What Is the Best Work of American Fiction of the Last 25 Years?

"What Is the Best Work of American Fiction of the Last 25 Years?" is an informal opinion poll conducted in 2006 by the New York Times Book Review (NYTBR) to determine "the single best work of American fiction published in the last 25 years." Eligible works were those written by an American author and published during the quarter-century period from 1980 through 2005. The poll was conducted by NYTBR editor Sam Tanenhaus, who sent letters to literary figures requesting their participation and received 124 responses. The results were published on May 21, 2006, in the Sunday edition of the New York Times. An essay by A. O. Scott, titled "In Search of the Best", reflected on the results and the premise of the "Great American Novel".

Toni Morrison's 1987 novel Beloved received the most votes, a result that had been anticipated by Tanenhaus, Scott, and several poll participants. The runners-up were the novels Underworld (1997) by Don DeLillo; a tie for third place between Blood Meridian (1985) by Cormac McCarthy and Rabbit Angstrom: A Tetralogy (1995) by John Updike; and American Pastoral (1997) by Philip Roth. The full list featured another 17 works that garnered at least two votes; some books with only one vote were later identified in other sources. Works by Roth received more total votes than those by any other author.

The poll spurred vigorous debate and a wide range of commentary on the status of an American literary canon. Critics of the poll found its results to be unrepresentative of the breadth of contemporary American literature, noting apparent biases against—for example—women's writing, regionalist literature, or genre fiction. Taking inspiration from the exercise, The Observer conducted its own poll for the best novel published during the same timespan by a writer from Britain, Ireland, or the Commonwealth, with J. M. Coetzee's Disgrace (1999) emerging as the winner.