New York Times Best Books of the 21st Century

I, along with many others, followed The New York Times' slow roll out of the best books of the 21st century. These were chosen by 503 different people, spanning authors, critics, and just general book people. 

Are there books that are missing from the list that probably should have been there? I'm sure there are. Are there ones that should have never made it in the first place? Yep. But, that is what makes books so great. There is something for everyone. What works for one, may not work for another and that is ok!

That being said, as a book buyer, it's hard to find that balance. There are hundreds of books released every week and thousands upon thousands of backlist books. So, how do we choose? 

Three years ago, when we began looking at books to stock in the store, we had two options. We could use a list called a ROSI (Recommended Opening Store Inventory) created by the distributor, or we could just pick and chose what we like. 

We chose the second option. We asked friends, researched, read reviews, looked at our own shelves, and went genre by genre. In the end, we started the shop with over 2000 brand new books. As of July 1, 2024, we had 4,640 new books and 260 used books. 

That is a lot of books! So, when the list came out from the NYT, I wondered how many of these top 100 books had I ordered. 

Wel....I nervously went through all 100 books and compared them to our inventory. We presently, have 45 of those books in stock. Not bad. Not great. 

Honestly, there is a big part of me that wishes I had more. But, I also know that diversity is what makes each bookstore and reader unique. There are so many wonderfully amazing books out there. In fact, we have 4595 of those waiting just for you. 

So, take a look at what we do have off the NYT list: NYT Best Books Available. I order books from our distributor twice a week, so I am pretty sure that there are a few more of these titles that will be in the shop soon. Also, please note that we can special order just about any book for you and we receive it usually in 2 days. 

PS* Well, for what it's worth, I feel much better after looking at our distributor's catalogs and realizing that many of the books on the list are no longer available in their warehouses.