The best literary fiction of the 21st century so far

Ask us which modern novels people will still be reading in fifty years and these six come up again and again. They’re the books that win the prizes andget pressed into a friend’s hands — acclaimed, ambitious, and genuinely moving. A great place to start if you want the best of 21st-century literary fiction.

The Road — Cormac McCarthy

A father and son walk through a gray, ruined America, carrying “the fire.” The Road is spare, devastating, and somehow tender — a Pulitzer winner that strips storytelling to its bones.

Never Let Me Go — Kazuo Ishiguro

Three friends raised at a strange English boarding school slowly understand the purpose of their lives. Never Let Me Go is quiet science fiction in literary clothing — and one of the saddest, most humane novels of the century.

A Little Life — Hanya Yanagihara

Four friends in New York over decades, and the deep wounds one of them carries. A Little Lifeis enormous, polarizing, and unforgettable — go in knowing it’s a heavy, harrowing read that readers either clutch to their chests or have to set down.

Pachinko — Min Jin Lee

A Korean family across four generations in 20th-century Japan, enduring and persisting against the odds. Pachinko is a sweeping, big-hearted saga — historical in reach but unmistakably modern in its empathy.

Cloud Cuckoo Land — Anthony Doerr

Five characters across centuries — from the siege of Constantinople to a spaceship — bound together by a single lost ancient text. Cloud Cuckoo Land is an ambitious, hopeful ode to stories and the people who keep them alive.

The Overstory — Richard Powers

Nine strangers whose lives are shaped, and ultimately reshaped, by trees. The Overstory is a Pulitzer winner of huge scope that will change how you look at the woods on your next walk.

Where to start

Short on time? The Road or Never Let Me Go are slim and unforgettable. Want a saga to sink into? Pachinko or The Overstory. And brace yourself before A Little Life. Many of these are also wonderful group reads — see our best book club books for more, or our list of literary fiction that makes you cry.

Find your next one

We keep a deep, ever-rotating literary fiction section thanks to trade-ins. Browse our shelves, ask the Matchmaker for something in this vein, or visit usin Milwaukie and we’ll talk you into the right one.