What Makes a Great Book Great?

by James Wallace Harris, 7/13/24

The New York Times has made quite a splash with its interactive feature 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. The list was created by polling 503 writers, critics, and other book lovers to vote for their top ten books of the 21st century. The final one hundred were the most popular books among all the 503 voters. The NY Times site allowed their readers to mark which books they’ve read from the one hundred, and which books they wanted to read. Here’s my tally:

But I must ask the question: What makes a great book great? Were these just the most popular books read by writers and critics? Does that make them great? Dozens of nominators allowed the NY Times to publish their ballot, which lets us readers understand what kind of books everyone liked in general. You can read their ballots here. This also reveals books that didn’t make it to the final one hundred list, and I’ve read many of them too.

The #1 most voted for book is My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante. I’ve tried reading it, and I’ve tried listening to it, and even tried watching the miniseries based on it, and never finished any attempt. I’m not saying it was bad, but it just didn’t hook me.

The #2 most voted for book is The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson, which I have read and consider one of the best books I’ve ever read. It’s a monumental nonfiction book that took Wilkerson a decade to write. It’s a history of the migration of African Americans from the South to the North between 1915 and 1970.

The Warmth of Other Suns would be the archetype of a great book in my mind. From it, can I define what qualities go into a great book? Well, first, a great book must cover a great subject. I would say, a great work of nonfiction needs to leave me feeling like I’ve learned something profound about reality. By that measure, I can quickly fill up my top ten great books of the 20th century with these titles leaving no room for fiction:

1. The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
2. The Information by James Geick
3. Jesus Before the Gospels by Bart D. Ehrman
4. An Immense World by Ed Yong
5. The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf
6. Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo
7. The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli
8. Fantasyland by Kurt Andersen
9. Dark Money by Jane Mayer
10. The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson

And this is just from a quick look at my bookshelves. If I studied my reading log of books read published after 1/1/2000 I’d probably find plenty more to compete for the top ten spots.

All ten books above have the qualities I’d consider needed to make a great book, but the reality is that’s because they’re nonfiction. Fiction often deals with historical, scientific, and philosophical topics, but do they deal with them honestly? Does reading a novel about racism or inequality have the same impact and value as reading a nonfiction book about the subject?

Greatness is much harder to evaluate in fiction. I read a lot of science fiction, but I’d never but consider it great literature. None of the novels I’ve read in the NY Times 100 list are great in my mind. I might call them great reads because they were entertaining and page turners, but I’m not sure I’d reread any of them.

I love the novels by Elizabeth Strout but are they great? Olive Kitteridge made the list, and it’s probably favorite of the novels that did, but is it better than Strout’s other novels? I think I like Olive, Again, and Lucy by the Sea even more. Franzen’s The Corrections got on the list, it’s my least favorite of his books. I’m partial to Crossroads. And as much as I liked Richard Powers’ The Overstory, I much prefer Bewilderment.

I’m not sure if greatness in fiction can be recognized so soon. It might take a century, or at least a half-century. I reread older novels. I’ve read On the Road by Jack Kerouac and The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway three times each. They go in and out of fashion. I’m not even sure if I think they’re great, but I keep reading them and reading about them. Is that the mark of greatness in fiction?

I wish the Times had three different Top 100 lists for the 21st century. Novels, Nonfiction, and Memoirs/Biographies. Memoirs like In the Darkroom by Susan Faludi, The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Educated by Tara Westover are far more powerful to me than any of the novels.

For me, major nonfiction works trump memoirs in the greatness impact. But then memoirs are far more impactful to me than novels. I don’t know why novels get all the fame. However, nonfiction works seldom stay in print. As great as The Warmth of Other Suns might be, will it be read often fifty years from now? And that’s also true for memoirs. Biographies tend to last a bit longer, until someone writes a new definitive biography on the subject.

Most books are forgotten. Of all the novels listed in the final list and from the nomination lists, how many will be read after 2050? I was blown away by Middlesex when it came out, but I just don’t feel like rereading it. I’m looking forward to rereading Olive Kitteridge (and the other Strout books). And I’m looking forward to rereading a few other novels from 2000-2024 someday, probably Lessons in Chemistry, A Gentleman in Moscow, and Bewilderment. Is that a factor that designates them as great? I don’t know.

I also think age is a factor when considering novels great. When we’re young, any novel that’s exciting to read is great. I don’t know if that’s true now that I’m in my social security years. In the last third of life, greatness in books seems to equate with resonating with what I’ve learned throughout my lifetime. Whether with fiction or nonfiction, it must reveal something that makes me think, “Oh wow, that’s so damn insightful.” Entertaining is a big plus, but it doesn’t count for much in judging a book great.

Nonfiction must be great in terms of understanding reality, while fiction must be great in terms of understanding being human. Now that I’m getting old, I think the tide is turning against fiction, which might be why I’m so hard on it now.

JWH