The Greatest Nonfiction Books Since 1900


How is this list generated?


This list is generated from 130 "best of" book lists from a variety of great sources. An algorithm is used to create a master list based on how many lists a particular book appears on. Some lists count more than others. I generally trust "best of all time" lists voted by authors and experts over user-generated lists. On the lists that are actually ranked, the book that is 1st counts a lot more than the book that's 100th. If you're interested in the details about how the rankings are generated and which lists are the most important(in my eyes) please check out the list details page.

If you have any comments, suggestions, or corrections please feel free to e-mail me.


  1. 1001 . Uncertainty Principle by Werner Heisenberg

  2. 1002 . The Pleasure of the Text by Roland Barthes

    The Pleasure of the Text is a short book published in 1975 by Roland Barthes. It was written in French and later translated into English. Barthes sets out some of his ideas about literary theory.

  3. 1003 . How We Live by Rust Hills

  4. 1004 . Taking the World in for Repairs by Richard Selzer

    A collection of a dozen short stories, essays, and memoirs originally published in 1986, and now available in trade paperback. Richard Selzer retired as a surgeon in 1984 to write about his profess...

    - Google
  5. 1005 . Picture by Lillian Ross

    In the spring of 1950, when New Yorker staff writer Lillian Ross heard that John Huston was planning to make a film of Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage, she decided she would follow the mov...

    - Google
  6. 1006 . Documents of Modern Art by Robert Motherwell

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  7. 1007 . A Life's Work: On Becoming a Mother by Rachel Cusk

    Rachel Cusk (born in Canada in 1967) is an author.

  8. 1008 . The Water Is Wide by Pat Conroy

    The bestselling Pat Conroy memoir—now available as an ebook The moving story of a young teacher’s experience on an island forgotten by the world Though the children of Yamacraw Island live less tha...

    - Google
  9. 1009 . Recollected Essays by Wendell Berry

    These eleven essays, selected by the author from five previous collections, provides us with a single volume tracing Mr. Berry's desire to 'make myself responsibly at home in this world and in my n...

    - Google
  10. 1010 . Reflections from Captivity by Ho Chi Minn

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  11. 1011 . The Uses of Literacy by Richard Hoggart

    This pioneering work examines changes in the life and values of the English working class in response to mass media. First published in 1957, it mapped out a new methodology in cultural studies bas...

    - Google
  12. 1012 . The Last Days of Hitler by Hugh Trevor-Roper

    Late in 1945, Trevor-Roper was appointed by British Intelligence in Germany to investigate conflicting evidence surrounding Hitler's final days and to produce a definitive report on his death. The ...

    - Google
  13. 1013 . Psychological Types by Carl Jung

  14. 1014 . A Sense of Where You Are by John McPhee

  15. 1015 . Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

    The founder of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama recounts his experiences as a lawyer working to assist those desperately in need, reflecting on his pursuit of the ideal of compas...

    - Google
  16. 1016 . The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama

    The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream is the second book written by then-Senator Barack Obama. In the fall of 2006 it became number one on both the New York Times and Amaz...

  17. 1017 . The Paris Review Interviews by Paris Review

    The Paris Review is an English-language literary magazine based in New York City. As its name suggests it was founded in Paris in 1953, for "the good writers and good poets, the non-drumbeaters and...

  18. 1018 . Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The Golden Age of Rock by Nik Cohn

    Written in 1968 and revised in 1972, Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom was the first book to celebrate the language and the primal essence of rock 'n' roll. But it was much more than that. It was a cogent...

    - Google
  19. 1019 . Self-Consciousness by John Updike

    John Updike’s memoirs consist of six Emersonian essays that together trace the inner shape of the life, up to the age of fifty-five, of a relatively fortunate American male. The author has attempte...

    - Google
  20. 1020 . The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux

    First published more than thirty years ago, Paul Theroux's strange, unique, and hugely entertaining railway odyssey has become a modern classic of travel literature. Here Theroux recounts his early...

    - Google
  21. 1021 . A Life of Picasso by John Richardson

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  22. 1022 . Fiction and the Figures of Life by William H. Gass

  23. 1023 . The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer

    The publication of Germaine Greer's The Female Eunuch in 1970 was a landmark event, raising eyebrows and ire while creating a shock wave of recognition in women around the world with its steadfast ...

    - Google
  24. 1024 . Being Jordan by Katie Price

  25. 1025 . The Blair Years by Alastair Campbell

    The Blair Years is a book by Alastair Campbell, featuring extracts from his diaries detailing the period during which he worked for Tony Blair. Published by Random House, the book was released on 9...

  26. 1026 . The World Within the Word by William H. Gass

  27. 1027 . Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson by George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff

  28. 1028 . Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck

    A collectible 50th anniversary deluxe edition featuring an updated introduction by Jay Parini and first edition cover art and illustrated maps of Steinbeck’s route by Don Freeman In September 1960,...

    - Google
  29. 1029 . Patterns of Culture by Ruth Benedict

  30. 1031 . The Mind and Society by Vilfredo Pareto

    The Mind and Society (1916) is the English title of the seminal sociological work Trattato di Sociologia Generale by the Italian sociologist and economist Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923).

  31. 1032 . Fargo Rock City by Chuck Klosterman

    Fargo Rock City: A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural Nörth Daköta is a book written by Chuck Klosterman, first published by Scribner in 2001. It is a history of heavy metal music, with a particular emph...

  32. 1033 . Hunger of Memory by Richard Rodriguez

    Hunger of Memory is the story of Mexican-American Richard Rodriguez, who begins his schooling in Sacramento, California, knowing just 50 words of English, and concludes his university studies in th...

    - Google
  33. 1034 . Enemies of Promise by Cyril Connolly

    “Whom the gods wish to destroy,” writes Cyril Connolly, “they first call promising.” First published in 1938 and long out of print, Enemies of Promise, an “inquiry into the problem of how to write ...

    - Google
  34. 1035 . Ever Since Darwin: Reflections in Natural History by Stephen Jay Gould

    Stephen Jay Gould reexamines Darwin's theory in light of the findings of modern evolutionary biology and shows the ways in which biological theories have been concocted to justify social ills

    - Google
  35. 1036 . For the Union Dead by Robert Lowell

    For the Union Dead is a 1964 poem by Robert Lowell, published in a book of the same name. It was written in response to Allen Tate's 1928 poem Ode to the Confederate Dead. Robert Gould Shaw and th...

  36. 1037 . The School and the Child by John Dewey

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  37. 1038 . Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching by Mychal Denzel Smith

    New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice How do you learn to be a black man in America? For young black men today, it means coming of age during the presidency of Barack Obama. It means witnessin...

    - Google
  38. 1039 . Coming into the Country by John McPhee

    Coming into the Country is an unforgettable account of Alaska and Alaskans. It is a rich tapestry of vivid characters, observed landscapes, and descriptive narrative, in three principal segments th...

    - Google
  39. 1040 . The Economic Consequences of the Peace by John Maynard Keynes

    The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919) is a book written and published by the British economist John Maynard Keynes.[1] After the First World War, Keynes attended the Paris Peace Conference ...

  40. 1041 . The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell

    The Road to Wigan Pier is a book by the British writer George Orwell, first published in 1937. The first half of this work documents his sociological investigations of the bleak living conditions a...

  41. 1042 . A Book of Mediterranean Food by Elizabeth David

    A Book of Mediterranean Food - published in 1950 - was Elizabeth David's first book and it is based on a collection of recipes she made while living in France, Italy, the Greek islands and Egypt. '...

    - Google
  42. 1043 . Metaphors of Memory by D. Draaisma

    What is memory? It is at the same time ephemeral, unreliable and essential to everything we do. Without memory we lose our sense of identity, reasoning, even our ability to perform simple physical ...

    - Google
  43. 1044 . The New Fiction by Joe David Bellamy

  44. 1045 . A Drinking Life: A Memoir by Pete Hamill

    As a child during the Depression and World War II, Pete Hamill learned early that drinking was an essential part of being a man, inseparable from the rituals of celebration, mourning, friendship, r...

    - Google
  45. 1046 . Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus by John Gray

    Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus (published in May 1992) is a book by John Gray offering many suggestions for improving men-women relationships in couples by understanding the communication ...

  46. 1047 . On Aggression by Konrad Lorenz

    On Aggression (1966) is a book by ethologist Konrad Lorenz. As he writes in the prologue, "the subject of this book is aggression, that is to say the fighting instinct in beast and man which is dir...

  47. 1048 . What It Takes by Richard Ben Cramer

  48. 1049 . Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky

    A book about Cod.

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  49. 1050 . Surrealist Manifesto by André Breton