Drowned In Sound’s best books of the 21st century - VOTE! (closes 9am Weds 2nd October)

Hi guys. The second in a new and disasterous series shamelessly stolen from the Guardian, as per DrownedInSound’s Best Things of the 21st Century! .

Results so far

By popular request, our second list will be BOOKS.

How it works:

  • You rank the best 2, 5, 10 or 20 books of this century so far in order.
  • Post them in here or DM them to me by 9am next Wednesday.
  • Please format as BOOK - AUTHOR and don’t abbreviate the titles.
  • I’ll do some mathematical gubbins and produce the definitive DiS best books of this century!

Rules:

  • For the purposes of these lists, the year 2000 is included in the 21st century. Yes, I know it’s not technically correct, no I don’t care that it’s making your eye twitch.
  • For a book to qualify, it should originally have been published in English since 1st January 2000. This means those nice clothbound Penguin Classics don’t count as they’re just new editions of old books.
  • To make the list more meaningless, both fiction and non-fiction are welcome.

Get arguing!

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But I’ve not yet read all the books published since 1st January 2000?!

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Better get reading then, hadn’t you?

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Bookst

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Buried in my little joke-ette was a truth that I never feel particularly qualified to comment on these things as I have only listened to or read things that I have stumbled across by accident and who knows what I have missed?

Seems a bit arrogant for me to comment on what the best book of the 20th C is.

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True, but this series is based on the arrogance of The Guardian in naming the best Xxxxxx of everything this century even though we’re only a fifth of the way through it.

It’s just “here’s a list of things I liked” really, innit :slight_smile:

Yeah I know.

I just get unreasonably stressed when I try and do these things. Couldn’t even do a top 10 marvel films with my 10 year old the other day.

All I’m trying to say is “I wish you luck but I will not partake”

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adds to list

Going to have to go with the bible again

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digs out spreadsheet

I’m not 100% sure, but I think it may be more than 20 years old.

I’m staying well away from this one for the following four reasons:

  • The Goblet of Fire (2000)
  • The Order of the Phoenix (2003)
  • The Half-Blood Prince (2005)
  • The Deathly Hallows (2007)
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(and also because I mostly read comics and no one else is going to vote for comics)

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A bold set of nominations Sadpunk. Didn’t expect you to go for Pottermore.

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Don’t test me, zeal.

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If Goblet of Fire makes the top 10 I’m coming to you for a quote.

Happy to oblige! :+1:

putting those four Harry Potter books and Lily Allen’s autobiography in my top 5 :sunglasses:

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Pondering this is making me realise how little I read these days. And that my favourite authors of this century are almost exclusively male :confused:

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Yeah. When I do mine it’s gonna be dominated by stuff from 2000-2010 and disproportionately male. At a quick skim through likely stuff there’ll be some female representation, but not enough.