The New York Times published a rating of the 100 best books of the XXI century

The New York Times has published a list of the 100 best books of the 21st century.

The journalists asked more than 500 writers, publicists, poets, literary critics, translators and other experts to choose the most valuable novels written since January 1, 2000. Writers Stephen King, James Patterson, and Jonathan Lethem, actress Sarah Jessica Parker, and others took part in the survey.

The first place in the rating is the novel My Incredible Friend (2012) by Italian writer Elena Ferrante about the lives of two friends Elena and Lila from a poor neighborhood in Naples in the 1950s. The book tells the story of the girls’ growing up, their breakups and reunions, and how Naples was changing.

Also among the top ten books:

• The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of the Great American Migration by Isabel Wilkerson;
• Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel;
• The Known World by Edward Paul Jones;
• “The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen;
• “2666” Roberto Bolaño;
• The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead;
• Austerlitz by Winfried Georg Sebald;
• Don’t Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro;
• Gilead by Marilynne Robinson.

The list of the best books of the 21st century also includes The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (12th place), Pachinko by Lee Min-Jin (15th place), Atonement by Ian McEwan (26th place), The Years by Annie Erno (37th place), and Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (46th place).