Have You Read The Best 12 Books Of The 21st Century?

The BBC polled several dozens of book critics including the editors of Time Magazine and The New York Review of Books, on which where the best 12 books in the English language of the century. These are the results.

12. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

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The coming of age story of a trans woman is both harrowing and empowering. The story of Cal, first Calliope, Stephanides is a beautiful tale that highlights the beauty of not only loving what we are, but also what we have been.

11. White Teeth by Zadie Smith

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Not only is White Teeth a beautiful story of friendship, race, and alienation, it was also written when Smith was 23 years old! This novel is a true picture of London in the 21st Century, a city with so many identities with more than a city in common.

10. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie

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Adichie's account of the Biafran War, or the Nigerian War, ranked at number 10. With four narrators of different ethnical identities, Adichie managed to show how the repercussions of war and political unrest affect the common people in ways we can barely imagine.

9. Atonement by Ian McEwan

Via en.wikipedia.org

After wrongly accusing a boy of being violently sexual to her sister, Briony Tallis' sixty-year quest for redemption is unfair, infuriating, and in the end, incredibly genuine and honest. After this book, way you look at life and art will never be the same.

8. Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain

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Think The Great Gatsby meets The Catcher in the Rye, meets Full Metal Jacket, meets the Iraq War. If that's not confusing, this is the story of eight survivors of a skirmish in Iraq who are return to the US as heroes. Their story is narrated by Ben Fountain, and it is an eerily honest commentary on war, excess, and, of course, football.

7. A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

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Halfway between a novel and a collection of connected short stories, Jennifer Egan's book is the place to go for angst and rock and roll. The stories follow Bennie Salazar, an aging rock executive and his assistant as they ponder on mortality, time, and human experience. It's also incredibly fun.

6. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon

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There are thousands of stories about World War II, but none of them is as unique as Chabon's story of an escape artist who flees Europe for Brooklyn. There, with the help of his cousin Sammy Clay, Joe Kavalier will invent "The Escapist", the father of comic books.

5. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

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Jonathan Franzen is already popular enough for "Freedom", but his previous novel is as powerful if not even more. "The Corrections" deals with extremely serious issues like the economic collapse of America, the death of the institution of family, and even Parkinson's disease, and worst of all, it is extremely funny.

4. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

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A book about the quest of spirituality in the 21st Century seems normal, but in this novel, Marilynne Robinson makes an incredible appeal to a life of faith. It's a must-read for anyone mildly interested on how religion has been corrupted, and how it can still be saved.

3. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

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History buffs should be all over this one. A re-telling of the story of Henry VIII as seen through the eyes of his loyal and wickedly smart advisor Thomas Cromwell. This book will have your heart racing with anticipation over a story that has been told, but never like this.

2. The Known World by Edward P. Jones

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If you liked 12 Years A Slave, get ready for an even better ride. The Known World is the story of Henry Townsend, a former slave and now slave owner, as he lays on his deathbed pondering about the way he treats those who serve him today.

1. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz

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Junot Díaz's novel was voted as the best novel of the century, and it's not hard to see why. The coming of age story of Oscar, an immigrant boy from the Dominican Republic with a love for comic books and sci-fi, is there to ask us what it is to be American in the 21st Century. It's funny, energetic, fast-paced, and one of those books you just don't want to finish because it'll be over.