ABC RN's The Bookshelf has published the books that came in at 101-200 on their Favourite Books of the 21st Century poll. I'm not going to repeat a full-blown analysis, but few things:
* I've only read ~30 of these, compared with 57 of the top 100.
* Two more more of the books I voted for made it: #157. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss and #171. The Good People by Hannah Kent. (I had 3 in the top 100.)
* There are quite a few more fantasy & scifi books: The Name of The Wind, a couple by Margaret Atwood, and Sarah J Maas, and by RF Kuang, a Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett, Cloud Cuckoo Land, The House in the Cerulean Sea, The Three-Body Problem, plus a couple of YA: Percy Jackson, and Nevermoor. Not a terrible selection.

https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/the-bookshelf/we-reveal-the-books-that-didnt-quite-make-the-top-100/105871776

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I couldn't resist doing some analysis of ABC Radio National's Top 100 Books of the 21st Century.

How much more likely were people to vote for books because they had read them in recent memory (recency bias)? You would expect that good books are spread out evenly across the years, but it's hard to remember books that you read many years ago! Turns out there was an even spread of books across 2000-2019. But there were 40% more books than expected from 2020-2024. (See first graph.)

Were newer books more likely to be lower down the list? I thought this might be lkely because votes for recently read books might spread out more. But that wasn't completely true. The bottom 40 of the list did lean new, but so did the top 20. (See second graph.)
How diverse were the authors on the list? Not very! Only 22 of the books were by authors with diverse backgrounds, by which I mean non-white or not hetero-normative. The top 20 were the least diverse, but it was pretty even across the range. Probably not surprising - people might connect most strongly with books that speak to their own experience. Would be fascinating to see more demographic info on the voters.
Most books were by authors from Australia (35), the USA (31), the UK (17) and Ireland (7). Ireland seemed to punch above its weight. New Zealand only had one author! (Heather Morris, The Tattooist of Auschwitz).

There were very few non-fiction books, especially if you exclude memoirs and true crime. I count 4: Dark Emu, Stasiland, Sapiens and A Short History of Nearly Everything. And yet non-fiction accounts for something like 40% of book sales. I wonder if that is because a non-fiction book tends to focus on a particular subject, which would have less widespread appeal. It could also be that the type of people who vote in this sort of poll are book nerds, and book nerds mostly read fiction.

As a keen #fantasy & #scifi reader, I was disappointed. Project Hail Mary is the only full-blown scifi, but I wouldn't say it is a good representation of the genre. There is Hunger Games and Harry Potter, but both are young adult. The others (Cloud Atlas, Station Eleven, Piranesi, Never Let Me Go) feel borderline (I've not read the last two).
How did the list compare with my own ratings? I've read 57 of the 100 books, and I did rate higher books better, but the relationship was very weak. (See third graph.)

Highest ranked book that I didn't really like: #12. Where The Crawdads Sing. (Runner up The Dry.)
Lowest ranked book that I really liked: #86. Cloud Atlas
Highest ranked book I'd never heard of: #9. A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

I've got 43 books to catch up on in the next few years, plus the favourites as voted by my friends. Never short a good book!

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Trent Dalton’s Boy Swallows Universe wins the Top 100 Books countdown — as it happened

1h agoSun 19 Oct 2025 at 8:10am Want more Top 100 Books? On Monday, Radio National’s The Book…
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https://www.newsbeep.com/195132/

Highest per capita votes in the #Top100books was the #ACT followed by #Tasmania, with #Queensland coming in last. Can't say I'm surprised ...

And 75% of voters identified as women.

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I'm looking forward to the final 40 of Radio National's Top 100 Books of the 21st Century this afternoon.

I reckon these with rank highly:
Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton, and maybe also Lola In The Mirror
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
Something by Margaret Atwood, maybe Oryx & Crake
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan (could be #1)

Less sure of:
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
A Song of Ice & Fire by George RR Martin (surely a proper fantasy book has to make an appearance?)
The Martian by Andy Weir (I'd prefer a better sci fi, maybe Seveneves by Neal Stephenson?)
Stasiland by Anna Funder

What have I missed? Will be fascinating to see!

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https://www.abc.net.au/listen/radionational/countdown/top100books

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The first of my favourite books has made it into Radio National's Top 100 Books of the 21st Century: #68. Educated by Tara Westover.

Only expecting a couple more of mine to make it ...

https://www.abc.net.au/listen/radionational/countdown/top100books

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Only a few more days to #vote in Radio National's Top 100 #Books of the 21st Century: https://top100books.abc.net.au

What about you?

My list primarily consists of non-fiction (except for Trent Dalton & Sally Rooney), and the decision-making process centred on the books I've lent to people the most.

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Oh boy, here's my attempt at my top 10 books for the 21st century.

This was HARD to do. I ended up dividing it into genres and then choosing my favourites of each. So it may not be my very top 10, but close enough.

Even though I have 15 years of book reviews to work from, that only helped so much. It was interesting to see which books I rated highly at the time, but no longer stood out for me, and even vice versa. Also, books I read longer ago have lost their emotional immediacy, or perhaps feel less relevant, which may put them at a disadvantage to more recent reads.

Books listed after a * were shortlisted.

1. Fantasy #1: The Ship of Magic (Liveship Traders) by Robin Hobb - this is really just a stand-in for all the Fitz & Fool books (also it's published in 2000, which technically isn't the 21st century ...)
2. Fantasy #2_ The Name of the Wind (Kingkiller Chronicle) by Patrick Rothfuss
* A Storm of Swords (Game of Thrones) by George RR Martin
* A Little Hatred (The Age of Madness) by Joe Abercrombie
3. Scifi: The Deluge by Stephen Markley
* Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
* Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
* Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson
* Ministry of the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson
* The City We Became by NK Jemisin
* The City & The City by China Mieville
4. Cozy: A Psalm For The Wild-Built by Becky Chambers
5. Historic: The Good People by Hannah Kent
* The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish
* A Gentleman In Moscow by Amor Towles
6. Fiction (mostly Youth Trauma): Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
* Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
* The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
* Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton
* Prophet Song by Paul Lynch
* Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
7. Nonfiction #1: An Immense World by Ed Yong
8. Nonfiction #2: The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
9. Nonfiction #3: Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth
* Born to Run by Christopher McDougall
* The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
* Return of a King by William Dalrymple
10. Biography: Educated by Tara Westover
* Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

https://www.abc.net.au/listen/radionational/countdown/top100books

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