot novel that neither I nor any of my friends had ever heard of?

Advertisement

“Romola” was Eliot’s fourth novel, published between “The Mill on the Floss” (1860) and “Middlemarch” (1870-71). If my friends and I didn’t get this particular memo, and “Romola” is familiar to every Eliot fan but us, please skip the following.

“Romola” isn’t some fluky misfire better left unmentioned in light of Eliot’s greater work. It’s her only historical novel, set in Florence during the Italian Renaissance. It embraces big subjects like power, religion, art and social upheaval, but it’s not dry or overly intellectual. Its central character is a gifted, freethinking young woman named Romola, who enters a marriage so disastrous as to make Anna Karenina’s look relatively good.

Advertisement

It probably matters that many of Eliot’s other books have been adapted into movies or TV series, with actors like Hugh Dancy, Ben Kingsley, Emily Watson and Rufus Sewell. The BBC may be doing even more than we thought to keep classic literature alive. (In 1924, “Romola” was made into a silent movie starring Lillian Gish. It doesn’t seem to have made much difference.)

Anthony Trollope, among others, loved “Romola.” He did, however, warn Eliot against aiming over her readers’ heads, which may help explain its obscurity.

All I can say, really, is that it’s a mystery why some great books stay with us and others don’t.

Advertisement

‘Quiet Dell’ (2013) by Jayne Anne Phillips

Advertisement

Karl Leitz for Anthony Cotsifas Studio

This was an Oprah Book of the Week, which probably disqualifies it from B-side status, but it’s not nearly as well known as Phillips’s debut story collection, “Black Tickets” (1979), or her most recent novel, “Night Watch” (2023), which won her a long-overdue Pulitzer Prize.

Phillips has no parallel in her use of potent, stylized language to shine a light into the darkest of corners. In “Quiet Dell,” her only true-crime novel, she’s at the height of her powers, which are particularly apparent when she aims her language laser at horrific events that actually occurred. Her gift for transforming skeevy little lives into what I can only call “Blade Runner” mythology is consistently stunning.

Advertisement

Consider this passage from the opening chapter of “Quiet Dell”:

“Up high the bells are ringing for everyone alive. There are silver and gold and glass bells you can see through, and sleigh bells a hundred years old. My grandmother said there was a whisper for each one dead that year, and a feather drifting for each one waiting to be born.”

Advertisement

The book is full of language like that — and of complex, often chillingly perverse characters. It’s a dark, underrecognized beauty.

‘Solaris’ (1961) by Stanislaw Lem

Advertisement

Karl Leitz for Anthony Cotsifas Studio

You could argue that, in America, at least, the Polish writer Stanislaw Lem didn’t produce any A-side novels. You could just as easily argue that that makes all his novels both A-side and B-side.

Advertisement

It’s science fiction. All right?

I love science and speculative fiction, but I know a lot of literary types who take pride in their utter lack of interest in it. I always urge those people to read “Solaris,” which might change their opinions about a vast number of popular books they dismiss as trivial. As far as I know, no one has yet taken me up on that.

“Solaris” involves the crew of a space station continuing the study of an aquatic planet that has long defied analysis by the astrophysicists of Earth. Part of what sets the book apart from a lot of other science-fiction novels is Lem’s respect for enigma. He doesn’t offer contrived explanations in an attempt to seduce readers into suspending disbelief. The crew members start to experience … manifestations? … drawn from their lives and memories. If the planet has any intentions, however, they remain mysterious. All anyone can tell is that their desires and their fears, some of which are summoned from their subconsciousness, are being received and reflected back to them so vividly that it becomes difficult to tell the real from the projected. “Solaris” has the peculiar distinction of having been made into not one but two bad movies. Read the book instead.

Advertisement

‘Fox 8’ (2013) by George Saunders

Advertisement

Karl Leitz for Anthony Cotsifas Studio

If one of the most significant living American writers had become hypervisible with his 2017 novel, “Lincoln in the Bardo,” we’d go back and read his earlier work, wouldn’t we? Yes, and we may very well have already done so with the story collections “Tenth of December” (2013) and “Pastoralia” (2000). But what if we hadn’t yet read Saunders’s 2013 novella, “Fox 8,” about an unusually intelligent fox who, by listening to a family from outside their windows at night, has learned to understand, and write, in fox-English?: “One day, walking neer one of your Yuman houses, smelling all the interest with snout, I herd, from inside, the most amazing sound. Turns out, what that sound is, was: the Yuman voice, making werds. They sounded grate! They sounded like prety music! I listened to those music werds until the sun went down.”

Once Saunders became more visible to more of us, we’d want to read a book that ventures into the consciousness of a different species (novels tend to be about human beings), that maps the differences and the overlaps in human and animal consciousness, explores the effects of language on consciousness and is great fun.

Advertisement

We’d all have read it by now — right?

‘Between the Acts’ (1941) by Virginia Woolf

Advertisement

Karl Leitz for Anthony Cotsifas Studio

You could argue that Woolf didn’t have any B-sides, and yet it’s hard to deny that more people have read “Mrs. Dalloway” (1925) and “To the Lighthouse” (1927) than have read “The Voyage Out” (1915) or “Monday or Tuesday” (1921). Those, along with “Orlando” (1928) and “The Waves” (1931), are Woolf’s most prominent novels.

Advertisement

Four momentous novels is a considerable number for any writer, even a great one. That said, “Between the Acts,” her last novel, really should be considered the fifth of her significant books. The phrase “embarrassment of riches” comes to mind.

Five great novels by the same author is a lot for any reader to take on. Our reading time is finite. We won’t live long enough to read all the important books, no matter how old we get to be. I don’t expect many readers to be as devoted to Woolf as are the cohort of us who consider her to have been some sort of dark saint of literature and will snatch up any relic we can find. Fanatics like me will have read “Between the Acts” as well as “The Voyage Out,” “Monday or Tuesday” and “Flush” (1933), the story of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s cocker spaniel. Speaking for myself, I don’t blame anyone who hasn’t gotten to those.

Advertisement

I merely want to add “Between the Acts” to the A-side, lest anyone who’s either new to Woolf or a tourist in Woolf-landia fail to rank it along with the other four contenders.

As briefly as possible: It focuses on an annual village pageant that attempts to convey all of English history in a single evening. The pageant itself interweaves subtly, brilliantly, with the lives of the villagers playing the parts.

It’s one of Woolf’s most lusciously lyrical novels. And it’s a crash course, of sorts, in her genius for conjuring worlds in which the molehill matters as much as the mountain, never mind their differences in size.

Advertisement

It’s also the most accessible of her greatest books. It could work for some as an entry point, in more or less the way William Faulkner’s “As I Lay Dying” (1930) can be the starter book before you go on to “The Sound and the Fury” (1929) or “Absalom, Absalom!” (1936).

As noted, there’s too much for us to read. We do the best we can.

Advertisement

More in Literature

See the rest of the issue

Continue Reading

Culture

6 Poems You Should Know by Heart

Published

on

6 Poems You Should Know by Heart

Literature

‘Prayer’ (1985) by Galway Kinnell

Advertisement

Whatever happens. Whatever
what is is is what
I want. Only that. But that.

Galway Kinnell in 1970. Photo by LaVerne Harrell Clark, © 1970 Arizona Board of Regents. Courtesy of the University of Arizona Poetry Center

Advertisement

“I typically say Kinnell’s words at the start of my day, as I’m pedaling a traffic-laden path to my office,” says Major Jackson, 57, the author of six books of poetry, including “Razzle Dazzle” (2023). “The poem encourages a calm acceptance of the day’s events but also wants us to embrace the misapprehension and oblivion of life, to avoid probing too deeply for answers to inscrutable questions. I admire what Kinnell does with only 14 words; the repetition of ‘what,’ ‘that’ and ‘is’ would seem to limit the poem’s sentiment but, paradoxically, the poem opens widely to contain all manner of human experience. The three ‘is’es in the middle line give it a symmetry that makes its message feel part of a natural order, and even more convincing. Thanks to the skillful punctuation, pauses and staccato rhythm, a tonal quality of interior reflection emerges. Much like a haiku, it continues after its last words, lingering like the last note played on a piano that slowly fades.”

“Just as I was entering young adulthood, probably slow to claim romantic feelings, a girlfriend copied out a poem by Pablo Neruda and slipped it into an envelope with red lipstick kisses all over it. In turn, I recited this poem. It took me the remainder of that winter to memorize its lines,” says Jackson. “The poem captures the pitch of longing that defines love at its most intense. The speaker in Shakespeare’s most famous sonnet believes the poem creates the beloved, ‘So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, / So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.’ (Sonnet 18). In Rilke’s expressive declarations of yearning, the beloved remains elusive. Wherever the speaker looks or travels, she marks his world by her absence. I find this deeply moving.”

Advertisement

Lucille Clifton in 1995. Afro American Newspapers/Gado/Getty Images

“Clifton faced many obstacles, including cancer, a kidney transplant and the loss of her husband and two of her children. Through it all, she crafted a long career as a pre-eminent American poet,” says Jackson. “Her poem ‘won’t you celebrate with me’ is a war cry, an invitation to share in her victories against life’s persistent challenges. The poem is meaningful to all who have had to stare down death in a hospital or had to bereave the passing of close relations. But, even for those who have yet to mourn life’s vicissitudes, the poem is instructive in cultivating resilience and a persevering attitude. I keep coming back to the image of the speaker’s hands and the spirit of steadying oneself in the face of unspeakable storms. She asks in a perfectly attuned gorgeously metrical line, ‘what did i see to be except myself?’”

Advertisement

‘Sonnet 94’ (1609) by William Shakespeare

They that have power to hurt and will do none,
That do not do the thing they most do show,
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmovèd, cold, and to temptation slow,
They rightly do inherit heaven’s graces
And husband nature’s riches from expense;
They are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others but stewards of their excellence.
The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet,
Though to itself it only live and die;
But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves his dignity.
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.

Advertisement

“It’s one of the moments of Western consciousness,” says Frederick Seidel, 90, the author of more than a dozen collections of poetry, including “So What” (2024). “Shakespeare knows and says what he knows.”

“It trombones magnificent, unbearable sorrow,” says Seidel.

“It’s smartass and bitter and bright,” says Seidel.

Advertisement

These interviews have been edited and condensed.

More in Literature

See the rest of the issue

Continue Reading
Advertisement

Trending