Best contemporary books of all time

Actually, constructing a canon of any kind is a little weird at the moment, when so much of how we measure cultural value is in flux. Its supposed permanence became the subject of more recent battles, back in the 20th century, between those who defended it as the foundation of Western civilization and those who attacked it as exclusive or even racist. But what if you could start a canon from scratch? We thought it might be fun to speculate very prematurely on what a canon of the 21st century might look like right now. We asked each of them to name several books that belong among the most important works of fiction, memoir, poetry, and essays since and tallied the results. The purpose was not to build a fixed library but to take a blurry selfie of a cultural moment. Any project like this is arbitrary, and ours is no exception.

A few months back, one of our customers sent us a special request for a list of 10 books we felt everyone absolutely must read in his or her lifetime. The question intrigued us and we immediately launched into a heated debate. Should the Bible be on the list? No text has influenced Western culture more, but might it be equally important to read the Koran or the Torah for a more enlightened worldview? How could we whittle down our list to just 10 books? As it turns out, we couldn't.

There are certain books that feel almost inherently "classic. Catcher in the Rye. Moby freaking Dick. But do you ever wonder what the world thought when these books first hit shelves? Who was the initial voice that pointed to their covers and said, "You - you're special"?