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CA

Contemporary American fiction

Novels and stories by American writers published since 2000, from Saunders and Franzen to book-club favourites and comic novels.

76 books on Contemporary American fiction, recommended by 32 people including Zoë Foster Blake and Bill Gates.

76 books · 32 experts

Start here

  1. A Painted HouseJohn Grisham, 2000
  2. Fierce Invalids Home From Hot ClimatesTom Robbins, 2000
  3. Licks of LoveJohn Updike, 2000
  4. ShopgirlSteve Martin, 2000
  5. The Last SamuraiHelen DeWitt, 2000

The best books on Contemporary American fiction 76

John Updike · 2000
Recommended byAndrew Wilkinson
Steve Martin · 2000
Recommended byEv Williams
Ann Patchett · 2001
Recommended byMelinda Gates
Jonathan Franzen · 2001
Recommended byEv Williams
David Markson · 2004
Recommended byMohnish Pabrai
Gary Shteyngart · 2006
Recommended byEv Williams
Hanya Yanagihara · 2008
Recommended byZoë Foster Blake
Diane Chamberlain · 2009
Recommended byPatrick Collison
Edward O. Wilson · 2010
Recommended byMohnish Pabrai
“the book he wrote about it is hilarious”Andrew Wilkinson
Recommended byAndrew Wilkinson
“Celeste Ng's second novel was a 2017 selection that Witherspoon and Kerry Washington co-produced as a Hulu limited series. The book's central question — who gets to define a family, and who gets to burn down the rules — maps directly onto themes the club returns to repeatedly.”Reese Witherspoon
Viet Thanh Nguyen · 2015
Recommended byBill Gates
T4 Less
Andrew Sean Greer · 2017
Taylor Jenkins Reid · 2017
“Taylor Jenkins Reid's Hollywood-set novel was selected in 2019 and introduced many club readers to Reid before Daisy Jones arrived. Witherspoon has talked about Evelyn Hugo's moral complexity — a woman who made ruthless choices and refuses to apologize for them — as exactly the kind of female character the club exists to champion.”Reese Witherspoon
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah · 2018
Recommended byVinod Khosla
Leland de la Durantaye · 2018
Recommended byCaterina Fake
Sigrid Nunez · 2018
Recommended byBill Gates
Kristin Hannah · 2018
“Kristin Hannah's novel about an Alaska homestead gone wrong was a 2018 pick that gave the club one of its starkest protagonists: a teenage girl watching her father's trauma unravel the world her mother built around it. Witherspoon has cited it as the Hannah novel that hooked her on the author entirely.”Reese Witherspoon
Chloe Benjamin · 2018
Recommended bySophie Bakalar
“One of the club's signature picks and its best-known adaptation — Witherspoon's production company produced the 2022 film. She selected it in 2018 and has described it as the book she hand-sold to more people than any other, telling friends to cancel their plans and read it immediately.”Reese Witherspoon
Jessica Yellin · 2019
Recommended byArianna Huffington
Joanne Ramos · 2019
Recommended byZoë Foster Blake
Kate Elizabeth Russell · 2020
Recommended byZoë Foster Blake
Brit Bennett · 2020
“Brit Bennett's novel about twin sisters who choose opposite racial identities was a 2020 selection. Witherspoon has described it as a book that opens up the question of what we choose about ourselves versus what is chosen for us — and what it costs either way.”Reese Witherspoon
Simon Rich · 2021
Recommended byAndrew Wilkinson
Amor Towles · 2021
“…books I've recommended, highlighted to death, or forced on friends.”Andrew Wilkinson
Barbara Kingsolver · 2022
Recommended byAndrew Wilkinson
Bruce Holsinger · 2025
Recommended byBill Gates
Daniel Handler
Recommended byEv Williams
Miranda July
Recommended byEv Williams
Chuck Palahniuk
Recommended byNat Eliason
Danny Senna
Recommended byRadhika Jones
“A favorite novel he put at the top of his entrepreneurs reading list.”Fred Wilson
Susan Reiger
Recommended byZoë Foster Blake
Cormac McCarthy
“Cormac McCarthy's 2006 Pulitzer winner was a departure from the club's usual emotional register — spare, brutal, without resolution. Oprah's on-air conversation with the notoriously press-shy McCarthy remains one of the club's most-watched segments.”Oprah Winfrey

Experts 32

The people who wrote this page's books, and the people who recommend them.

Recommenders 32

Zoë Foster Blakerecommends 18 books hereBill Gatesrecommends 9 books hereEv Williamsrecommends 8 books here
AW
Andrew Wilkinsonrecommends 7 books here
Patrick Collisonrecommends 7 books here
MP
Mohnish Pabrairecommends 6 books here
Melinda Gatesrecommends 5 books here
RJ
Radhika Jonesrecommends 5 books here
Reese Witherspoonrecommends 5 books here
SB
Sophie Bakalarrecommends 5 books here
Arianna Huffingtonrecommends 4 books here
DK
Diana Kimballrecommends 3 books here
Show all 32
See all 32 in the Experts tab →

More modern literary fiction: ← British, Irish and Commonwealth fiction · European and world fiction → · All modern literary fiction