48.1. The Book List

Not a lot of Western writers or true crime on that big old NYT booklist. So here's a few.

This week, The New York Times released a cool project deemed “The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century.”¹ Every morning as I drank an unhealthy amount of coffee, I enjoyed playing around with all the little extras they added into the feature — like going through the best ballots submitted by big-name writers for their favorites, thinking yeah, I’d hang out with Nick Hornby, probably and right on James Patterson, for picking Harry Potter.

Even though I think the project is interesting, what seemed crazy to me was how few of my own favorite writers were on the list. I am a voracious reader of all kinds of books, including about a third of the ones that made their list. How could there be no Haruki Murakami on it? Are you kidding? Really, no Louise Erdrich? No Joyce Carol Oates? No MARGARET F&@*ING ATWOOD?² You’re joking. Less surprising was how few writers from the Western United States were on The List.

One of the most glaring omissions were books from the true crime genre. I’ve never been quiet about how absurd I find it that Ivory Tower literati turn their nose up at the genre completely. It’s hilariously provincial to ignore a genre that, according to a 2022 poll, half of Americans enjoy.