Best Fiction Books of the Century (So Far)

We’re celebrating our picks for the best fiction books of the century (so far). These are the award-winners, the buzziest books, the titles no book club or film studio could resist, the books we’re still talking about today. Fiction is a big tent covering a massive category of books but, for this list, we leaned heavily toward literary and contemporary fiction. This does include a smattering of speculative fiction, historical fiction, and other subcategories that toe the line, but you can find genre and subcategory lists among our previously released lists of Best Books of the Century (So Far). Dive into Pulitzer Prize-winning fiction, the novels that launched iconic authors’ careers, books that made waves in the larger world of culture, and so much more. A Visit from the Goon Squadby Jennifer Egan “Time's a goon, right? You gonna let that goon push you around?” It’s a fact of life that the goon always wins—time only moves in one direction—but the inevitability doesn’t make it any easier for us or Jennifer Egan’s characters to accept. An aging punk rocker turned record producer and his assistant, a young woman in the classic pretty-but-she-has-issues mold, are at the heart of this ...