By Era
Modern Must-Reads
The best books published since 2000, across every shelf.
24 books · ranked
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1
The Omnivore's Dilemma
Where our food really comes from, traced through four meals; the book that changed how many people eat.
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2
The Hunger Games
A girl volunteers for a televised fight to the death to save her sister; a propulsive, sharp dystopian thriller.
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3
Wolf Hall
Thomas Cromwell's rise in the court of Henry VIII; political intrigue rendered in extraordinary close-up prose.
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4
Open
A tennis champion's startlingly honest memoir, including how much he hated the game; one of the best sports books ever written.
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5
The New Jim Crow
How mass incarceration recreates racial caste in America; a powerful, much-cited argument.
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6
Sapiens
A sweeping history of humanity from the emergence of Homo sapiens in Africa to the present, arguing that what made humans uniquely powerful was the ability to create and believe in shared fictions — nations, religions, money — that allowed large-scale social cooperation impossible for other species. One of the bestselling non-fiction books of the 21st century.
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7
Thinking, Fast and Slow
How the mind's two systems lead us into predictable errors; the definitive popular book on cognitive bias.
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8
The Lean Startup
Build, measure, learn: the method that reshaped how new ventures are run; essential for founders.
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9
Atomic Habits
A practical, evidence-based system for tiny changes that compound; the modern standard on habits.
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10
Persepolis
A girl grows up during and after the Iranian revolution; a witty, moving graphic memoir.
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11
Kitchen Confidential
The wild, profane underbelly of professional kitchens; a memoir that made a chef a household name.
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12
Moneyball
How a cash-strapped baseball team used data to beat richer rivals; a gripping story about questioning everything.
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13
The Fault in Our Stars
Two teenagers with cancer fall in love; funny and heartbreaking without ever being saccharine.
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14
The Sixth Extinction
The mass extinction unfolding now, reported from the field; sobering, clear and Pulitzer-winning.
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15
Between the World and Me
A letter to a son about being Black in America; urgent, lyrical and unflinching.
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16
Devotions
A career-spanning selection from a poet of attention and the natural world; the perfect place to begin.
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17
Killers of the Flower Moon
The murders of wealthy Osage people and the birth of the FBI; a riveting, important investigation.
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18
Educated
A woman raised off-grid by survivalist parents finds her way to a PhD; an astonishing memoir of self-invention.
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19
Exhalation
Beautifully reasoned science-fiction stories about time, free will and meaning; cerebral and humane.
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20
A Short History of Nearly Everything
How we figured out the universe, the Earth and ourselves; vast, funny and wonderfully clear.
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21
The Book Thief
A girl in Nazi Germany who steals books, narrated by Death itself; original, tender and devastating.
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22
The Warmth of Other Suns
The Great Migration of Black Americans told through three unforgettable lives; monumental narrative history.
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23
The Body Keeps the Score
How trauma lives in the body and how people heal; a landmark that reached far beyond therapists.
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24
Born a Crime
Growing up mixed-race under and after apartheid; funny, sharp and genuinely moving.