The Greatest Nonfiction
This selection of nonfiction works is based on the continuing research carried out for The Greatest Literature of All Time list and further research into nonfiction works acclaimed by the world's readers, writers, critics and scholars.
The widest diversity of nonfictional subjects has been considered—including, history, philosophy, science, travel, economics, sociology, psychology, biography, memoirs, diaries and journalism. We have further tried to be as inclusive as possible of different ideas of "greatness", balancing historical and modern assessments on one hand, and scholarly and popular assessments on the other.
For more specialized interests, you may also be interested in The Greatest Biographies, The Greatest History, The Greatest Memoirs, The Greatest Philosophy, The Greatest Sciences or The Greatest Travel Writing.
The Greatest Nonfiction is updated as new works are discovered and appreciation of older works evolves. Please note the revision date when citing the list.
Latest update: November 21, 2025
Ancient • Medieval • Renaissance • 18th century • 19th century • 20th century • 21st-century
The 333 Greatest Nonfiction Works
Ancient (to 400 CE)
c.1500–900 BCE
The Vedas
by Anonymous, India
Nonfiction collection
c.1000–300 BCE
I Ching
by Anonymous, China
Divination
c.800 BCE
The Tibetan Book of the Dead
by Anonymous, Tibet
Nonfiction, also known as Bardo Thodol, originally Bar do thos grok (Liberation through hearing during the intermediate state)
c.500 BCE
The Art of War
by Sun Tzu, China
Nonfiction
431–404 BCE
Histories
by Herodotus, Greece
Nonfiction
c.400 BCE
Tao Te Ching
by Laozi (Lao Tzu), China
Nonfiction
c.399 BCE
Apology
by Plato, Greece
Nonfiction, also known as Apology of Socrates, originally Apologia Solicitous
c.385–370 BCE
The Symposium
by Plato, Greece
Nonfiction
c.380 BCE
Panegyrics
by Socrates, Greece
Nonfiction
c.380 BCE
The Republic
by Plato, Greece
Nonfiction, also known as Plato's Republic
It is hard to know how to classify the philosophical classic The Republic, or any writing by Plato, as literature. Or to know even whether it is a literary work. It's published writing, so it is literature in the broadest sense. But.... Critique • Quotes • Text • Buy
History of the Peloponnesian War
by Thucydides, Greece
Nonfiction
c.370 BCE
Phaedrus
by Plato, Greece
Nonfiction
Anabasis
by Xenophon, Greece
Nonfiction, also known as The March of the Ten Thousand or The March Up Country
Cyropaedia
by Xenophon, Greece
Nonfiction, also known as The Education of Cyrus
c.360 BCE
Phaedo
by Plato, Greece
Nonfiction
c.350 BCE
Nichomachean Ethics
by Aristotle, Greece
Nonfiction, originally Ēthika Nikomacheia
Metaphysics
by Aristotle, Greece
Nonfiction
c.335 BCE
Poetics
by Aristotle, Greece
Nonfiction, originally Peri poietikê
c.300–200 BCE
Kama Sutra
by Vatsyayana, India
Nonfiction, also known as Selected Sayings
c.200 BCE
The Analects
by Confucius, China
Nonfiction, also known as Selected Sayings
c.50 BCE
On the Nature of Things
by Lucretius, Rome
Nonfiction
46 BCE
Commentaries on the Civil War
by Julius Caesar, Rome
Nonfiction
27–9 BCE
History of Rome
by Livy, Rome
Nonfiction, also known as Ab urbe condita (From the Founding of the City)
65 CE
Letters from a Stoic
by Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Rome
Nonfiction, also known as Moral Epistles, originally Epistulae Morales ad Lu cilium
c.100 CE
Parallel Lives
by Plutarch, Greece
Nonfiction, also known as The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans
108 CE
Discourses
by Epictetus, Greece
Nonfiction
c.116 CE
Annals
by Tacitus, Rome
Nonfiction, originally Annales
121 CE
The Twelve Caesars
by Suetonius, Rome
Nonfiction, also known as Lives of the Caesars
175 CE
Meditations
by Marcus Aurelius, Rome
Nonfiction
397–400 CE
Confessions
by Augustine of Hippo (St. Augustine), Algeria
Nonfiction
Medieval (401 to 1500 CE)
c.731
Ecclesiastical History of the English People
by Bede, England
Nonfiction, also known as A History of the English Church and People, originally Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum
c.1000
The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon
by Sei Shonagon, Japan
Nonfiction
c.1136
The History of the Kings of Britain
by Geoffrey Monmouth, England
Nonfiction, originally De gestis Britonum or Historia Regum Britanniae
1250
Summa Theologica
by Thomas Aquinas, Italy
Nonfiction
1298–1299
The Travels of Marco Polo
by Rustichello da Pisa and Marco Polo, Italy
Nonfiction, originally Il Milione ("The Million"), also known as Book of the Marvels of the World
1330–1332
Essays in Idleness
by Yoshida Kenkō, Japan
Nonfiction collection, also known as The Harvest of Leisure
c.1370
Travels of Sir John Mandeville
by Anonymous, England
Nonfiction
Renaissance (1501 to 1700)
1511
In Praise of Folly
by Erasmus of Rotterdam, Netherlands
Nonfiction, also known as The Praise of Madness
1528
The Book of the Courtier
by Baldasarre Castiglione, Italy
Nonfiction
1532
The Prince
by Niccolo Machiavelli, Italy
Nonfiction
1543
On the Fabric of the Human Body
by Andreas Vesalius, Netherlands
Nonfiction
On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres
by Nicolaus Copernicus, Poland
Nonfiction
1550–1568
Lives of the Artists
by Giorgio Vasari, Italy
Nonfiction, also known as The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects
1568
The True History of the Conquest of New Spain
by Bernal Díaz del Castillo, Spain
Nonfiction
1580
Essays
by Michel de Montaigne, France
Nonfiction collection
1588
The Interior Castle
by Teresa of Ávila, Spain
Nonfiction, also known as The Mansions, originally El Castillo Interior or Las Moradas
1620
Novum Organum
by Francis Bacon, England
Nonfiction, fully titled Novum Organum, sive Indicia Vera de Interpretatione Naturae
1621
The Anatomy of Melancholy
by Robert Burton, England
Nonfiction
1624
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions
by John Donne, England
Nonfiction with full title Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, and severall steps in my Sicknes
1632
Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems
by Galileo Galilei, Italy
Nonfiction, originally Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo
1636
Discourse on the Method
by René Descartes, France
Nonfiction, originally Discours de la Méthode pour bien conduire sa raison, et chercher la vérité dans les sciences
1641
Meditations on First Philosophy
by René Descartes, France
Nonfiction, also known as Meditations, originally Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, in qua Dei existentia et animæ immortalitas demonstratur
1644
Areopagitica
by John Milton, England
speech, subtitled A speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc'd Printing, to the Parliament of England
1651
Leviathan
by Thomas Hobbes, England
Nonfiction
1660
The Diary of Samuel Pepys
by Samuel Pepys, England
Nonfiction
1665
Micrographia
by Robert Hooke, England
Nonfiction
1672
The Life Written by Himself
by Avvákum Petróv, Russia
Autobiography, also known as The Life of the Archpriest Avvakum, by Himself
1677
Ethics, Demonstrated in Geometrical Order
by Baruch Spinoza, Dutch Republic
Nonfiction, originally Ethica, ordine geometrico demonstrata
1687
Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
by Isaac Newton, England
Nonfiction
1689
Essay Concerning Human Understanding, An
by John Locke, England
Nonfiction
1693
Brief Lives
by John Aubry, England
Nonfiction
Eighteenth-century (1701 to 1800 CE)
1702
The Narrow Road to the Interior
by Matsuo Bashō, Japan
Nonfiction, also known as The Narrow Road to the Deep North, originally Oku no Hosomichi
1710
Theodicy
by Gottfried Leibniz, Germany
Nonfiction, originally Essais de Théodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l'homme et l'origine du mal
The Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge
by George Berkeley, Ireland
Nonfiction
1714
Monadology
by Gottfried Leibniz, Germany
Nonfiction, originally La Monadologie
1729
A Modest Proposal
by Jonathan Swift, England
Essay with full title A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making them Beneficial to the Publick
1739
A Treatise of Human Nature
by David Hume, Scotland
Nonfiction
1748
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
by David Hume, Scotland
Nonfiction
1755
A Dictionary of the English Language
by Samuel Johnson, England
Reference
1762
The Social Contract
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Switzerland
Nonfiction
1776
The Wealth of Nations
by Adam Smith, United States
Nonfiction
1776–1789
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
by Edward Gibbon, England
Nonfiction:history
1778
The Diary of Fanny Burney
by Fanny Burney, England
Nonfiction
1781
Critique of Pure Reason
by Immanuel Kant, Germany
Nonfiction, originally Kritik der reinen Vernunft
1782
Confessions
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Switzerland
Nonfiction
1789
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
by Olaudah Equiano, Benin
Nonfiction, with full title The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, the African
1790
Reflections on the Revolution in France
by Edmund Burke, Ireland
Nonfiction
1791
Life of Samuel Johnson
by James Boswell, England
Nonfiction
Rights of Man
by Thomas Paine, United States
Nonfiction
1792
A Vindication of the Rights of Women
by Mary Wollstonecraft, England
Nonfiction
1793
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
by Benjamin Franklin, United States
Autobiography
1796
Memoirs of My Life and Writings
by Edward Gibbon, England
Nonfiction
Nineteenth-century (1801 to 1900 CE)
1805
Rameau's Nephew
by Denis Diderot, France
Nonfiction, originally Le Neveu de Rameau ou La Satire seconde in French translation
1807
The Phenomenology of Spirit
by G.W.F. Hegel, Germany
Nonfiction, also known as The Phenomenology of Mind, originally Phänomenologie des Geistes
1814
The Journals of Lewis and Clark
by Merriwether Lewis and William Clark, United States
Nonfiction
1821
Confessions of an English Opium Eater
by Thomas De Quincey, England
Nonfiction
1822
History of My Life
by Giacomo Casanova, England
Nonfiction
1835–1840
Democracy in America
by Alexis de Tocqueville, France
Nonfiction, originally De la démocratie en Amérique
1840
Two Years Before the Mast
by Richard Henry Dana, Jr., United States
Nonfiction
1843
Fear and Trembling
by Søren Kierkegaard, Denmark
Nonfiction
1845
Facundo
by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, Argentina
Nonfiction, subtitled Civilization and Barbarism
The Voyage of the Beagle
by Charles Darwin, England
Nonfiction, also known as Journal of Researches
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave
by Frederick Douglass, United States
Nonfiction
1848
The Communist Manifesto
by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Germany
Nonfiction
1849–1850
Memoirs from Beyond the Grave
by Francois René de Chateaubriand, France
Nonfiction
1852
Roughing It in the Bush
by Susanna Moodie, Canada
Nonfiction
1854
Walden
by Henry David Thoreau, United States
Nonfiction, originally Walden; or, Life in the Woods
1857
The Life of Charlotte Brontë
by Elizabeth Gaskell, England
Nonfiction
1859
On the Origin of Species
by Charles Darwin, England
Nonfiction
On Liberty
by John Stuart Mill, England
Nonfiction
1859
On Liberty
by John Stuart Mill, England
Nonfiction
1860
The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy
by Jacob Burckhardt, Switzerland
Nonfiction, originally Die Cultur der Renaissance in Italien
1861
Utilitarianism
by John Stuart Mill, England
Nonfiction
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
by Harriet Jacobs, United States
Nonfiction
1867–1894
Capital
by Karl Marx, Germany
Nonfiction, originally Das Kapital in three volumes
1879
Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes
by Robert Louis Stevenson, Scotland
Nonfiction
1883
Life on the Mississippi
by Mark Twain, United States
Nonfiction
1886
Beyond Good and Evil
by Friedrich Nietzsche, Germany
Nonfiction, subtitled Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, originally Jenseits von Gut und Böse: Vorspiel einer Philosophie der Zukunft
1890
The Golden Bough
by James George Frazer, Scotland
Religion, subtitled A Study in Comparative Religion or A Study in Magic and Religion
1895
The Antichrist
by Friedrich Nietzsche, Germany
Nonfiction, originally Der Antichrist
1899
The Interpretation of Dreams
by Sigmund Freud, Austria
Nonfiction
A Message to Garcia
by Elbert Hubbard, United Sstates
Essay
The Theory of the Leisure Class
by Thorstein Veblen, United Sstates
Nonfiction
Twentieth-century (1901 to 2000 CE)
1902
Rebellion in the Backlands
by Euclides da Cunha, Brazil
Nonfiction, originally Os Sertões
The Varieties of Religious Experience
by William James, United States
Nonfiction
1903
The Souls of Black Folk
by W.E.B. Du Bois, United States
Nonfiction collection
1905
Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality
by Sigmund Freud, Austria
Nonfiction
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
by Max Weber, Germany
Sociology
De Profundis
by Oscar Wilde, Ireland
Letter
1906–1911
The Devil's Dictionary
by Ambrose Bierce, United States
Nonfiction, originally The Cynic's Word Book
1907
The Education of Henry Adams
by Henry Adams, United States
Autobiography
1910–19131
Principia Mathematica
by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell
Nonfiction
1911
Letters of a Javanese Princess
by Raden Adjeng Kartini, Indonesia
Letters, originally Door Duisternis tot Licht (From Dark Comes Light)
1912
Psychology of the Unconscious
by Carl Jung, Switzerland
Nonfiction
1913
My Childhood
by Maxim Gorky, Russia
Nonfiction
1916
Relativity
by Albert Einstein, Germany
Nonfiction, subtitled The Special and General Theory
The Course in General Linguistics
by Ferdinand de Saussure, Switzerland
Nonfiction, originally Cours de linguistique générale
1917
State and Revolution
by Vladimir Lenin, Russia
Nonfiction
1918
Eminent Victorians
by Lytton Strachey, England
Nonfiction
1919
The American Language
by H.L Mencken, United States
Nonfiction
Ten Days That Shook the World
by John Reed, United States
Nonfiction
1920
The Storm of Steel
by Ernst Jünger, Germany
Nonfiction
1921
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Austria
Nonfiction
Seas and Sardinia
by D.H. Lawrence, England
Nonfiction
1926
Seven Pillars of Wisdom
by T.E. Lawrence, Wales
Nonfiction, also known as Revolt in the Desert
1927
Being and Time
by Martin Heidegger, Germany
Nonfiction, originally Sein und Zeit
1929
Good-Bye to All That
by Robert Graves, England
Nonfiction
Room of One's Own,A
by Virginia Woolf, England
Essay
1930
My Early Life
by Winston Churchill, England
Nonfiction, also known as A Roving Commission: My Early Life
1932
Selected Essays: 1917–1932
by T.S. Eliot, England
Nonfiction collection
1930
Civilization and Its Discontents
by Sigmund Freud, Austria
Nonfiction
1933
Testament of Youth
by Vera Brittain, England
Nonfiction
Down and Out in Paris and London
by George Orwell, England
Nonfiction
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
by Gertrude Stein, United States
Nonfiction
1934–1961
A Study of History
by Arnold J. Toynbee, England
Nonfiction in 12 volumes
1936
The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money
by John Maynard Keynes, England
Nonfiction
1937
Out of Africa
by Isak Dinesen, Denmark
Nonfiction
The Road to Oxiana
by Robert Byron, England
Nonfiction
1941
Black Lamb and Grey Falcon
by Rebecca West, England
Nonfiction, subtitled A Journey Through Yugoslavia
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
by James Agee and Walker Evans, United States
Nonfiction
1942
The Myth of Sisyphus
by Albert Camus, Algeria
Essay
Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy
by Joseph A. Schumpeter, Austria
Nonfiction
The World of Yesterday
by Stefan Zweig, Austria
Nonfiction, subtitled Memories of a European
West with the Night
by Beryl Markham, Kenya
Nonfiction
1943
Being and Nothingness
by Jean-Paul Sartre, France
Nonfiction
1944
What Is Life?
by Erwin Schrödinger, Austria
Nonfiction
The Great Transformation
by Karl Polanyi, Hungary
Nonfiction, subtitled The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time
1945
The Open Society and Its Enemies
by Karl Popper, Austria
Nonfiction
A History of Western Philosophy
by Bertrand Russell, England
Nonfiction with original full title A History of Western Philosophy and Its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the Present Day
The Crack-Up
by F. Scott Fitzgerald, United States
Nonfiction collection
Black Boy
by Richard Wright, United States
Nonfiction, subtitled A Record of Childhood and Youth
1946
Man's Search for Meaning
by Victor Frankl, Austria
Nonfiction, originally Ein Psychologe erlebt das Konzentrationslager
Autobiography of a Yogi
by Paramahansa Yogananda, India
Autobiography
Hiroshima
by John Hersey, United States
Nonfiction
1947
The Diary of a Young Girl
by Anne Frank, Germany
Nonfiction, also known as The Diary of Anne Frank
If This Is a Man
by Primo Levi, Italy
Nonfiction, also known as Survival in Auschwitz
One Two Three... Infinity
by George Gamow, United States
Nonfiction, subtitled Facts and Speculations of Science
1948
Journey to the Alcarria
by Camilo José Cela, Spain
Nonfiction
Sexual Behavior in the Human Male
by Alfred C. Kinsey, Wardell Pomeroy, and Clyde Martin, United States
Nonfiction
1948–1949
Journal
by Franz Kafka, Austria
Nonfiction
1948–1953
The Second World War
by Winston Churchill, England
Nonfiction
1949
The Second Sex
by Simone de Beauvoir, France
Nonfiction
The Hero with a Thousand Faces
by Joseph Cambell, United States
Nonfiction
1950
The Story of Art
by Ernst Gombrich, England
Art
The Labyrinth of Solitude
by Octavio Paz, Mexico
Nonfiction collection
1951
The Rebel
by Albert Camus, Algeria
Essay
The Origins of Totalitarianism
by Hannah Arendt, Germany
Nonfiction
1952
Other Inuisitions 1937–1952
by Jorge Luis Borges, Argentina
Nonfiction collection, originally Otras inquisiciones 1937–1952
1953
Philosophical Investigations
by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Austria
Nonfiction
The Captive Mind
by Czesław Miłosz, Poland
Nonfiction, originally Zniewolony umysł
1954
The Doors of Perception
by Aldous Huxley, England
Nonfiction
My Left Foot
by Christy Brown, Ireland
Nonfiction
1955
Triste Tropiques
by Claude Lévi-Strauss, France
Nonfiction
Notes of a Native Son
by James Baldwin, United States
Nonfiction
1956
The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life
by Erving Goffman, United States
Nonfiction
Night
by Elie Wiesel, United States
Nonfiction
1957
Mythologies
by Roland Barthes, France
Nonfiction collection
1958
Borstal Boy
by Brendan Behan, Ireland
Nonfiction
The Affluent Society
by John Kenneth Galbraith, United States
Nonfiction
1959
The Broken Spears
by Miguel Leon-Portilla, Mexico
Nonfiction, subtitled The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico
Kon-Tiki
by Thor Heyerdahl, Norway
Nonfiction, originally Kon-Tiki ekspedisjonen, subtitled Across the Pacific in a Raft
Down Second Avenue
by E'skia Mphahlele's, South Africa
Nonfiction
The Elements of Style
by William Strunk and E.B. White
Reference
1960
Art and Illusion
by Ernst Gombrich, England
Art
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
by William L. Shirer, United States
Nonfiction
1961
The Wretched of the Earth
by Frantz Fanon, Algeria
Nonfiction
What Is History?
by E.H. Carr, England
Nonfiction
The Death and Life of Great American Cities
by Jane Jacobs, Canada
Nonfiction
1962
Silent Spring
by Rachel Carson, United States
Nonfiction
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
by Thomas Kuhn, United States
Nonfiction
The Guns of August
by Barbara W. Tuchman, United States
Nonfiction
1963
Never Cry Wolf
by Farley Mowat, Canada
Nonfiction
The Feynman Lectures on Physics
by Richard P. Feynman, United States
Nonfiction
The Feminine Mystique
by Betty Friedan, United States
Nonfiction
Letter from the Birmingham Jail
by Martin Luther King, United States
Nonfiction, also known as The Negro is Your Brother
The Making of the British Working Class
by E.P. Thompson, United States
Nonfiction
1964
Understanding Media
by Marshall McLuhan, Canada
Nonfiction, subtitled The Extensions of Man
Quotations from Chairman Mao
by Mao Zedong, China
Nonfiction
A Moveable Feast
by Ernest Hemingway, United States
Nonfiction
Man and His Symbols
by Carl Jung, Switzerland
Nonfiction
An Area of Darkness
by V.S. Naipaul, Trinidad
Nonfiction, subtitled A Discovery of India
1965
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
by as told to Alex Haley, United States
Nonfiction
1966
The Order of Things
by Michel Foucault, France
Nonfiction
The Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1931-1934
by Anaïs Nin
Nonfiction
Against Interpretation and Other Essays
by Susan Sontag, United States
Nonfiction collection
1967
Speak, Memory
Vladimir Nabokov, Russia
Nonfiction, subtitled An Autobiography Revisited
Nicholas and Alexandra
by Robert K. Massie, United States
Nonfiction
Hell's Angels
by Hunter S. Thompson, United States
Nonfiction
1968
The Naked Ape
by Desmond Morris, England
Nonfiction, subtitled A Zoologist's Study of the Human Animal
Illuminations
by Walter Benjamin, Germany
Nonfiction collection, subtitled Essays and Reflections, originally Illuminationen
The Double Helix
by James Watson, United States
Nonfiction
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
by Tom Wolfe, United States
Nonfiction
1968–1972
Language and Mind
by Noam Chomsky, United States
Linguistics
1969
Here's to You, Jesusa
by Elena Poniatowska, Mexico
Nonfiction
1970
The Female Eunuch
by Germaine Greer, Australia
Nonfiction
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
by Maya Angelou, United States
Nonfiction
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
by Dee Brown, United States
Nonfiction, subtitled An Indian History of the American West
Future Shock
by Alvin Toffler, United States
Nonfiction
1971
A Theory of Justice
by John Rawls, United States
Nonfiction
The Insect Societies
by Edward O. Wilson, United States
Nonfiction
1973
Awakenings
by Oliver Sacks, England
Nonfiction
The Gulag Archipelago
by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Russia
Nonfiction
The Cosmic Connection
by Carl Sagan, United States
Nonfiction
1974
All the Presidents' Men
by Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward, United States
Nonfiction
The Power Broker
by Robert A. Caro, United States
Nonfiction, subtitled Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
The Eagles Die
by George Richard Marek, United States
Nonfiction, subtitled Franz Joseph, Elisabeth, and Their Austria
Working
by Studs Terkel, United States
Nonfiction, subtitled People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do
1975
The Great Railway Bazaar
by Paul Theroux, United States
Nonfiction, subtitled By Train Through Asia
The Periodic Table
by Primo Levi, Italy
Nonfiction
1976
The Selfish Gene
by Richard Dawkins, England
Nonfiction
The Hite Report
by Shere Hite, United States
Sexuality
The Woman Warrior
by Maxine Hong Kingston, United States
Nonfiction, subtitled Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts
1977
In Patwagonia
by Bruce Chatwin, England
Nonfiction
A Time of Gifts
by Patrick Leigh Fermor, England
Nonfiction
Dispatches
by Michael Herr, United States
Nonfiction
The First Three Minutes
by Steven Weinberg, United States
Nonfiction
1978
Puberty
by Ivar Lo-Johansson, Swedens
Nonfiction, originally Pubertet
Orientalism
by Edward Said, United Sstates
Nonfiction
1979
Gaia
by James Lovelock, England
Nonfiction
Gödel, Escher, Bach
by Douglas Hofstadter, United States
Nonfiction, subtitled An Eternal Golden Braid, also known as GEB
The Right Stuff
by Tom Wolfe, United States
Nonfiction
1980
Cosmos
by Carl Sagan, United States
Nonfiction
1981
The Mismeasure of Man
by Stephen Jay Gould, United States
Nonfiction
1982
Wittgenstein's Nephew
by Thomas Bernhard, Austria
Nonfiction
Summer in Baden-Baden
by Leonard Tsypkin, Russia
Nonfiction
1983
Gorillas in the Mist
by Dian Fossey, United States
Nonfiction
In Search of Our Mother's Gardens
by Alice Walker, United States
Essay
1985
The Unwomanly Face of War
by Svetlana Alexievich, Belarus
Nonfiction, subtitled An Oral History of Women in World War II
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales
by Oliver Sacks, England
Nonfiction
1986
The Fatal Shore
by Robert Hughes, Australia
Nonfiction, subtitled The Epic of Australia's Founding
Less Than One
by Joseph Brodsky, Russia
Nonfiction collection
Kaffir Boy
by Mark Mathabane, South Africa
Nonfiction
1987
The Closing of the American Mind
by Allan Bloom, United States
Nonfiction, subtitled How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students
And the Band Played On
by Randy Shiltz, United States
Nonfiction, subtitled Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic
1988
Manufacturing Consent
by Noam Chomsky, United States
Nonfiction, subtitled The Political Economy of the Mass Media
A Brief History of Time
by Stephen Hawking, England
Nonfiction
1989
This Boy's Life
by Tobias Wolff, United States
Nonfiction
1989
The Emperor's New Mind
by Roger Penrose, England
Nonfiction, subtitled Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics
1990
India: A Million Mutinies Now
by V.S. Naipaul, Trinidad
Nonfiction
The Beauty Myth
by Naomi Wolf, United States
Nonfiction
1993
Before Night Falls
by Reinaldo Arenas, Cuba
Nonfiction, originally Antes que anochezca: autobiografía
1994
Long Walk to Freedom
by Nelson Mandella, South Africa
Nonfiction
The Western Canon
by Harold Bloom, United States
Nonfiction, subtitled The Books and School of the Ages
1995
The Liar's Club
by Mary Karr, United States
Nonfiction
1996
Angela's Ashes
by Frank McCourt, Ireland
Nonfiction
The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order
by Samuel P. Huntington, United States
Nonfiction
Into the Wild
by Joh Krakauer, United States
Nonfiction
1997
Falling Leaves
by Adeline Yen Mah, United States
Nonfiction
I Have Lived a Thousand Years
by Livia Bitton-Jackson, Israel
Nonfiction
Tuesdays with Morrie
Mitch Albom, United States
Nonfiction
A Walk in the Woods
Bill Bryson, United States
Nonfiction, subtitled Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail
Guns, Germs and Steel
Jared Diamond, United States
Nonfiction, subtitled The Fates of Human Societies or A Short History of Everybody for the Last 13,000 Years
Into Thin Air
Jon Krakauer, United States
Nonfiction, subtitled A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster
1998
Who Moved My Cheese
by Spencer Johnson, United States
Nonfiction
1999
No Logo
by Naomi Klein, Canada
Nonfiction
The Elegant Universe
by Brian Greene, United States
Nonfiction
2000
Experience
by Martin Amis, England
Nonfiction
Kitchen Confidential
by Anthony Bourdain, United States
Nonfiction
Happening
by Annie Ernaux, France
Nonfiction, originally L'Événement
On Writing
by Stephen King, United States
Nonfiction
Me Talk Pretty One Day
by David Sedaris, United States
Nonfiction collection
2000–2001
Persepolis
by Marjane Satrapi, Iran
Nonfiction graphic novel series includes Persepolis and Persepolis 2.
Twenty-first century (2001 CE to present)
2002
A Tale of Love and Darkness
by Amos Oz, Israel
Nonfiction
The Bookseller of Kabul
by Åsne Seierstad, Norway
Nonfiction
Nickel and Dimed
by Barbara Ehrenreicht, United States
Nonfiction, subtitled On (Not) Getting By in America
Movie Wars: How Hollywood and the Media Limit What Movies We Can See
by Jonathan Rosenbaum, United States
Nonfiction
2003
Reading Lolita in Tehran
by Azar Nafisi, Iran
Nonfiction
A Short History of Nearly Everything
by Bill Bryson, United States
Nonfiction of science
2004
Chronicles: Volume One
by Bob Dylan, United States
Nonfiction
2005
The Year of Magical Thinking
by Joan Didion, United States
Nonfiction
Freakonomics
by Steven D. Levitt and Steven J. Dubner, United States
Nonfiction
1491
by Charles C. Mann, United States
Nonfiction
The Glass Castle
by Jeannette Walls, United States
Nonfiction
2006
The God Delusion
by Richard Dawkins, England
Nonfiction
Gomorrah
by Ropberto Saviano, Italy
Nonfiction, originally Gomorra
The Omnivore's Dilemma
by Michael Pollan, United States
Nonfiction, subtitled A Natural History of Four Meals
Eat, Pray, Love
by Elizabeth Gilbert, United States
Nonfiction, subtitled One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia
2007
The Shock Doctrine
by Naomi Klein, Canada
Nonfiction, subtitled The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
A Long Way Gone
by Ishmael Beah, Sierra Leone
Nonfiction, subtitled Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
Three Cups of Tea
by Gregory Mortenson, David Oliver Rehn, United States
Nonfiction
The Black Swan
by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, United States
Nonfiction, subtitled The Impact of the Highly Improbable
2008
The Tipping Point
by Malcolm Gladwell, Canada
Nonfiction, subtitled How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
The Years
by Annie Ernaux, France
Nonfiction, originally Les Années
2010
The Hare with Amber Eyes
by Edmund de Waal, England
Nonfiction
The Emperor of All Maladies
by Siddhartha Mukherjee, United States
Nonfiction
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
by Rebecca Skloot, United States
Nonfiction
Just Kids
by Patti Smith, United States
Nonfiction
2011
The Opium War
by Julian Lovell, England
Nonfiction, subtitled Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal
by Jeanette Winterson, England
Nonfiction
Sapiens
by Yuval Noah Harari, Israel
Nonfiction, subtitled A Brief History of Humankind
Thinking Fast and Slow
by Daniel Kahneman, Israel
Nonfiction
2012
Voices from Chernobyl
by Svetlana Alexievich, Belarus
Nonfiction, subtitled The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster
The Inconvenient Indian
by Thomas King, Canada
Nonfiction, subtitled A Curious Account of Native People in North America
Wild
by Cheryl Strayed, United States
Nonfiction, subtitled From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
2013
Secondhand Time
by Svetlana Alexievich, Belarus
Nonfiction, subtitled The Last of the Soviets
Birth Certificate
by Mark Thompson, England
Nonfiction, subtitled The Story of Danilo Kiš
Capital in the Twentieth Century
by Thomas Picketty, France
Nonfiction, originally Le Capital au XXIe siècle
2014
An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States
by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, United States
Nonfiction
The Sixth Extinction
by Elizabeth Kolbert, United States
Nonfiction, subtitled An Unnatural History
2015
Between the World and Me
by Ta-Nehisi Coates, United States
Nonfiction
Negroland
by Margo Jefferson, United States
Nonfiction
The Argonauts
by Maggie Nelson, United States
Nonfiction
2018
Say Nothing
by Patrick Radden Keefe, Ireland
Nonfiction, subtitled A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
