Our 50 Books for 50 Years list comes from this place of self-reflection, and is inspired by Powell's 50th anniversary year. From the fall of the Berlin Wall to 9/11; Edward Abbey's nascent environmental movement to Barry Lopez's luminous Arctic Dreams; Alice Walker's Celie and Shug to Jennifer Finney Boylan's groundbreaking work of trans autobiography; Jeff Chang's treatise on hip-hop to Patricia Lockwood's autopsy of Living Online, these 50 books not only show us who we have been as a country and a species and where we are going, but the power of the right words, at the right time, to act as a mirror and a beacon.
— Powell's Books, 2021