I asked for recommended reading for books written since 2000. (I’ve been reading a lot of best-of lists, which tend to be 20+ years behind the times.)
Here what I got. I marked the racy romances in case you’re around THOSE kind of people, the ones who disapprove of things as a hobby.
Fiction:
- Jonathan Mayberry’s Joe Ledger series, which starts with Patient Zero.
- Michael Connelly’s new series about Renee Ballard, which starts with The Late Show.
- Tom Hanks’s short story collection, Uncommon Type.
- N.K. Jemesin’s Broken Earth trilogy (read book 1, need to finish).
- Barbara Nickless’s Sydney Rose trilogy, which starts with Blood on the Tracks.
- Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series (read book 1). There is also an attractive graphic novel series…
- The Revelations Cycle, which starts with Mark Wandry’s Cartwright’s Cavaliers and continues on to Asbaran Solutions, by Chris Kennedy. A nifty multi-author series idea.
- HARD and Sometimes Never by Cheryl McIntyre, racy romances.
- The Jack and Jill series, by Jewel E. Ann, which starts with End of Day (more racy romances).
- The Bees, by Lauline Paull.
- Tana French’s Detective Murder Squad series, which starts with In the Woods.
- Gail Carriger’s Finishing School Series (read books 1 and 2 and need to finish). Probably also the rest of her stuff I haven’t read.
- Disappearance at Devil’s Rock by Paul Tremblay.
- The Fisherman, by John Langan.
- The Heroes, by Joe Abercrombie.
- We Eat Our Own, by Kea Wilson.
- Company, by Max Barry.
- James S.A. Corey’s The Expanse series (read book 1).
- The Temeraire series and Uprooted, by Naomi Novik (read book 1).
- Carrie Vaughn’s Bannerless Saga, starting with Bannerless.
- The Visible Filth by Nathan Ballingrud.
- Ramsey Campbell’s The Three Births of Daoloth, starting with The Searching Dead.
- Mark T. Barnes’s Echoes of Empire series, starting with The Garden of Stones.
- The Secret King: Lethao, by Dawn Chapman.
- Wraith Knight, by C.T. Phipps.
- Tim Marquitz’s Blood War trilogy, starting with Dawn of War.
- The Fold, by Peter Clines.
- The Genesis Code, by John Case.
- KL Kreig’s Finding Me duet, starting with Lost in Between (racy romance).
- Carian Cole’s Devils Wolves series, starting with Torn (racy romance).
- Mark Z. Danielzewski’s The Familiar, of which Volume 1 is One Rainy Day in May.
- Indigo, by Beverly Jenkins.
- Mongrels, by Stephen Graham Jones.
- Maggie Fenton’s Regency Romp trilogy.
- Cixin Liu’s Remembrance of Earth’s Past series, starting with The Three-Body Problem.
- Sergei Lukyaneko’s Night Watch series, starting with Night Watch (I’ve read Night Watch and Day Watch already).
- Drop City, by T.C. Boyle.
- Slaves of the Switchboard of Doom, by Bradley W. Schenk.
- Sabrina York’s Tryst Island series, starting with Rebound (racy romance).
- The Martian, by Andy Weir.
- Harry Connolly’s Twenty Palaces series, starting with Child of Fire.
- The Virgin Romance Novelist, by Meghan Quinn.
- Janet Evanovitch’s Stephanie Plum series (read the first two).
- The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz.
- The Gargoyle, by Andrew Davidson.
- A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini.
- Delia’s Shadow, by Jamie Lee Moyer.
- Anything is Possible, by Elizabeth Strout.
- Richard Kadrey’s Sandman Slim series, starting with Sandman Slim.
- T. Kingfisher’s Clocktaur War series, starting with Clockwork Boys.
- The Odyssey, translated by Emily Wilson. I don’t normally reread things because of a new translation, but this might be an exception.
- The Sisters Brothers, by Patrick DeWitt.
- Ferrett Steinmetz’s ‘Mancer series, starting with Flex.
- The Last Namsara, by Kristen Ciccarelli.
- All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr.
- The Nightengale, by Kristen Hannah.
- Ella Minnow Pea, by Mark Dunn.
- A Secret History of Witches, by Louisa Morgan.
- The Rules of Magic, by Alice Hoffman.
- The Witches of New York, by Ami McKay.
- Karen Robards’s Dr. Charlotte Stone series, starting with The Last Victim.
- Lisa Scottoline’s Rosato & Associates series, starting with Everywhere That Mary Went.
- Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville.
Nonfiction:
- The Devil’s Flu, by Pete Davies.
- The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine, by Lindsey Fitzharris.
- Welcome to the Universe, by Neil deGrasse Tyson.
- Hero, by Michael Korda (Lawrence of Arabia).
- The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls.
- Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari.
- Endurance, by Alfred Lansing (Shackleton).
- A Universe from Nothing, by Lawrence Krauss.
Let me know if you have more 🙂