The Greatest Nonfiction
This selection of 277 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.
For this list the widest diversity of nonfictional subjects has been considered—including, history, philosophy, science, economics, travel, sociology, psychology, biography, memoirs, diaries and journalism.
When it comes to nonfiction, "greatness" can take on many different meanings. For the Greatest Nonfiction list, we have tried to be as inclusive as possible, balancing historical and modern assessments, as well as scholarly and popular assessments, to determine the works of most interest to diverse readers.
The list is continually updated as new works are discovered and appreciation of older works evolves. Please note the current revision date when citing the list.
Latest update: May 17, 2025
Ancient • Medieval • Renaissance • 18th century • 19th century • 20th century • 21st-century
c.1500–900 BCE
The Vedas
by Anonymous, India
Essay collection
c.500 BCE
The Art of War
by Sun Tzu, China
Nonfiction
431–404 BCE
Histories
by Herodotus, Greece
History
c.400 BCE
Tao Te Ching
by Laozi (Lao Tzu), China
Nonfiction
c.385–370 BCE
The Symposium
by Plato, Greece
Philosophy
c.380 BCE
The Republic
by Plato, Greece
Dialogue, 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
Philosophy
Anabasis
by Xenophon, Greece
Nonfiction, also known as The March of the Ten Thousand
Cyropaedia
by Xenophon, Greece
Biography, also known as The Education of Cyrus
c.360 BCE
Phaedo
by Plato, Greece
Philosophy
c.350 BCE
Nichomachean Ethics
by Aristotle, Greece
Philosophy, originally Ēthika Nikomacheia
Metaphysics
by Aristotle, Greece
Philosophy
c.335 BCE
Poetics
by Aristotle, Greece
Philosophy, originally Peri poietikê
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
Philosophy
46 BCE
Commentaries on the Civil War
by Julius Caesar, Rome
Nonfiction
27 BCE–9 CE
History of Rome
by Livy, Rome
History
65 CE
Letters from a Stoic
by Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Rome
Philosophy, also known as Moral Epistles, originally Epistulae Morales ad Lu cilium
c.100 CE
Parallel Lives
by Plutarch, Greece
Biography, 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
History
121 CE
The Twelve Caesars
by Suetonius, Rome
Biography, also known as Lives of the Caesars
175 CE
Meditations
by Marcus Aurelius, Rome
Philosophy
397–400 CE
Confessions
by Augustine of Hippo (St. Augustine), Algeria
Memoir
c.1000
The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon
by Sei Shonagon, Japan
Diary
c.1136
The History of the Kings of Britain
by Geoffrey Monmounth, England
History, originally De gestis Britonum or Historia Regum Britanniae
1250
Summa Theologica
by Thomas Aquinas, Italy
Philosophy
1298–1299
The Travels of Marco Polo
by Rustichello da Pisa, Italy
Travel, also known as Book of the Marvels of the World
1330–1332
Essays in Idleness
by Yoshida Kenkō, Japan
Essay collection, also known as The Harvest of Leisure
c.1370
Travels of Sir John Mandeville
by Anonymous, England
Travel
1511
In Praise of Folly
by Erasmus of Rotterdam, Netherlands
Essay, also known as The Praise of Madness
1532
The Prince
by Niccolo Machiavelli, Italy
Nonfiction
1543
On the Fabric of the Human Body
by Andreas Vesalius, Netherlands
Science
On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres
by Nicolaus Copernicus, Poland
Science
1550–1568
Lives of the Artists
by Giorgio Vasari, Italy
Biography, 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
Memoir
1580
Essays
by Michel de Montaigne, France
Essay collection
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
Science, originally Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo
1636
Discourse on the Method
by René Descartes, France
Philosophy, 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
Philosophy, 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
Philosophy
1660
The Diary of Samuel Pepys
by Samuel Pepys, England
diary
1665
Micrographia
by Robert Hooke, England
Science
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
Philosophy, originally Ethica, ordine geometrico demonstrata
1687
Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
by Isaac Newton, England
Science
1689
Essay Concerning Human Understanding, An
by John Locke, England
Philosophy
1693
Brief Lives
by John Aubry, England
Biography
1702
The Narrow Road to the Interior
by Matsuo Bashō, Japan
Travel, also known as The Narrow Road to the Deep North, originally Oku no Hosomichi
1710
Theodicy
by Gottfried Leibniz, Germany
Philosophy, 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
Philosophy
1714
Monadology
by Gottfried Leibniz, Germany
Philosophy, 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
Philosophy
1748
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
by David Hume, Scotland
Philosophy
1762
The Social Contract
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Switzerland
Philosophy
1776
Common Sense
by Thomas Paine, 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
Memoir
1781
Critique of Pure Reason
by Immanuel Kant, Germany
Philosophy, originally Kritik der reinen Vernunft
1782
Confessions
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Switzerland
Memoir
1789
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
by Olaudah Equiano, Benin
Memoir 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
Biography
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
Memoir
1805
Rameau's Nephew
by Denis Diderot, France
Philosophy, originally Le Neveu de Rameau ou La Satire seconde in French translation
1807
The Phenomenology of Spirit
by G.W.F. Hegel, Germany
Philosophy, 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
Memoir
1822
Histotry of My Life
by Giacomo Casanova, England
Memoir
1835–1840
Democracy in America
by Alexis de Tocqueville, France
History, originally De la démocratie en Amérique
1840
Two Years Before the Mast
by Richard Henry Dana, Jr., United States
Memoir
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
Memoir, also known as Journal of Researches
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave
by Frederick Douglass, United States
Memoir
1848
The Communist Manifesto
by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Germany
Polemics
1849–1850
Memoirs from Beyond the Grave
by Francois René de Chateaubriand, France
Memoir
1854
Walden
by Henry David Thoreau, United States
Memoir, originally Walden; or, Life in the Woods
1857
The Life of Charlotte Brontë
by Elizabeth Gaskell, England
Biography
1859
On the Origin of Species
by Charles Darwin, England
Science
1859
On Liberty
by John Stuart Mill, England
Philosophy
1860
The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy
by Jacob Burckhardt, Switzerland
History, originally Die Cultur der Renaissance in Italien
1861
Utilitarianism
by John Stuart Mill, England
Philosophy
1867–1894
Capital
by Karl Marx, Germany
Economics, originally Das Kapital in three volumes
1883
Life on the Mississippi
by Mark Twain, United States
Memoir
1886
Beyond Good and Evil
by Friedrich Nietzsche, Germany
Philosophy, 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 Frazier, Scotland
Religion, subtitled A Study in Comparative Religion or A Study in Magic and Religion
1899
The Interpretation of Dreams
by Sigmund Freud, Austria
Psychology
1902
Rebellion in the Backlands
by Euclides da Cunha, Brazil
Nonfiction, originally Os Sertões
The Varieties of Religious Experience
by William James, England
Nonfiction
1903
The Souls of Black Folk
by W.E.B. Du Bois, United States
Essay collection
1905
Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality
by Sigmund Freud, Austria
Psychology
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
by Max Weber, Germany
Sociology
De Profundis
by Oscar Wilde, Ireland
Nonfiction
1907
The Education of Henry Adams
Henry Adams, United States
Autobiography
1912
Psychology of the Unconscious
by Carl Jung, Switzerland
Nonfiction
1916
Relativity: The Special and General Theory
by Albert Einstein, Germany
Science
The Course in General Linguistics
by Ferdinand de Saussure, Switzerland
Nonfiction, originally Cours de linguistique générale
1918
Eminent Victorians
by Lytton Strachey, England
Biography
1919
Ten Days That Shook the World
by John Reed, United States
History
1921
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Austria
Nonfiction
1922
The Enormous Room
by e.e. cummings, United States
Nonfiction novel
1926
Seven Pillars of Wisdom
by T.E. Lawrence, Wales
Memoir, 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
Memoir
Room of One's Own,A
by Virginia Woolf, England
Essay
1932
Selected Essays: 1917–1932
by T.S. Eliot, England
Essay collection
1930
Civilization and Its Discontents
by Sigmund Freud, Austria
Nonfiction
1933
Testament of Youth
by Vera Brittain, England
Memoir
Down and Out in Paris and London
by George Orwell, England
Memoir
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
by Gertrude Stein, United States
Memoir
1936
The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money
by John Maynard Keynes, England
Economics
1937
Out of Africa
by Isak Dinesen, Denmark
Memoir
The Road to Oxiana
by Robert Byron, England
Travel
1938
Theatre and Its Double
by Antonin Artaud, France
Theatre, originally Le Théâtre et son Double
1941
Black Lamb and Grey Falcon
by Rebecca West, England
Travel, 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
The World of Yesterday
by Stefan Zweig, Austria
Memoir, subtitled Memories of a European
West with the Night
by Beryl Markham, Kenya
Memoir
1943
Being and Nothingness
by Jean-Paul Sartre, France
Philosophy
1944
What Is Life?
by Erwin Schrödinger, Austria
Science
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
Essay collection
Black Boy
by Richard Wright, United States
Memoir, subtitled A Record of Childhood and Youth
1946
Man 's Search for Meaning
by Victor Frankl, Austria
Memoir, originally Ein Psychologe erlebt das Konzentrationslager
Hiroshima
by John Hersey, United States
Nonfiction novel
The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care
by Benjamin Spock, United States
Nonfiction
1947
The Diary of a Young Girl
by Anne Frank, Germany
Diary, also known as The Diary of Anne Frank
If This Is a Man
by Primo Levi, Italy
Memoir, also known as Survival in Auschwitz
One Two Three... Infinity
by George Gamow, United States
Science, 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
Science
1948–1949
Journal
by Franz Kafka, Bohemia
Diary
1948–1953
The Second World War
by Winston Churchill, England
History
1949
The Second Sex
by Simone de Beauvoir, France
Philosophy
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
Essay 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
Essay collection, originally Otras inquisiciones 1937–1952
1953
Philosophical Investigations
by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Austria
Philosophy
Captive Mind,The
by Czesław Miłosz, Poland
Nonfiction
1954
The Doors of Perception
by Aldous Huxley, England
Nonfiction
My Left Foot
by Christy Brown, Ireland
Memoir
1955
Triste Tropiques
by Claude Lévi-Strauss, France
Memoir
Notes of a Native Son
by James Baldwin, United States
Nonfiction
1956
Night
by Elie Wiesel, United States
Memoir
1957
Mythologies
by Roland Barthes, France
Essay collection
1958
Borstal Boy
by Brendan Behan, Ireland
Memoir
The Affluent Society
by John Kenneth Galbraith, United States
Economics
1959
Kon-Tiki
by Thor Heyerdahl, Norway
Nonfiction, subtitled Across the Pacific in a Raft
Down Second Avenue
by E'skia Mphahlele's, South Africa
Memoir
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
The Death and Life of Great American Cities
by Jane Jacobs, Canada
Nonfiction
1962
The Silent Spring
by Rachel Carson, United States
Science
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
by Thomas Kuhn, United States
Nonfiction
1963
The Feynman Lectures on Physics
by Richard P. Feynman, United States
Science
The Feminine Mystique
by Betty Friedan, United States
Nonfiction
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
Memoir
Man and His Symbols
by Carl Jung, Switzerland
Psychology
An Area of Darkness
by V.S. Naipaul, Trinidad
Travel, subtitled A Discovery of India
1965
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
by as told to Alex Haley, United States
Biography
1966
The Order of Things
by Michel Foucault, France
Philosophy
In Cold Blood
by Truman Capote, United States
Nonfiction novel
Against Interpretation
by Susan Sontag, United States
Nonfiction
1967
Speak, Memory
Vladimir Nabokov, Russia
Memoir, subtitled An Autobiography Revisited
Nicholas and Alexandra
by Robert K. Massie, United States
Biography
Hell's Angels
by Hunter S. Thompson, United States
Nonfiction novel
1968
The Naked Ape
by Desmond Morris, England
Science, subtitled A Zoologist's Study of the Human Animal
Soul on Ice
by Eldridge Cleaver, United States
Memoir
The Double Helix
by James Watson, United States
Science
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 novel
1970
The Female Eunuch
by Germaine Greer, Australia
Nonfiction
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
by Maya Angelou, United States
Memoir
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
by Dee Brown, United States
History, 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
Philosophy
The Insect Societies
by Edward O. Wilson, United States
Science
1973
Awakenings
by Oliver Sacks, England
Science
The Gulag Archipelago
by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Russia
Nonfiction
The Cosmic Connection
by Carl Sagan, United States
Science
1974
All the Presidents' Men
by Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward, United States
Nonfiction
The Power Broker
by Robert A. Caro, United States
Biography, subtitled Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
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 Periodic Table
by Primo Levi, Italy
Memoir
1976
The Selfish Gene
by Richard Dawkins, England
Science
The Hite Report
by Shere Hite, United States
Nonfiction
The Woman Warrior
by Maxine Hong Kingston, United States
Memoir, subtitled Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts
1977
A Time of Gifts
by Patrick Leigh Fermor, England
Travel
Dispatches
by Michael Herr, United States
Memoir
The First Three Minutes
by Steven Weinberg, United States
Science
1978
Orientalism
by Edward Said, United Sstates
Nonfiction
1979
Gaia
by James Lovelock, England
Science
Gödel, Escher, Bach
by Douglas Hofstadter, United States
Nonfiction, subtitled An Eternal Golden Braid, also known as GEB
The Executioner's Song
by Norman Mailer, United States
Nonfiction novel
The Right Stuff
by Tom Wolfe, United States
Journalism
1980
Cosmos
by Carl Sagan, United States
Science
1981
The Mismeasure of Man
by Stephen Jay Gould, United States
Science
1982
Schindler's Ark
by Thomas Keneally, Australia
Nonfiction novel, also known as Schindler's List
Wittgenstein's Nephew
by Thomas Bernhard, Austria
Memoir
Summer in Baden-Baden
by Leonard Tsypkin, Russia
Biography
1983
Gorillas in the Mist
by Dian Fossey, United States
Science
In Search of Our Mother's Gardens
by Alice Walker, United States
Essay
1984
Flaubert's Parrot
by Julian Barnes, England
novel
1985
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales
by Oliver Sacks, England
Science
1986
Kaffir Boy
by Mark Mathabane, South Africa
Memoir
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
Memoir, 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
Science
1989
This Boy's Life
by Tobias Wolff, United States
Memoir
1989
The Emperor's New Mind
by Roger Penrose, England
Science
1990
India: A Million Mutinies Now
by V.S. Naipaul, Trinidad
Travel
The Beauty Myth
by Naomi Wolf, United States
Nonfiction
1991
Wild Swans
by Jung Chang, China
Nonfiction novel, subtitled Three Daughters of China
1994
Long Walk to Freedom
by Nelson Mandella, South Africa
Memoir
The Western Canon
by Harold Bloom, United States
Criticism, subtitled The Books and School of the Ages
1995
The Liar's Club
by Mary Karr, United States
Memoir
1996
Angela's Ashes
by Frank McCourt, Ireland
Memoir
1997
Falling Leaves
by Adeline Yen Mah, China
Memoir
I Have Lived a Thousand Years
by Livia Bitton-Jackson, Israel
Memoir
A Walk in the Woods
Bill Bryson, United States
Travel, subtitled Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail
Guns, Germs and Steel
Jared Diamond, United States
History, subtitled The Fates of Human Societies
Into Thin Air
Jon Krakauer, United States
Memoir, subtitled A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster
1999
No Logo
by Naomi Klein, Canada
Nonfiction
2000
Kitchen Confidential
by Anthony Bourdain, United States
Memoir
On Writing
by Stephen King, United States
Memoir
2000–2001
Persepolis
by Marjane Satrapi, Iran
Graphic memoir
2002
A Tale of Love and Darkness
by Amos Oz, Israel
Memoir
The Bookseller of Kabul
by Åsne Seierstad, Norway
Nonfiction novel
2003
Reading Lolita in Tehran
by Azar Nafisi, Iran
Memoir
2005
The Year of Magical Thinking
by Joan Didion, United States
Memoir
Freakonomics
by Steven D. Levitt and Steven J. Dubner, United States
Economics
The Glass Castle
by Jeannette Walls, United States
Memoir
2006
The God Delusion
by Richard Dawkins, England
Nonfiction
What Is the What
by Dave Eggers, United States
Nonfiction novel
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
Memoir, 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
Memoir, subtitled Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
Three Cups of Tea
by Gregory Mortenson, David Oliver Rehn, United States
Memoir
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
2010
The Hare with Amber Eyes
by Edmund de Waal, England
Memoir
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
Memoir
2011
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal
by Jeanette Winterson, England
Memoir
Sapiens
by Yuval Noah Harari, Israel
History, subtitled A Brief History of Humankind
Thinking Fast and Slow
by Daniel Kahneman, Israel
Science
2012
The Inconvenient Indian
Thomas King, Canada
History, subtitled A Curious Account of Native People in North America
Wild
Cheryl Strayed, United States
Memoir, subtitled From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
2013
Secondhand Time
by Svetlana Alexievich, Belarus
History, subtitled The Last of the Soviets
2014
An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States
by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, United States
History
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
Memoir
See also:
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