The Greatest Nonfiction Books Written by British Authors

  1. 1 . On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin

    Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, published on Thursday 24 November 1859, is a seminal work of scientific literature considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology. Its full title...

  2. 2 . A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf

    A Room of One's Own is an extended essay by . First published during 24 October 1929, it was based on a series of lectures she delivered at Newnham College and Girton College, two women's colleges ...

  3. 3 . Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell

    Homage to Catalonia is political journalist and novelist George Orwell's personal account of his experiences and observations in the Spanish Civil War, written in the first person.

  4. 4 . The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money by John Maynard Keynes

    The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money was written by the English economist John Maynard Keynes. The book, generally considered to be his magnum opus, is largely credited with creatin...

  5. 5 . The Second World War by Winston Churchill

    The Second World War is a six-volume history of the period from the end of the First World War to July 1945, written by Sir Winston Churchill. It was largely responsible for him winning (in 1953) t...

  6. 6 . Black Lamb and Grey Falcon by Rebecca West

    Black Lamb and Grey Falcon is an 1,181-page travel book written by Dame Rebecca West, published in 1941. The book gives an account of Balkan history and ethnography, and the significance of Nazi...

  7. 7 . Collected Essays of George Orwell by George Orwell

    In this bestselling compilation of essays, written in the clear-eyed, uncompromising language for which he is famous, Orwell discusses with vigor such diverse subjects as his boyhood schooling, the...

  8. 8 . Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

    Leviathan, The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil, commonly called Leviathan, is a book written by Thomas Hobbes which was published in 1651. It is titled after th...

  9. 9 . Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis

    Mere Christianity is a theological book by C. S. Lewis, adapted from a series of BBC radio talks made between 1941 and 1944, while Lewis was at Oxford during World War II. Considered a classic of C...

  10. 10 . A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking

    A landmark volume in science writing by one of the great minds of our time, Stephen Hawking’s book explores such profound questions as: How did the universe begin—and what made its start possible? ...

    - Google
  11. 11 . Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton

    Orthodoxy is a book by G. K. Chesterton that has become a classic of Christian apologetics. Chesterton considered this book a companion to his other work, Heretics. In the book's preface Chesterton...

  12. 12 . Philosophical Investigations by Ludwig Wittgenstein

    Philosophical Investigations is, along with the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, one of the two most influential works by the 20th-century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. In it, Wittgenstein discus...

  13. 13 . The Open Society by Karl Popper

    The Open Society and Its Enemies is an influential two-volume work by Karl Popper written during World War II. Failing to find a publisher in the United States, it was first printed in London by Ro...

  14. 14 . A Study of History by Arnold J. Toynbee

    A Study of History is the 12-volume magnum opus of British historian Arnold J. Toynbee, finished in 1961. In this immensely detailed and complex work, Toynbee traces the birth, growth and decay of ...

  15. 15 . Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang

    The story of three generations in twentieth-century China that blends the intimacy of memoir and the panoramic sweep of eyewitness history—a bestselling classic in thirty languages with more than t...

    - Google
  16. 16 . The Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T. E. Lawrence

    Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence CB, DSO (16 August 1888 – 19 May 1935), known professionally as T. E. Lawrence, was a British military officer renowned especially for his liaison role dur...

  17. 17 . The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon

    The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was written by English historian Edward Gibbon and published in six volumes. Volume I was published in 1776, and went through six printings. ...

  18. 18 . The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis

    The Abolition of Man is a 1943 book by C. S. Lewis. It is subtitled "Reflections on education with special reference to the teaching of English in the upper forms of schools," and uses that as a st...

  19. 19 . On Liberty by John Stuart Mill

    On Liberty is a philosophical work by 19th century English philosopher John Stuart Mill, first published in 1859. To the Victorian readers of the time it was a radical work, advocating moral and ec...

  20. 20 . Testament Of Youth by Vera Brittain

    Testament of Youth is the first instalment, covering 1900–1925, in the memoir of Vera Brittain (1893–1970). It was published in 1933. Brittain's memoir continues with Testament of Experience, publi...

  21. 21 . Rights of Man by Thomas Paine

    Rights of Man, by Thomas Paine, posits that popular political revolution is permissible when a government does not safeguard its people, their natural rights, and their national interests. It defen...

  22. 22 . Good-Bye to All That by Robert Graves

    Good-bye to All That is the autobiography of Robert Graves. First published in 1929, the work is a landmark anti-war memoir of life in the trenches during World War I. The title expresses Graves' d...

  23. 23 . Eminent Victorians by Lytton Strachey

    Eminent Victorians is a book by Lytton Strachey (the oldest member of the Bloomsbury Group), first published in 1918 and consisting of biographies of four leading figures from the Victorian era. It...

  24. 24 . Aspects of the Novel by E. M. Forster

    The wit and lively, informed originality Forster employs in his study of the novel has made this book a classic. Deliberately avoiding the chronological development approach of what he classifies '...

  25. 25 . A Mathematician's Apology by G. H. Hardy

    A 1940 essay by British mathematician G. H. Hardy. It concerns the aesthetics of mathematics with some personal content, and gives the layman an insight into the mind of a working mathematician.

  26. 26 . The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins

    The million copy international bestseller, critically acclaimed and translated into over 25 languages. This 30th anniversary edition includes a new introduction from the author as well as the origi...

    - Google
  27. 27 . Principia Mathematica by Issac Newton

  28. 28 . The Worst Journey in the World by Robert Falcon Scott

    The Worst Journey in the World is a memoir of the 1910-1913 British Antarctic Expedition led by Robert Falcon Scott. It was written and published in 1922 by a survivor of the expedition, Apsley Che...

  29. 29 . The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks

    ‘The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is populated by a cast as strange as that of the most fantastic fiction. The subject of this strange and wonderful book is what happens when things go wrong ...

    - Google
  30. 30 . The Making of the English Working Class by E. P. Thompson

    The Making of the English Working Class is an influential and pivotal work of English social history.

  31. 31 . The Face of Battle by John Keegan

    The Face of Battle, is a 1976 non-fiction book on military history by the English military historian John Keegan. It deals with the structure of warfare in three time periods—medieval Europe, th...

  32. 32 . Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes

    Birthday Letters, published in 1998 (ISBN 0-374-52581-1), is a collection of poetry by English poet and children's writer Ted Hughes. Released only months before Hughes's death, the collection won ...

  33. 33 . Two Treatises of Government by John Locke

    Two Treatises of Government (or "Two Treatises of Government: In the Former, The False Principles, and Foundation of Sir Robert Filmer, and His Followers, Are Detected and Overthrown. The Latter Is...

  34. 34 . The Hedgehog and the Fox by Isaiah Berlin

    Berlin expands upon this idea to divide writers and thinkers into two categories: hedgehogs, who view the world through the lens of a single defining idea (examples given include Plato, Lucretius, ...

  35. 35 . Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss

    Eats, Shoots & Leaves is a non-fiction book written by Lynne Truss, the former host of the BBC Radio 4's Cutting a Dash programme. In the book, published in 2003, Truss bemoans the state of punctua...

  36. 36 . The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin

    The Voyage of the Beagle is a title commonly given to the book written by Charles Darwin published in 1839 as his Journal and Remarks, which brought him considerable fame and respect. The title ref...

  37. 37 . Common Sense by Thomas Paine

  38. 38 . Rationalism in Politics by Michael Oakeshott

    Rationalism in Politics established the late Michael Oakeshott as the leading conservative political theorist in modern Britain. This expanded collection of essays astutely points out the limits of...

  39. 39 . The Pursuit of the Millennium by Norman Cohn

    The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages (1957, revised and expanded in 1970), is Norman Cohn's study of millenarian cult movements. Cov...

  40. 40 . The Great Terror by Robert Conquest

    The Great Terror is a book by British writer Robert Conquest, published in 1968. It gave rise to an alternate title of the period in Soviet history known as the Great Purge. The complete title of t...

  41. 41 . Chronicles of Wasted Time by Malcolm Muggeridge

    autobiography of Malcolm Muggeridge.

    -
  42. 42 . The Art of Memory by Frances A. Yates

    The Art of Memory is a 1966 non-fiction book by British historian Frances A. Yates. The book follows the history of mnemonic systems from the classical period of Simonides of Ceos in Ancient Greece...

  43. 43 . The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Family's Century of Art and Loss by Edmund de Waal

    The Ephrussis were a grand banking family, as rich and respected as the Rothschilds, who “burned like a comet” in nineteenth-century Paris and Vienna society. Yet by the end of World War II, almost...

    - Google
  44. 44 . The Everlasting Man by G. K. Chesterton

    The Everlasting Man is a two-part history of mankind, Christ, and Christianity, by G. K. Chesterton. Published in 1925, it is to some extent a conscious rebuttal of H. G. Wells’ Outline of History,...

  45. 45 . An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke

    An Essay Concerning Human Understanding is one of John Locke's two most famous works, the other being his Second Treatise on Civil Government. First appearing in 1690, the essay concerns the founda...

  46. 46 . Bad Science by Ben Goldacre

  47. 47 . London: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd

    -
  48. 48 . Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson

    "Suddenly, in the space of a moment, I realized what it was that I loved about Britain-which is to say, all of it." After nearly two decades spent on British soil, Bill Bryson-bestsellingauthor of ...

    - Google
  49. 49 . The Works of Max Beerbohm by Max Beerbohm

    The Works of Max Beerbohm was the first book published by English caricaturist, essayist and parodist Max Beerbohm. It was published in 1896 when Beerbohm was aged 24. A collection of Beerbohm's...

  50. 50 . A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft

    A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects (1792), written by the eighteenth-century British feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, is one of the earliest works of...

  51. 51 . Hideous Kinky by Esther Freud

    Hideous Kinky is an autobiographical novel by Esther Freud, daughter of British painter Lucian Freud and Bernardine Coverley and great-granddaughter of Sigmund Freud. It depicts the author's unconv...

  52. 52 . Love's Work by Gillian Rose

    Love’s Work is at once a memoir and a book of philosophy. Written by the English philosopher Gillian Rose as she was dying of cancer, it is a book about both the fallibility and endurance of love, ...

    - Google
  53. 53 . Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein

    Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is the only book-length philosophical work published by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein during his lifetime. It is an ambitious project to identify the r...

  54. 54 . A Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson

    Published on 15 April 1755 and written by Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language, sometimes published as Johnson's Dictionary, is among the most influential dictionaries in the histor...

  55. 55 . Second World War by John Keegan

    Praised as "the best military historian of our generation" by Tom Clancy, John Keegan here reconsiders his masterful study of World War II, The Second World War, with a new foreword. Keegan examine...

  56. 56 . Care of the Soul: Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness by Thomas More

    This New York Times bestseller (more than 200,000 hardcover copies sold) provides a path-breaking lifestyle handbook that shows how to add spirituality, depth, and meaning to modern-day life by nur...

    - Google
  57. 57 . The Strange Ride of Rudyard Kipling by Angus Wilson

    A critical biography of Kipling focuses on the writer's literary and peripatetic searches for a refuge to replace the lost Indian Eden of his childhood

  58. 58 . Scrutiny by F. R. Leavis

    Enormously important in education, especially in England. Leavis understood what one kind of 'living English' is.

  59. 59 . Looking Back by Norman Douglas

    Looking Back is an autobiography written by the American author Lois Lowry, in which she uses photographs and accompanying text to construct a picture of her life.

  60. 60 . How to Cook by Delia Smith

    Delia's How to Cook is a simple-to-follow cooking course for people of all ages and abilities. In this comprehensive two-part book series, Delia returns to the very roots of cooking to look at the ...

  61. 61 . Citizens by Simon Schama

    Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution is a book by the historian Simon Schama. It was published in 1989, the bicentenary of the French Revolution, and like many other works in that year, w...

  62. 62 . The Life of Charlotte Brontë by Elizabeth Gaskell

    The Life of Charlotte Brontë is the posthumous biography of Charlotte Brontë by fellow novelist Elizabeth Gaskell. Although quite frank in many places, Gaskell suppressed details of Charlotte's lov...

  63. 63 . Civilisation by Kenneth Clark

    -
  64. 64 . The Idea of History by R. G. Collingwood

    The Idea of History is the best-known work of the great Oxford philosopher, historian, and archaeologist R.G. Collingwood. It was originally published posthumously in 1946, having been mainly recon...

  65. 65 . The Subjection of Women by John Stuart Mill

    he Subjection of Women is the title of an essay written by John Stuart Mill in 1869, possibly jointly with his wife Harriet Taylor Mill, stating an argument in favour of equality between the sexes....

  66. 66 . The Nature of Life by C. H. Waddington

    -
  67. 67 . The Acquisitive Society by R. H. Tawney

    Christianity Portal

  68. 68 . The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell

    The Problems of Philosophy (1912) is one of Bertrand Russell's attempts to create a brief and accessible guide to the problems of philosophy. Focusing on problems he believes will provoke positive ...

  69. 69 . Studies in the Psychology of Sex by Havelock Ellis

    Studies in the Psychology of Sex Vol. 2 is a book published in 1900 written by Havelock Ellis (1859–1939), an English physician, writer and social reformer. The book deals with the phenomenon of se...

  70. 70 . An Introduction to Mathematics by Alfred North Whitehead

    Alfred North Whitehead, OM (February 15, 1861 – December 30, 1947) was an English mathematician who became a philosopher. He wrote on algebra, logic, foundations of mathematics, philosophy of scien...

  71. 71 . An Autobiography of Anthony Trollope by Anthony Trollope

    An Autobiography of Anthony Trollope

    - Google
  72. 72 . The Expanding Universe by Arthur Eddington

    Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, OM, FRS (28 December 1882 – 22 November 1944) was a British astrophysicist of the early 20th century. The Eddington limit, the natural limit to the luminosity of stars...

  73. 73 . Why I Am Not a Christian by Bertrand Russell

    Why I Am Not a Christian is an essay by the British philosopher Bertrand Russell. Originally a talk given 6 March 1927 at Battersea Town Hall, under the auspices of the South London Branch of the N...

  74. 74 . Armenian Atrocities: The Murder of a Nation by Arnold Toynbee

    There is nothing in the precepts of Islam which justifies the slaughter which has been perpetrated. I am told on good authority that high Moslem religious authorities condemned the massacres ordere...

    - Google
  75. 75 . Science and the Modern World by Alfred North Whitehead

    Alfred North Whitehead, OM (February 15, 1861 – December 30, 1947) was an English mathematician who became a philosopher. He wrote on algebra, logic, foundations of mathematics, philosophy of scien...

  76. 76 . West With the Night by Beryl Markham

    West With the Night is a 1942 memoir by Beryl Markham, chronicling her experiences growing up in Kenya (then British East Africa), in the early 1900s, leading to a career as a bush pilot there. It ...

  77. 77 . Religion and the Rise of Western Culture by Christopher Dawson

    This classic study of European history begins in 500 A.D. with the aftermath of the fall of Rome and ends with the close of the 13th century. Dawson shows how,apidly throughout Europe and changed t...

  78. 78 . Napoleon by Vincent Cronin

    "Vincent Cronin superbly realises his objective in this, probably the finest of all modern biographies of Napoleon. It is generally regarded as this author's masterpiece"--Back cover.

    - Google
  79. 79 . The Reason Why by Cecil Woodham-Smith

    Examines a part of the action of the Battle of Balaclava, one of the earlier and most important battles of the Crimean War.

    - Google
  80. 80 . The Proper Study of Mankind by Isaiah Berlin

    Isaiah Berlin was one of the leading thinkers of our time and one of its finest writers. The Proper Study of Mankind brings together his most celebrated writing: here the reader will find Berlin's ...

  81. 81 . Experience by Martin Amis

  82. 82 . The Principia Mathematica by Alfred North Whitehead, Bertrand Russell

    The Principia Mathematica is a 3-volume work on the foundations of mathematics, written by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell. PM, as it is often abbreviated (not to be confused with Ru...

  83. 83 . A History of the World in 100 Objects by Neil MacGregor

    The blockbuster New York Times bestseller and the companion volume to the wildly popular radio series Neil MacGregor has blazed an unusual path to international renown. As director of the British M...

    - Google
  84. 84 . The Art of the Soluble: Creativity and Originality in Science by Peter B. Medawar

    -
  85. 85 . Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain by Peter Fryer

    Staying Power is recognised as the definitive history of black people in Britain, an epic story that begins with the Roman conquest and continues to this day. In a comprehensive account, Peter Frye...

    - Google
  86. 86 . The Death of Woman Wang MMP by Jonathan Spence

    In The Death of Woman Wang the award-winning historian Jonathan Spence paints a vivid picture of an obscure time and place: provincial China in the late 17th century. Drawing on a range of sources,...

    - Google
  87. 87 . Science and Civilisation in China by Joseph Needham

    Science and Civilisation in China is a series of books initiated and edited by British biochemist and China scholar Joseph Needham (1900-1995). They deal with the history of science and technology ...

  88. 88 . The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

    The God Delusion is a 2006 bestselling non-fiction book by British biologist Richard Dawkins, professorial fellow of New College, Oxford, and inaugural holder of the Charles Simonyi Chair for the P...

  89. 89 . Schott's Original Miscellany by Ben Schott

    Schott's Miscellanies are a trio of best-selling books by Ben Schott. They consist of a collection of trivia generally centred on the culture of the United Kingdom (and to a lesser extent the rest ...

  90. 90 . A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle

    A Year in Provence is autobiographical novel by Peter Mayle about his first year in Provence, and the local events and customs. It was adapted into a television miniseries starring John Thaw and Li...

  91. 91 . A People's Tragedy by Orlando Figes

    This multi-award book is history on an epic yet human scale. Vast in scope, exhaustive in original research, written with passion, narrative skill, and human sympathy, "A People's Tragedy" offers a...

  92. 92 . Diaries by Alan Clark

    Alan Clark started keeping a regular diary in 1955 which lasted until August 1999, during his second spell as a Member of Parliament, when he was incapacitated due to the onset of the brain tumour ...

  93. 93 . A History of the Crusades by Stephen Runciman

    A History of the Crusades is the work that historian Stephen Runciman is arguably most noted for. A cursory glance at the body of Runciman’s work would lead many to believe that his passion for hi...

  94. 94 . The Origins of the Second World War by A. J. P. Taylor

    Was Hitler all that bad? Wasn't he just an opportunist who took advantage of Anglo-French dithering and appeasement? The label 'iconoclastic' applies to few historians so well as it does to Taylor.

  95. 95 . A History of the English-Speaking Peoples by Winston Churchill

    A History of the English-Speaking Peoples is a four-volume history of Britain and her former colonies and possessions throughout the world, written by Winston Churchill, covering the period from Ca...

  96. 96 . Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man by Siegfried Sassoon

    Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man is a novel by Siegfried Sassoon, first published in 1928. It won both the Hawthornden Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, being immediately recognised as a c...

  97. 97 . Religion And The Rise Of Capitalism by R. H. Tawney

    -
  98. 98 . The Gate of Heavenly Peace by Jonathan Spence

    Chronicles the history of the Chinese Revolution, focusing on the people and events of modern Chinese history, the writings of modern Chinese authors, the issues facing the People's Republic, and m...

  99. 99 . Florence Nightingale by Cecil Woodham-Smith

    Draws on research by army historians to describe the cover-up of disastrous events in the Crimea, and to seperate Nightingale's real achievments from her mythical ones.

  100. 100 . The Strange Death of Liberal England by George Dangerfield

    The Strange Death of Liberal England is a book written by George Dangerfield, first published in 1935, attempting to explain the decline of the British Liberal Party in the years 1910 to 1914.

  101. 101 . Vermeer by Lawrence Gowing

    Lawrence Gowing's classic study has long been treasured for the painterly sensibilities he brought to this greatly loved body of work.

  102. 102 . Areopagitica by John Milton

    Areopagitica; A speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc’d Printing, to the Parlament of England is a 1644 prose polemical tract by the English poet, scholar, and polemical author John...

  103. 103 . An Anatomical Exercise on the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Living Beings by William Harvey

    Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus (An Anatomical Exercise on the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Living Beings) is the best-known work of the physician William Harvey...

  104. 104 . Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber

    Here is the unbelievable yet true story of Sybil Dorsett, a survivor of terrible childhood abuse who as an adult was a victim of sudden and mysterious blackouts. What happened during those blackout...

  105. 105 . The Era of Good Feelings by George Dangerfield

  106. 106 . Charles W. Eliot by Henry James

    -
  107. 107 . Weapons and Hope by Freeman Dyson

    Weapons and Hope by Freeman Dyson

    -
  108. 108 . The Supreme Court in United States History by Charles Warren

  109. 109 . Bad Land: An American Romance by Jonathan Raban

    Raban (Old Glory), an Englishman now settled in Seattle, has written a vivid and utterly idiosyncratic social history of the homesteading movement in eastern Montana that went boom and bust during ...

  110. 110 . The Reformation by Diarmaid MacCulloch

    The Reformation: A History (2003) is a history book by English historian Diarmaid MacCulloch. It is a survey of the European Reformation between 1490 and 1700. It won the 2004 National Book Critics...

  111. 111 . Rough Crossings by Simon Schama

    Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution is a history book and television series by Simon Schama. This gives an account of the history of thousands of enslaved African Amer...

  112. 112 . Postwar by Tony Judt

    Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 is a 2005 book by historian Tony Judt, the Director of New York University's Erich Maria Remarque Institute. The book examines the history of Europe from the...

  113. 113 . Bad Blood by Lorna Sage

    Bad Blood is a 2000 work blending collective biography and memoir by the Welsh literary critic and novelist Lorna Sage.

  114. 114 . The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine

    The Age of Reason; Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology is a pamphlet, written by British and American revolutionary Thomas Paine, that challenges institutionalized religion and the...

  115. 115 . Biographia Literaria by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

    Biographia Literaria, or in full Biographia Literaria; or Biographical Sketches of MY LITERARY LIFE and OPINIONS, is an autobiography in discourse by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, which he published in ...

  116. 116 . Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson

    A New York Times bestseller: The “magnificent” memoir by one of the bravest and most original writers of our time—“A tour de force of literature and love” (Vogue). Jeanette Winterson’s bold and rev...

    - Google
  117. 117 . The Cost of Living by Deborah Levy

    From the twice-Man Booker Prize-shortlisted author of Hot Milk and Swimming Home : Dazzling, essential, entirely unlike anything else -- a memoir on modern womanhood, rejecting oppressive social ex...

    - Google
  118. 118 . The Story of Art by E. H. Gombrich

    An illustrated introduction to art appreciation with a survey of the major art periods and styles and descriptions of the work and world of the masters

    - Google
  119. 119 . The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin

    The songlines are the invisible pathways that criss-cross Australia, ancient tracks connecting communities and following ancient boundaries. Along these lines Aboriginals passed the songs which rev...

    - Google
  120. 120 . A Short History Of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

    A Short History of Nearly Everything (ISBN 0-7679-0817-1) is a general science book by Bill Bryson, which explains some areas of science, using a style of language more accessible to the general pu...

  121. 121 . The Road to Oxiana by Robert Byron

  122. 122 . Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell

    Down and Out in Paris and London is the first full-length work by the English author George Orwell, published in 1933. It is a memoir[3] in two parts on the theme of poverty in the two cities. The ...

  123. 123 . Untold Stories by Alan Bennett

    -
  124. 124 . The American Way of Death by Jessica Mitford

    The American Way of Death was an exposé of abuses in the funeral home industry in the United States, written by Jessica Mitford and published in 1963. Feeling that death had become much too sentime...

  125. 125 . An Essay on the Principle of Population by Thomas Robert Malthus

    The book An Essay on the Principle of Population was first published anonymously in 1798 through J. Johnson (London). The author was soon identified as The Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus. While it ...

  126. 126 . Arabian Sands by Wilfred Thesiger

    The southern Arabian desert, a quarter million square miles of sand (650,000 square kilometers), is now a place of oil wells and Land Rovers, but before the 1950s it was still known as the Empty Qu...

  127. 127 . South by Ernest Shackleton

  128. 128 . A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush by Eric Newby

  129. 129 . Travels in West Africa by Mary Kingsley

  130. 130 . Journals (Cook) by James Cook

    Captain James Cook FRS RN (7 November [O.S. 27 October] 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator and cartographer, ultimately rising to the rank of Captain in the Royal Navy. Cook...

  131. 131 . A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains by Isabella L. Bird

    -
  132. 132 . Scrambles Amongst the Alps by Edward Whymper

  133. 133 . Scott's Last Expedition: The Journals by Robert Falcon Scott

    -
  134. 134 . Journey Without Maps by Graham Greene

    Journey Without Maps (1936) is a travel account by Graham Greene, about a 350-mile, 4-week walk through the interior of Liberia in 1935. It was Greene's first trip outside of Europe. He hoped to le...

  135. 135 . In Trouble Again by Redmond O'Hanlon

  136. 136 . Gipsy Moth Circles the World by Francis Chichester

  137. 137 . Man-Eaters of Kumaon by Jim Corbett

  138. 138 . Travels in Arabia Deserta by Charles M. Doughty

    -
  139. 139 . Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile by John Hanning Speke

  140. 140 . Alive by Piers Paul Read

    Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors is a 1974 book by the British writer Piers Paul Read documenting the events of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571.

  141. 141 . The Principal Navigations by Richard Hakluyt

  142. 142 . Moondust: In Search of the Men Who Fell to Earth by Andrew Smith

    Andrew Smith is the author of Moondust : In Search of the Men Who Fell to Earth. HarperCollins. 2005. ISBN 0-00-715541-7. , which tells the story of the twelve U.S. astronauts who journeyed to the ...

  143. 143 . Mutiny on the Bounty by William Bligh

  144. 144 . The Fearful Void by Geoffrey Moorhouse

  145. 145 . Giving up the Ghost by Hilary Mantel

  146. 146 . Terra Incognita by Sara Wheeler

    -
  147. 147 . Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution by Ruth Scurr

  148. 148 . We Die Alone by David Howarth

    -
  149. 149 . An Evil Cradling by Brian Keenan

    Brian Keenan went to Beirut in 1985 for a change of scene from his native Belfast. He became headline news when he was kidnapped by fundamentalist Shi'ite militiamen and held in the suburbs of Beir...

    - Google
  150. 150 . The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World by Niall Ferguson

    The Ascent of Money: The Financial History of the World is Harvard professor Niall Ferguson's tenth book, published in 2008, and an adapted television documentary for Channel 4 (UK) and PBS (US). I...

  151. 151 . Journal of the Voyage to the Pacific by Alexander Mackenzie

    -
  152. 152 . Berlin: The Downfall, 1945 by Antony Beevor

  153. 153 . My Early Life by Winston Churchill

    This memoir was first published in 1930 and describes the author's school days, his time in the Army, his experiences as a war correspondent and his first years as a member of Parliament.

    - Google
  154. 155 . The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale

  155. 156 . The Great Tradition by F. R. Leavis

    'The great English novelists are Jane Austen, George Eliot, Henry James and Joseph Conrad.' So begins F. R. Leavis's most controversial book, The Great Tradition, an uncompromising critical-polemic...

    - Google
  156. 157 . Under the Eye of the Clock by Christopher Nolan

  157. 158 . Tales from Ovid by Ted Hughes

    Tales from Ovid is a poetical work written by the English poet Ted Hughes. Published in 1997 by Faber and Faber, it is a retelling of twenty-four tales from Ovid's Metamorphoses. It won the Whitbre...

  158. 159 . Earth: An Intimate History by Richard Fortey

    -
  159. 160 . The Joy of Sex by Alex Comfort

    The Joy of Sex is an illustrated sex manual by Alex Comfort, M.B., Ph.D., first published in 1972. An updated edition was released in September, 2008.

  160. 161 . Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases by Peter Mark Roget

    Peter Mark Roget FRS (UK: /ˈrɒʒeɪ/, US: /roʊˈʒeɪ/; 18 January 1779 – 12 September 1869) was a British physician, natural theologian and lexicographer. He is best known for publishing, in 1852, the ...

  161. 162 . Devotions upon Emergent Occasions by John Donne

    Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, or in full Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, and severall steps in my Sicknes, is a prose work by the English metaphysical poet and cleric in the Church of Engla...

  162. 163 . Domestic Manners of the Americans by Fanny Trollope

    Published in 1832, the book presents a lively portrait of early 19th-century America as observed by a woman of rare intelligence and keen perception. Trollope left no stone unturned, commenting on ...

    - Google
  163. 164 . Tales from Shakespeare by Charles Lamb, Mary Lamb

    Tales from Shakespeare is an English children's book written by brother and sister Charles and Mary Lamb in 1807.[1] The book is designed to make the stories of Shakespeare's plays familiar to t...

  164. 165 . In the Shadow of Man by Jane Goodall

  165. 166 . 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
  166. 167 . 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
  167. 168 . Culture and Anarchy by Matthew Arnold

    Culture and Anarchy is a series of essays by Matthew Arnold. According to his view advanced in the book, "Culture is a study of perfection". His often quoted phrase "[culture is] the best which has...

    - Google
  168. 169 . Novum Organum by Francis Bacon

    The Novum Organum is a philosophical work by Francis Bacon published in 1620. The title translates as "new instrument". This is a reference to Aristotle's work Organon, which was his treatise on lo...

  169. 170 . 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...

  170. 171 . 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
  171. 172 . Household Education by Harriet Martineau

    This protest at the lack of women’s education was as pioneering as its author was in Victorian literary circles.

  172. 173 . The Diary of Fanny Burney by Fanny Burney

    Burney’s acutely observed memoirs open a window on the literary and courtly circles of late 18th-century England.

  173. 174 . Being Jordan by Katie Price

  174. 175 . The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne by Gilbert White

    The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne, or just The Natural History of Selborne is a book by English naturalist and ornithologist Gilbert White. It was first published in 1789 by his broth...

  175. 176 . 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...

  176. 177 . Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands: Top Crime Story by Mary Seacole

    I was born in the town of Kingston, in the island of Jamaica, some time in the present century. As a female, and a widow, I may be well excused giving the precise date of this important event. But ...

    - Google
  177. 178 . 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
  178. 179 . London Labour and the London Poor by Henry Mayhew

    London Labour and the London Poor is a work of Victorian journalism by Henry Mayhew. In the 1840s he observed, documented, and described the state of working people in London for a series of articl...

  179. 180 . 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 ...

  180. 181 . First Principles by Herbert Spencer

    -
  181. 182 . Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial by Sir Thomas Browne

    Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial, or, a Discourse of the Sepulchral Urns lately found in Norfolk is a work by Sir Thomas Browne, published in 1658 as the first part of a two-part work that concludes with T...

  182. 183 . 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...

  183. 184 . 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
  184. 185 . A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain by Daniel Defoe

    A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain is an account of his travels by English author Daniel Defoe, first published in three volumes between 1724 and 1727.[1] Other than Robinson Crusoe, To...

  185. 186 . Enquiry Concerning Political Justice by William Godwin

    William Godwin (3 March 1756 – 7 April 1836) was an English journalist, political philosopher and novelist. He is considered one of the first exponents of utilitarianism, and one of the first moder...

  186. 187 . Brief Lives by John Aubrey

    Brief Lives is a collection of short biographies written by John Aubrey (1626–1697) in the last decades of the 17th century.

  187. 188 . The History of the World by Sir Walter Raleigh

    The History of the World: In Five Books. Viz. Treating of the Beginning and First Ages of Same from the Creation Unto Abraham. of the Birth of Abraham to the Destruction of Jerusalem to the Time of...

    - Google
  188. 189 . Confessions of an English Opium-Eater by Thomas de Quincey

    Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821) is an autobiographical account written by Thomas De Quincey, about his laudanum addiction and its effect on his life. The Confessions was "the first maj...

  189. 190 . Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis

    Written after his wife's tragic death as a way of surviving the "mad midnight moment," A Grief Observed is C.S. Lewis's honest reflection on the fundamental issues of life, death, and faith in the ...

    - Google
  190. 191 . An inquiry into the causes and effects of the variolae vaccinae by Edward Jenner

  191. 192 . The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form by Kenneth Clark

    From the art of the Greeks to that of Renoir and Moore, this work surveys the ever-changing fashions in what has constituted the ideal nude as a basis of humanist form.

    - Google
  192. 193 . Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays by Zadie Smith

    "[These essays] reflect a lively, unselfconscious, rigorous, erudite, and earnestly open mind that's busy refining its view of life, literature, and a great deal in between." -Los Angeles Times Spl...

    - Google
  193. 194 . The Logic of Scientific Discovery by Karl Popper

    Logik der Forschung is a 1934 book by Karl Popper. It was originally written in German, but reformulated in English by Popper himself some years later, to be published as The Logic of Scientific Di...

  194. 195 . Awakenings by Oliver Sacks

    Awakenings--which inspired the major motion picture--is the remarkable story of a group of patients who contracted sleeping-sickness during the great epidemic just after World War I. Frozen for dec...

    - Google
  195. 196 . Little Wilson and Big God by Anthony Burgess

    These are Anthony Burgess's candid confessions: he was seduced at the age of nine by an older woman; whilst serving in Gibraltar in World War II he was thrown into jail on VE Day for calling Franco...

    - Google
  196. 197 . Nothing to be Frightened Of by Julian Barnes

    "I don’t believe in God, but I miss him." So begins Julian Barnes’s brilliant new book that is, among many things, a family memoir, an exchange with his brother (a philosopher), a meditation on mor...

    - Google
  197. 198 . Collected essays by Aldous Huxley

  198. 199 . Enthusiasms by Bernard Levin