[MUSIC - Luscious Jackson: Citysong]

Kousha Navidar: This is All Of It. Live from the WNYC Studio in SoHo. I'm Kousha Navidar, in for Alison Stewart. Hey, thanks for spending part of your day with us. I'm super grateful that you're here. Here's what's up on today's show. We'll talk about ideas for fresh and delicious summer cocktails, and we'll take your calls. We'll also talk about a new documentary series from Hulu that examines the work of Dr. Ann Burgess, who learned how to think like a serial killer in order to capture them.

The showrunner of the documentary and Dr. Burgess join us, and then we'll talk to a winner of the 2024 Public Song Project, as well as WNYC's own John Schaefer, a judge of the project. Lots of cool music in that segment. That's the plan. Let's get the party started with some book talk. What is the best book of the 21st century? Now that is a highly subjective question, but The New York Times tried to answer it last week. They asked hundreds of authors and other important figures in the literary world to send in their votes for the top 10 books of the century so far.

Participants included John Irving, Stephen King, Marlon James, Ann Napolitano, and more. The results are a list of The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century, at least according to this group of people. Like any good list, this one stirred up some good spirited discussion and debate. No Haruki Murakami, why are there translated books that were published in the 20th century? Why not more poetry, more nonfiction? Of course, how can one book really be the best?

Just today, the Times released a list of 100 Best Books of the 21st Century as voted on by their readers. We'll talk about that in a little bit, too. Right now, joining me to discuss, debate, maybe even defend this list is Gilbert Cruz, the editor of The New York Times Book Review. Gilbert, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for this list.

Gilbert Cruz: Thank you for having me on to talk about it.

Kousha Navidar: Absolutely. Listeners, yes, of course, we want to hear from you. What do you think is the best book of the 21st century so far? What did you think of The New York Times list? Give us a call. The number is 212-433-9692, that's 212-433-WNYC. Gilbert, you and I are going to have to be ready to talk about some hot takes from listeners, I am sure. I hope you're ready for that.

Gilbert Cruz: I will try my best.

Kousha Navidar: I'm sure it'll be great. Let's talk about why now? Why did right now feel like a good time for this list?

Gilbert Cruz: Sure. Next year is, is 2025. We had been talking on the desk for a little bit about how it felt as if 20th century art, 20th century literature, movies, and albums. We sort of have a sense of what the great works are at this point. We all know that beloved is one of the great American books that's ever been written. We all know that Bland On Bland is one of the great albums. We all know that Vertigo is a great movie. We're almost a quarter century into the 2000s.

We, at the Book Review, said, "Let's start to get a sense. This is not a list that's going to last for all time, but let's start to get a sense of what the lasting works are. Let's not do it. Just the 30 of us or the 25 of us are on the Book Review, but let's really reach out to as many novelists, nonfiction authors, poets, critics, and other people who read a lot and use our powers at The New York Times to sort of reach out to all these people and see what we can come up with."

Kousha Navidar: 503 people were asked to participate in the process. That includes Stephen King, Roxane Gay, Min Jin Lee, and many, many more. How did you decide who you wanted to include?

Gilbert Cruz: Sure. Well, the initial list that we sent out was over a thousand names. We invited almost twice as many people. These are the people that participated, either because they were the ones that were willing to do the work or they're the ones that actually got the emails, who didn't go to their spam folder. We, at the Book Review, even though we have wonderful critics on staff, primarily use outside writers to review books. We use novelists to review other novelists. We use academics, historians, experts to review nonfiction books.

Every day and every week, we're already engaging with all these people. We crowdsourced among two dozen of us, 1,200, 1,300 names of people that we thought our readers would pay attention to, that we wanted to hear from, that we had a sense are like robust readers and not just readers in their specific field, in our broad readers. We crossed our fingers, we sent out these emails, and then we sent out a bunch of other emails saying, "Please take our survey. Did you see it? Hopefully you did." This is what we got. 503 is not the biggest number, but it's also pretty good.

Kousha Navidar: It's pretty good. You said a thousand originally. I don't know how many more you sent out after that, but that's over 50%. That's impressive. How did the actual math of the process work? How did you tally what book went into which spot?

Gilbert Cruz: Sure, it was sheer votes. We worked with our team at the Times called the Upshot. They are focused on polling and statistics and data journalism. They're very busy this year because it's an election year, but they said, "Maybe we'll make some time for this. This sounds pretty fun." We put together this survey, this poll, and the math was basically everybody who participated was able to pick up to 10. Then we counted the votes. That's really how it went. The one that was at number one, the 10 that were in the top 10, those were the top vote getters.

Kousha Navidar: Listeners, we're talking to Gilbert Cruz, the editor of The New York Times Book Review, and we're discussing their list, The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. We want to hear from you. What do you think is the best book of the 21st century so far? If you have dived into The New York Times list already and you have a hot take, there's something you agree with, something you disagree with, a book that was left out and you want to tell us, give us a call. The number is 212-433-9692, that's 212-433-WNYC.

We're talking about the best books of the 21st century. Hit us up. 212-433-9692. Gilbert, there's, there's fiction on this list. There's memoir, history, poetry. How do you think you can compare how good a book is across genres? What kind of discussions went into that?

Gilbert Cruz: Well, one thing I can say is that one of our earliest conversations was whether or not this should be two lists. This should be nonfiction and fiction. We came to the conclusion that someone, people who read a lot, robust readers, which we like to think are the people that read The New York Times Book Review, are sort of genre agnostic. In that, you'll read a new book, you'll read a novel, you'll read a piece of nonfiction, you'll read a book from 50 years ago, you'll read a book from 10 years ago.

We said we probably have one shot to make an impact with this list, so let's throw it in altogether. What that means, and this is to anyone who's going to call in, says, where is this book on there? 100 books seems like a lot when you're talking about all the books that are published in English in America over the course of a single year, and then you multiply that by more than 20 years. It's actually not that many books. There are 100 great books on here, I can assure you, and I don't have them memorized, that the books that were 101 to 150 were also some of the best books that have been published this century.

It was really hard to think of a cutoff, but I think we all understand that 100 is a lot of it feels comprehensive, but there's a lot that's not on here.

Kousha Navidar: How much do you think recency bias was at play in making the list? Do you think people were more likely to vote for a book that they read recently?

Gilbert Cruz: I thought that would be the case going in. If you look at some of the top books on this list there, the corrections, for example, the number five book came out in September 2001. Austerlitz number 8 book came out in 2001 as well. I think I was surprised by how representative of the entire century this list was. There wasn't as much recency bias as I thought there would be.

The ones that are on there, Demon Copperhead, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Trust, Stay True. These are all three of those books are Pulitzer winners. Even the books that were published in recent years are sort of readily accepted to be great ones.

Kousha Navidar: It's interesting because just today, you released the list of The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century as voted on be the people. Number one on that list was Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. Were you surprised to see that book land at number one?

Gilbert Cruz: I think that might be a case of recency bias. That is probably the great book, the newest great book that people have read. That book came out a couple of years ago. Again, who won the Pulitzer Prize in fiction with Hernan Diaz's Trust. Super bestseller. I believe it was an Oprah's Book Club pick. I hope I'm not wrong in that. I think it was a book club pick. A lot of people have read this book, and it is a great book. I'm not surprised to see recency bias come into play there and to see it all the way up there.

I was delighted to see that there are 61 books that readers picked on their top 100 that were not on our list. I think if anyone listening goes to The New York Times website and looks at those readers' picks today, they probably would find something that they love and have already read.

Kousha Navidar: Well, let's dive into the list a little bit. Listeners, we're talking about the best books of the 21st century. I see some calls coming in. I want to hit up the list a little bit before we get to calls. If you have read this New York Times Book Review list, give us a call. Tell us what you think about it. Tell us what books you would like to see on that list. We're at 212-433-9692, but for now, I want to go to number five, which is The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. It's a family dramedy set in the Midwest.

This was sort of a literary mega hit when it came out, and there was drama with Oprah's Book Club. It really solidified Franzen as a star writer of his generation. Why do you think this one holds up still now, over 20 years later?

Gilbert Cruz: I went back and I reread the corrections a few months ago because I had a feeling that it would end up somewhere on this list. I had no idea how high it would be, and I think it holds up. A, because it's good. B, because people maybe remember the drama a little bit. For those of you who don't remember, Oprah picked the corrections as an entry in her book club. She invited Jonathan Franzen to come on the show to talk about it. He expressed some hesitation with the idea of being part of Oprah's Book Club.

He was disinvited and it was a giant controversy. If you don't know anything about this, please go read some articles. It's fascinating and slightly hilarious. They eventually made up, I believe, years later because she ended up picking another book of his way down the line. In terms of the quality of the book, it's a sprawling family drama. It is funny. The characters are memorable. They're deep. They're unpredictable. People love family dramas because no matter how normal your family is, there is some sort of sense of chaos in every family. Like any great family saga, the corrections captures that wonderfully.

Kousha Navidar: We got our first caller. Let's go to John in Pasadena, California. Hey, John, welcome to the show.

John: Hey, thank you. How are you?

Kousha Navidar: Good, thanks. What do you got?

John: My recommendation is a book called American War by Omar El Akkad. He's an Egyptian-American, and the book basically is about the second American Civil War. In this scenario, it's set between the years 2074 and 2095. It's a little bit in the future, but not that far. It's a good read. It's not a lot of technology. The Southern states have seceded from the rest of the country because fossil fuels have been banned in the United States. There's a division here. Mexico has reenact the southwest United States.

What's remarkable about this book, as I'm reading it, I look at where we are right now and the trajectory that we're on and how divided the United States is and how it can come to something like this.

Kousha Navidar: John, I'm going to pause you right there just for time, but thank you so much for shouting that out. American War published in 2017. Getting some texts in here now that I'll read. We've got Falling Upward by Richard Rohr. We've got Lincoln in the Bardo, which I believe is 18 on the list, actually. Gilbert, is that right? Lincoln in the Bardo?

Gilbert Cruz: It sure is. I have my hardcover copy coincidentally sitting right next to me on my desk here.

Kousha Navidar: Oh, there you go. You have the texter's in common. Another one, Robert Macfarlane's Old Ways. A lot of texts coming in. Listeners, we're talking about The New York Times Book Review list of the hundred best books of the 21st century. We're here with Gilbert Cruz, the editor of The New York Times Book Review, and we want to hear from you. Have you seen that list? What do you think about it? What are books that you would want to be included on that list? What's your hot take? Give us a call at 212-433-9692.

We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to go further down the list all the way to number one and take more of your calls. Stay with us. This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Kousha Navidar, and we are here with Gilbert Cruz, editor of The New York Times Book Review. We're discussing their list, The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. Gilbert, we've got some listeners who want to know 21st century, is that the 2000s? Let's make sure that we were all on the same page there, same time period.

Gilbert Cruz: Wait, what else would it be?

Kousha Navidar: I think some 1900s, maybe some 1900s' fans are in there.

Gilbert Cruz: No. The rules for this survey were a book had to be published following January 1st, 2000 in the English language in America. We put those rules in because The New York Times Book Review, that's sort of our zone of coverage, books that are published in America in the English language. You had a question before-- You had mentioned before some people questioning our inclusion of translated books that were published before the year 2000.

In some cases, they were published many decades before the year 2000. The truth is that people in America, people in the English-speaking world, had not read those books until they were translated into English. In our opinion, those counted as part of this survey.

Kousha Navidar: Listeners, if you have a better handle now on what time period we're talking about and you want to participate, give us a call. We're at 212-433-9692, that's 212-433- WNYC. I see some more callers before we get to them. Gilbert, I want to talk about number four. It's The Known World by Edward P. Jones. It's about a formerly enslaved man who later owns slaves of his own. What's special about this book to you?

Gilbert Cruz: I would urge people to check out a piece that our critic, AO Scott, who used to be a longtime movie critic for The New York Times, published a couple days ago. He went down to Washington, where Edward P. Jones lives. He teaches down there. He talked to this wonderful writer who doesn't really write that much anymore. He wrote this amazing novel. He wrote a couple of short story collections, and then he went quiet. Despite that, somehow this book has stuck in people's minds. I think for a couple of reasons.

One, as is the case with so many books on this list, it's beautifully written, amazingly sort of imagined. There are a lot of books written about the American slavery, historical novels written about American slavery, the legacy of slavery. To imagine a scenario in which a formerly enslaved person owns slaves themselves is just a unique angle on this terrible American legacy. It's a great book. I think the fact that it is under known, maybe by a lot of people, but was voted so high, means that many people who see this list will be discovering it for the first time, which I think is exciting.

Kousha Navidar: Let's go to another book. We've got Guy in Peekskill. Hey, Guy, welcome to the show. What book do you think deserves to be on that list?

Guy: I really liked Where the Crawdads Sing. I found it not only a compelling story with lots of themes of the best and worst of humanity, but also lots of surprises. The way that Delia Owens combined images was like a song and a beautiful, a melody and a beautiful song.

Kousha Navidar: Guy, thank you so much for that. We really appreciate you calling in. Where the Crawdads Sing, I don't recollect off the top of my head if that's on the list. Gilbert, do you know?

Gilbert Cruz: It is not on our list. It came in at number 59 on the reader's list.

Kousha Navidar: Wonderful. Let's go to number three, which is Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. We have another book that seems to be on everyone's list. It's a work of historical fiction. Again, that's Hilary Mantel. It's a work of historical fiction about the life of King Henry VIII's advisor, Thomas Cromwell. Why has this one become kind of a modern classic?

Gilbert Cruz: This is the first in a trilogy of books, two of them made onto this list. There's Wolf Hall, which came in at number three, and then Bring Up the Bodies, which came in at number 95. The third one is called The Mirror and the Light. Historical fiction, it's easy to write a piece of historical fiction, particularly about someone like Henry VIII, and make it seem stodgy in a way. The magic that Mantel was able to do with Wolf Hall and the other two books in the series was get into the mind of this man, Thomas Cromwell, who was essentially Henry VIII's fixer.

He was the guy who was-- He was like the Michael Clayton of his a-- He was there to solve problems, and Henry VIII sent him as his person to take care of business. She gets into the psychology of this man who grew up not as part of royalty. His family wasn't landed. He wasn't rich. He didn't really have anything. He grew up from nothing. Found himself at the right hand of this fascinating, tempestuous royal. You just fall into it. The language is amazing. The psychology is amazing. The characters are memorable. I would read it again in an instant.

Kousha Navidar: We've got some calls out here for Septology. There's one text that says, "I've read it through four times since Christmas and plan to go through it again soon. Moving and hypnotic. Easily the best I've read." We've also got Andrew from Brooklyn. Sounds like you want to give in a ring for that book as well, right, Andrew?

Andrew: Yes, I do. I'm out here working for our Great Parks department, so I couldn't spot check the list if it's on it, so I don't know.

Gilbert Cruz: It is. It is number 78.

Andrew: Oh, okay. I didn't know that. The other name through a new name, and I think it's just brilliant. Damien Searle's translation, it's sort of a uniquely Norwegian thing, but the translation makes it quite accessible. It's not something you think would carry you away, but boy, you can read a thousand pages faster than you probably think if Jon Fosse's the one doing it.

Kousha Navidar: Thank you so much. Gilbert, tell us a little bit about that book, number at 78.

Gilbert Cruz: Sure. Also, possibly a little slight recency bias here, although it's obviously good. Jon Fosse, or however you pronounce his name, won the Nobel Prize a couple of years ago. This was a book that was published in 2022. The translation here, it's essentially a seven-novel sequence that I think takes place over one sentence, over seven novels, over a thousand pages. I can't give you-- if you don't want to read it, after hearing that, I don't think I could sell it any better.

This is a Nobel Prize winning author who finally, to the rest of the world, at least he's very known in his home country, to the rest of the world, broke through with Septology.

Kousha Navidar: I see a text here for Amor Towles. "A Gentleman in Moscow should surely be on the list." I don't believe that that made the list, though, right, Gilbert?

Gilbert Cruz: It did not, but whoever texted that it is, let me double check this, I believe it is number three on the reader list.

Kousha Navidar: Oh, wow.

Gilbert Cruz: People love that book.

Kousha Navidar: Now, that's a difference between readers and, I don't know if you say critics, but The New York Times at least coming in at two different spots there. I'm looking at the clock. I want to get to two more books before we get a chance. There's number two. We have the only work of nonfiction to crack the top ten. It's The Warmth of Other Suns. Isabel Wilkerson's award winning history of the great migration. What do you think makes Wilkerson a particularly excellent writer of history?

Gilbert Cruz: I think she does something that's very difficult to do when you're working with history, when you work with archives, when you're working with journalism. She's a journalist, and you're working with something that people think they already know, which is to make it extremely readable. The terrible thing, but the true thing is when someone says, "This piece of nonfiction felt like a novel or it felt like a piece of fiction to me," because it has energy, it has drive, it has characters.

That's not to undercut nonfiction, but when you can do both of those things, when you can apply narrative energy to a sweeping history like the one that Wilkerson does here, tracing the great migration of African-Americans from the southern part of the United States to places like Chicago and Los Angeles, it's amazing. I mean, it's a very large book and it feels like you can read it in an instant because the characters sort of bring you through. It's not as easy to do as you would think.

Kousha Navidar: I'm looking at the clock. I want to get a few more folks in here. Carmen in Binghamton, very quickly, what's the title? Hey, Carmen, you there?

Carmen: Yes. It's called Ill Will.

Kousha Navidar: Hey.

Carmen: Yes. Can you hear me?

Kousha Navidar: Yes, hi. Ill Will.

Carmen: Okay, Ill Will by Dan Chaon. I'm not sure how to say his name, but it's horror. I didn't see too much horror on the list, which I did love, but it's not genre horror. It's just about evil.

Kousha Navidar: Wonderful.

Carmen: It's a very good book for our times.

Kousha Navidar: Ill Will, thank you so much, Carmen. Gregory in Morningside, going to go to you very quickly. What's the title of your book?

Gregory: The Last Chairlift by John Irving. 40 years of a great family sexual thing going on there. He's one of our great authors. Couldn't find it on the list.

Kousha Navidar: John Irving, shout out for John Irving. Gregory, thank you so much. Now, with the time we got left, I want to get to number one. We've got. Drum roll, please, everybody. Do your drumroll if you're listening. It's my brilliant friend by Elena Ferrante. It's translated by Ann Goldstein. Tell us, Gilbert, why this one at number one do you think?

Gilbert Cruz: Elena Ferrante, for those listeners who don't know, is an alias. We don't really know who Elena Ferrante is. Elena Ferrante has written a quartet of books that are now called the Neapolitan Quartet, about two women. You start with them as young girls in post-World War II, Naples in Italy, and it traces their lives and their friendship together over many decades.

There was a moment when my brilliant friend came out when all of a sudden people discovered that there is a person out there who can write so deeply and intimately about the inner lives of women, which I think many people feel is not something that many writers do very well. There is an obsessive quality to people that love the Ferrante books. I think the fact that it is at number one, my brilliant friend, is both surprising and not because once you start to read this quartet of books, you just fall into it. You have to read all 1,000 or whatever pages. People love these books.

Kousha Navidar: Well, we'll have to keep it there for now. There are so many more books we could have talked about, both that were on the list and ones that weren't. Gilbert, we so appreciate you coming and talking to us for this work, this list. Gilbert Cruz is editor of The New York Times Book Review. Their list, the 100 best books of the 21st century. Check it out. See if one of your favorites is on there. Gilbert, thanks so much for hanging out with us.

Gilbert Cruz: Thank you. Thank you so much.

 

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