The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century, as compiled by the New York Times, includes no plays, nor any non-fiction books about the theater. I might have selected at least two of the dozen great theater books published in the past decade. But there are four books on the Times list that do have a strong connection to the theater, although not directly.
Ranked 3. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
Description: “In “Wolf Hall” she took a starchy historical personage, Thomas Cromwell, and saw the vivid, relentless, blind-spotted, memory-haunted, grandly alive human being he must have been. “
Theater connection: Mike Poulton turned the novel and its sequel “Bring Up The Bodies.” into a two-part play on Broadway in 2015, “Wolf Hall Parts 1 and 2.”
Ranked 11: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
Description: “Díaz’s first novel landed like a meteorite in 2007, dazzling critics and prize juries with its mix of Dominican history, coming-of-age tale, comic-book tropes, Tolkien geekery and Spanglish slang….”
Theater connection: Adapted by Marco Antonio Rodriguez into a play at Repertoire Espanol in 2019 — which is being performed there again later this month.
Ranked 12: The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Description: “Having for decades cast a famously cool and implacable eye on everything from the Manson family to El Salvador, Didion suddenly found herself in a hellscape much closer to home: the abrupt death of her partner in life and art, John Gregory Dunne, even as their only child lay unconscious in a nearby hospital room”
Theater connection: Adapted by Didion into a solo play on Broadway in 2007, starring Vanessa Redgrave
Ranked 35: Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
Description: “A queer business.” That’s how Bechdel describes her closeted father’s death after he steps in the path of a Sunbeam Bread truck. The phrase also applies to her family’s funeral home concern; their own Victorian, Addams-like dwelling; and this marvelous graphic memoir of growing up gay and O.C.D.-afflicted (which generated a remarkable Broadway musical).”
Theater connection: Adapted by Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori into a (yes, remarkable) Tony-winning Broadway musical in 2015.
