- ADMIN AREA MY BOOKSHELF MY DASHBOARD MY PROFILE SIGN OUT SIGN IN
- Seen & Heard
‘New York Times’ Reveals Its Best Books of 2021
BY Michael Schaub • Nov. 29, 2021
The New York Times Book Review unveiled its list of the 10 best books of the year , with titles by Honorée Fannone Jeffers, Patricia Lockwood, and Clint Smith among those making the cut.
Jeffers was honored for her debut novel, The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois , which was a finalist for this year’s Kirkus Prize and longlisted for the National Book Award.
Lockwood made the list for her Booker Prize-finalist No One Is Talking About This , while Imbolo Mbue was honored for her novel How Beautiful We Were . The other two works of fiction selected by the Times were Intimacies by Katie Kitamura and the genre-defying When We Cease To Understand the World by Benjamín Labatut, translated by Adrian Nathan West. Kitamura’s novel made the National Book Award fiction longlist, while Labatut’s book was on the prize’s translated literature shortlist.
Smith’s How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America , also longlisted for the National Book Award,was one of the nonfiction books to make the Times list, along with Annette Gordon-Reed’s On Juneteenth .
Other nonfiction books on the list included Andrea Elliott’s Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival and Hope in an American City and Tove Ditlevsen’s memoir cycle, The Copenhagen Trilogy: Childhood; Youth; Dependency , translated by Tiina Nunnally and Michael Favala Goldman.
Rounding out the list was Heather Clark’s Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath . The biography, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award, was published in 2020; when asked on Twitter why it was named one of the Times’ notable books of 2021, Times Book Review editor Pamela Paul explained , “We used to make the cut after the Holiday issue and carry the titles over [to the] following year. Moving forward, it’s the full calendar year.”
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
- Book to Screen Abbi Jacobson To Adapt ‘People Collide’ as Series
- Awards Winner of the Gotham Book Prize Is Revealed
- Seen & Heard ‘The Unwedding’ Is New Pick for Reese’s Book Club
- Profiles Erin Entrada Kelly Goes Time Traveling to 1999
Our Take On This Week's Bestsellers
Our Verdict
More Seen & Heard
Featured Interviews
- podcast Episode 375: Summer Reads With Nicola Yoon
- podcast Episode 374: Emma Copley Eisenberg
- podcast Episode 373: Guest Host Christopher Paolini
- podcast Episode 372: Miranda July
- podcast Episode 371: Best May Books With Aimee Nezhukumatathil
The Magazine: Kirkus Reviews
Featuring 313 industry-first reviews of fiction, nonfiction, children’s, and YA books; also in this special Science Fiction & Fantasy issue: Jeff VanderMeer, M.K. Asante, Erin Entrada Kelly, Kalynn Bayron, and more
The Kirkus Star
One of the most coveted designations in the book industry, the Kirkus Star marks books of exceptional merit.
The Kirkus Prize
The Kirkus Prize is among the richest literary awards in America, awarding $50,000 in three categories annually.
Great Books & News Curated For You
Be the first to read books news and see reviews, news and features in Kirkus Reviews . Get awesome content delivered to your inbox every week.
- Discover Books Fiction Thriller & Suspense Mystery & Detective Romance Science Fiction & Fantasy Nonfiction Biography & Memoir Teens & Young Adult Children's
- News & Features Bestsellers Book Lists Profiles Perspectives Awards Seen & Heard Book to Screen Kirkus TV videos In the News
- Kirkus Prize Winners & Finalists About the Kirkus Prize Kirkus Prize Judges
- Magazine Current Issue All Issues Manage My Subscription Subscribe
- Writers’ Center Hire a Professional Book Editor Get Your Book Reviewed Advertise Your Book Launch a Pro Connect Author Page Learn About The Book Industry
- More Kirkus Diversity Collections Kirkus Pro Connect My Account/Login
- About Kirkus History Our Team Contest FAQ Press Center Info For Publishers
- Privacy Policy
- Terms & Conditions
- Reprints, Permission & Excerpting Policy
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Popular in this Genre
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
Please select an existing bookshelf
Create a new bookshelf.
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
Please sign up to continue.
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
Trouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Almost there!
- Industry Professional
Welcome Back!
Sign in using your Kirkus account
Contact us: 1-800-316-9361 or email [email protected].
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.
Magazine Subscribers ( How to Find Your Reader Number )
If You’ve Purchased Author Services
Don’t have an account yet? Sign Up.
The New York Times Reveals Their 10 Best Books Of 2021
Carina Pereira
Carina Pereira, born in ‘87, in Portugal. Moved to Belgium in 2011, and to Rotterdam, The Netherlands, in 2019. Avid reader, changing interests as the mods strikes. Whiles away the time by improvising stand-up routines she’ll never get to perform. Books are a life-long affair, audiobooks a life-changing discovery of adulthood. Selling books by day, writer by night. Contact
View All posts by Carina Pereira
As the end of the year approaches, various platforms start putting together a selection of the books they believe deserve to have the literary spotlight of the last 365 days.
From Goodreads Choice Awards , to the Top Five Books Of The Year At Amazon , these lists are often a great way to compare what is going around our own social media bubble, and what the mainstream media and platforms deem the best of. (Amazon’s list has one book in common with the New York Times. Read this whole post and see if you can guess which one before you click that link.)
Book Riot is obviously not an exception in this matter – we are always down to tell you all about our favourite reads – and you can check out the books we held most dear to our hearts in 2021 here .
The 10 Best Books Of The Year as it is currently presented by The New York Times has been going on since pretty much the beginning of the Book Review magazine, back in 1896.
After several changes across the years, in 2004 the list has taken the shape that is still being used today: as fall arrives, the editors start reading, discussing, and choosing what will become their definitive list of the ten best books of the year.
Thank you for signing up! Keep an eye on your inbox. By signing up you agree to our terms of use
These are their choices for 2021:
- How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue
- Intimacies by Katie Kitamura
- The Love Song Of W. E. B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
- No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood
- When We Cease To Understand The World by Benjamín Labatut, translated by Adrian Nathan West
- The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen, translated by Tiina Nunnally and Michael Favala Goldman
- How The Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With The History Of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith
- Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival and Hope In An American City by Andrea Elliott
- On Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed
- Red Comet: The Short Life And Blazing Art Of Sylvia Plath by Heather Clark
As it’s common with the New York Times 10 Best Books Of The Year lists, the first five books are labelled under the genre literary fiction, and the other five are works of non-fiction, although Labatut is said to stand on the edge of both.
This year’s list includes two books in translation. Or, if we are in the mood to be pedantic, we can say it actually includes four, since Ditlevsen’s are actually three books put together and they can be found and purchased on their own (nice little way to include 12 books in a list of 10, New York Times!). Likewise, you’ll find several important works around social justice themes, including class and race, both fiction and non-fiction.
The Love Songs Of W.E.B Du Bois was one of the picks of Oprah’s Book Club 2021. It was also nominated for Time’s best books of 2021. Similarly, other books on the above list also fell under the Time’s 2021 best of non-fiction: Juneteenth , How The Word Is Passed , Invisible Child , and The Copenhagen Trilogy .
Fifty percent of the books nominated were written by authors of colour. Last year, this same list included forty percent authors of colour.
Read more about each of the 10 books listed above in this link. And for those with full access to the New York Times website, here are 100 Notable Books released in 2021 that their editors put together.
You Might Also Like
You have exceeded your limit for simultaneous device logins.
Your current subscription allows you to be actively logged in on up to three (3) devices simultaneously. click on continue below to log out of other sessions and log in on this device., new york times book review reveals top 10 books of 2021 | book pulse.
The New York Times Book Review revealed their top 10 books of the year in a virtual event for subscribers . Dava Shastri's Last Day by Kirthana Ramisetti is the December GMA Book Club pick. More Best of the Year lists arrive. Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan gets reviewed. LJ posts the May 2022 Prepub Alert complete list. Bernardine Evaristo will preside over the Royal Society of Literature. Interviews arrive with Faith Jones, Raekwon of the Wu-Tang Clan, Mel Brooks, and Mario Vargas Llosa. Stephen Graham Jones’ forthcoming novel, Don't Fear the Reaper is due out in August 2022. Plus, authors Anne Helen Petersen and Charlie Warzel reconsider the future of work.
Want to get the latest book news delivered to your inbox each day? Sign up for our daily Book Pulse newsletter.
Book clubs, awards, & best of the year.
Editors at The New York Times Book Review revealed their top 10 books of the year in a virtual event for subscribers .The list will be published later today.
Dava Shastri's Last Day by Kirthana Ramisetti (Grand Central) is the December GMA Book Club pick .
Time releases the 100 must-read books of 2021.
The Chicago Tribune picks its top 10 books of the year.
Book Page delivers its Best Books of the Year lists.
Merlin Sheldrake wins Royal Society Science Book Prize for Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures . The Bookseller reports.
The Guardian reviews Renegades: Born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen and Barack Obama (Crown): “if that person in your life who has everything deserves a reminder of how rock’n’roll can be more moral than its enemies, of how, sometimes, the arc of history bends towards justice a little more noticeably, Renegades will stuff that stocking amply.”
Briefly Noted
Bernardine Evaristo will preside over the Royal Society of Literature . The Guardian reports.
Salon has a conversation with Faith Jones , Sex Cult Nun: Breaking Away from the Children of God, a Wild, Radical Religious Cult (Morrow; LJ starred review), about “leaving a religious cult and re-discovering who she was.”
People talks with Alfonso Ribeiro about whether or not he will read his friend’s memoir, Will , by Will Smith (Penguin Random House).
Bustle explores the question, “Is There A Better Way To Write About Interracial Friendship?” with co-authors of the novel, We Are Not Like Them (Atria), Christine Pride and Jo Piazza.
FoxNews share s details from Brothers and Wives: Inside the Private Lives of William, Kate, Harry, and Meghan by Christopher Andersen (Gallery Books).
The LA Times has 6 books for December .
LitHub shares 12 books out this week .
Bustle has 10 new books for the week.
Jakucho Setouchi, Buddhist nun and best-selling Japanese author, dies at 99 . The Washington Post has an obituary.
Authors On Air
Mel Brooks talks to Good Morning America about his remarkable life in show business and his new memoir, All About Me! (Ballantine: Penguin Random House).
NPR has an interview with Mario Vargas Llosa about his new book , Harsh Times , trans. by Adrian Nathan West (Farrar).
Netflix will no longer produce the adaptation of Alice Sebold memoir. The Guardian reports.
LitHub shares a clip of Chadwick Boseman reading Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass .
Vanessa Lachey, Life from Scratch: Family Traditions That Start with You , written with Dina Gachman (HarperOne) will be on with Drew Barrymore tomorrow, and Andy Cohen, Glitter Every Day: 365 Quotes from Women I Love (Holt), will be on The Real.
Get Print. Get Digital. Get Both!
Add comment :-, comment policy:.
- Be respectful, and do not attack the author, people mentioned in the article, or other commenters. Take on the idea, not the messenger.
- Don't use obscene, profane, or vulgar language.
- Stay on point. Comments that stray from the topic at hand may be deleted.
- Comments may be republished in print, online, or other forms of media.
- If you see something objectionable, please let us know. Once a comment has been flagged, a staff member will investigate.
First Name should not be empty !!!
Last Name should not be empty !!!
email should not be empty !!!
Comment should not be empty !!!
You should check the checkbox.
Please check the reCaptcha
Ethan Smith
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.
Posted 6 hours ago REPLY
Jane Fitgzgerald
Posted 6 hours ago
Michael Woodward
Continue reading.
Libraries are always evolving. Stay ahead. Log In.
Added To Cart
Related , reese’s book club launches audiobook partnership with apple books | book pulse, tananarive due’s ‘the reformatory’ wins top stoker prize | book pulse, ‘eruption’ by michael crichton & james patterson tops holds lists | book pulse, aaliyah bilal’s ‘temple folk’ wins the ernest j. gaines award | book pulse, jenny erpenbeck’s ‘kairos’ wins international booker prize | book pulse, top editors out at prh amid restructuring | book pulse, "what is this" design thinking from an lis student.
Run Your Week: Big Books, Sure Bets & Titles Making News | July 17 2018
Materials on Hand | Materials Handling
LGBTQ Collection Donated to Vancouver Archives
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, --> Log In
You did not sign in correctly or your account is temporarily disabled
REGISTER FREE to keep reading
If you are already a member, please log in.
Passwords must include at least 8 characters.
Your password must include at least three of these elements: lower case letters, upper case letters, numbers, or special characters.
The email you entered already exists. Please reset your password to gain access to your account.
Create a Password to complete your registration. Get access to:
Uncommon insight and timely information
Thousands of book reviews
Blogs, expert opinion, and thousands of articles
Research reports, data analysis, -->