I'm adding these to the first twenty-five. For the most part, these are more recent books that I think will stand the test of time.

 

 
 
 "My Name Is Lucy Barton" by Elizabeth Strout (2016)
 
 
 

"My Name Is Lucy Barton" is about "A poor girl from Amgash who loved her momma." It's not a plot-driven book or even a character-driven book. It's a book in which Lucy, talking to us directly and frankly shares her thoughts, emotions and memories about how she and her mother were together.

 
 

In a few hours of listening, I felt that I knew who Lucy Barton was, at least as well as anyone can know such a thing.

 
 

This is a book about love. It is not romantic or sentimental. It is an honest account of how complicated and painful and necessary love is. Lucy Barton knows that

 

"We all love imperfectly."

 

but she does not see that not as a weakness but as an unavoidable truth.

 

I put it on my list because it is one of the most truthful books I've read and because I think the style and structure of the novel are innovative.

 

 
 
 
 

"The Fireman" by Joe Hill (2016)

 
 

"The Fireman" made my list not just because it is a well-written. long, unhurried but never boring book with a novel post-apocalyptic premise but because Joe Hill uses the book to show us, in all its ugly detail, how people behave under stress.

 
 

He explores how they treat those who are weak and pose a threat, what they allow themselves to do when the rule of law falls, what they make themselves do in the name of the greater good, how groups abdicate personal responsibility and how symbols of hope can be co-opted to become mechanisms of repression.

 
 

These are things we need to understand right now.

 

 
 
 
 

"The Water Knife" by Paolo Bacigalupi (2015)

 
 

"The Water Knife" made my list because it's the best example I've read of the emerging Cli Fi (Climate Fiction) genre.

 
 

It's set in a future US that has been ripped apart by the long-term water shortage. It's a world where the powerful are the ones who first understood that:

 
 

“Some people had to bleed so other people could drink.”

 
 

and acted ruthlessly to ensure they wouldn't be the ones bleeding.

 
 

It's a grim, difficult, disturbing book because that is the nature of the world being described. There are no heroes, just people trying to do what they can with what they have in a world that doesn’t care about them or what they want.

 

 
 
 
 

"The Readers Of Broken Wheel Recommend" by Katarina Bivald (2013)

 
 

"The Readers Of Broken Wheel Recommend" made my list because i have a soft spot for books about book lovers and this is the best one of those that I know.

 
 

It's a wonderful romantic comedy about books, small-town America, books, friendship, books, love, books and how to live a life worth reading about.

 
 

It tells a story of the world as I would like it to be, where good people help each other to be better people and books expand people’s imaginations and unlock their hearts.

 
 

It made me laugh and cry. It made me think about the balance between reading and doing and about how both of them count as living. Most of all, it left me wanting to move to Broken Wheel and take all my books with me.

 

 
 
 
 

"My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She's Sorry" by Fredrick Backman (2013)

 
 

“My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She’s Sorry” beautifully written modern fairy tale that delivers old truths so that they taste as fresh as newly baked biscuits.

 
 

It tells the story of an almost eight-year-old girl who, at the death of her eccentric but much-loved grandmother, confronts grief and loss, knowing that they can’t be defeated but must not be surrendered to.

  

It made my list because it made me want to be better than I am. It gave me hope that I can be better than I am. It gave me permission to forgive myself when I fail to be better. It reminded me that imagination is the birth-place of hope and love and bravery. Most of all, it made me want to defend the castle and take care of those I love (you’ll know what this means when you read the book).

  

This is one of those wonderful, perfectly formed, books that go beyond being a beautifully crafted piece of writing to become something that has a soul of its own.