The Greatest Nonfiction Books Written by American Authors
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1 . Walden by Henry David Thoreau
Walden (first published as Walden; or, Life in the Woods) is an American book written by noted transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings.
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2 . The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Alex Haley
This book describes Malcolm X's upbringing in Michigan, his maturation to adulthood in Boston and New York, his time in prison, his conversion to Islam, his ministry, his travels to Africa and to M...
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3 . Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
Silent Spring is a book written by Rachel Carson and published by Houghton Mifflin in September 1962. The book is widely credited with helping launch the environmental movement. When Silent Spri...
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4 . In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no appar...
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5 . The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr, E. B. White
The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr., and E. B. White, is an American English writing style guide. It is the best-known and most influential prescriptive treatment of English grammar and us...
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6 . The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA by James D. Watson
The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA is an autobiographical account of the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA written by James D. Watson and pub...
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7 . Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe
It is Wolfe's first novel, and is considered a highly autobiographical American Bildungsroman. The character of Eugene Gant is generally believed to be a depiction of Wolfe himself. The novel cover...
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8 . The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams
The Education of Henry Adams records the struggle of Bostonian Henry Adams (1838-1918), in early old age, to come to terms with the dawning 20th century, so different from the world of his youth. I...
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9 . The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is an analysis of the history of science. Its publication was a landmark event in the sociology of knowledge, and popularized the terms paradigm and paradigm...
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10 . Dispatches by Michael Herr
Dispatches is a non-fiction book by Michael Herr that describes the author's experiences in Vietnam as a war correspondent for Esquire magazine. First published in 1977, Dispatches was one of the f...
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11 . I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local “po...
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12 . The Civil War by Shelby Foote
The Civil War: A Narrative (1958-1974) is a three volume, 2,968-page, 1.2 million-word history of the American Civil War by Shelby Foote. Although previously known as a novelist, Foote is most famo...
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13 . The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882) was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of indivi...
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14 . The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is a work of literary journalism by Tom Wolfe, published in 1968. Using techniques from the genre of hysterical realism and pioneering new journalism, the novel tell...
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15 . The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs
The Death and Life of Great American Cities, by Jane Jacobs, is a greatly influential book on the subject of urban planning in the 20th century. First published in 1961, the book is a critique of m...
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16 . The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen
The Snow Leopard is a 1978 book by Peter Matthiessen, which is an account of his two month journey along with naturalist George Schaller in 1973 to Crystal Mountain, in the Dolpo region on the Tibe...
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17 . Selected Essays of T. S. Eliot by T. S. Eliot
This is the first large and representative book of T. S. Eliot's prose and it is being published just at the time when Mr. Eliot is returning to America for the Harvard lectures. A year ago Edmund ...
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18 . The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
The Right Stuff is a 1979 book by Tom Wolfe about the pilots engaged in U.S. postwar experiments with experimental rocket-powered, high-speed aircraft as well as documenting the stories of the firs...
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20 . The Liberal Imagination by Lionel Trilling
The Liberal Imagination is one of the most admired and influential works of criticism of the last century, a work that is not only a masterpiece of literary criticism but an important statement abo...
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21 . Angela's Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCourt
Angela’s Ashes is a memoir by Irish-American author Frank McCourt and tells the story of his childhood in Brooklyn and Ireland. It was published in 1996 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or ...
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22 . Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
Published posthumously in 1964, A Moveable Feast remains one of Ernest Hemingway's most beloved works. Since Hemingway's personal papers were released in 1979, scholars have examined and debated th...
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23 . The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein
Largely to amuse herself, Gertrude Stein wrote this book in 1932..using as a sounding board her companion Miss Toklas, who had been with her for twenty-five years. The book is full of the most luci...
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24 . Night by Elie Wiesel
A New Translation From The French By Marion Wiesel Night is Elie Wiesel’s masterpiece, a candid, horrific, and deeply poignant autobiographical account of his survival as a teenager in the Nazi dea...
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25 . Mythology by Edith Hamilton
Since its original publication by Little, Brown and Company in 1942, Edith Hamilton's Mythology has sold millions of copies throughout the world and established itself as a perennial bestseller in ...
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26 . The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton
The Seven Storey Mountain is the autobiography of Thomas Merton, a Trappist Monk and a noted author of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Merton finished the book in 1946 at the age of 31, five years afte...
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27 . Hiroshima by John Hersey
The classic tale of the day the first atom bomb was dropped offers a haunting evocation of the memories of survivors and an appeal to the conscience of humanity
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28 . Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men is a book with text by American writer James Agee and photographs by American photographer Walker Evans first published in 1941 in the United States. The title is from ...
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29 . The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes
The Making of the Atomic Bomb, a book written by Richard Rhodes, won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction, a National Book Award and a National Book Critics Circle Award. The 900-page bo...
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30 . The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay
The Federalist Papers are a series of 85 articles and essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay promoting the ratification of the United States Constitution. Seventy-seven w...
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31 . The Feynman Lectures on Physics by Richard P. Feynman
Richard P. Feynman (1918–1988) was widely recognized as the most creative physicist of the post–World War II period. His career was extraordinarily expansive. From his contributions to the developm...
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32 . Samuel Johnson by Walter Jackson Bate
This 1979 chronicle is seen by critics not only as the definitive life of Dr. Johnson, but as a model of well-researched, lucid, fair--but always affectionate--biography.
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33 . Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
This collection of essays takes the reader on a psychological tour of the intense, wayward, violent, not a little crazy America of the 1960s. Surfers, students, deadheads and druggies; Joan Baez, D...
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34 . The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
The Year of Magical Thinking, by Joan Didion, is an account of the year following the death of the author's husband John Gregory Dunne (1932–2003). Published by Knopf in October 2005, the book was ...
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35 . The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois
The Souls of Black Folk is a classic work of American literature by W. E. B. Du Bois. It is a seminal work in the history of sociology, and a cornerstone of African-American literary history. Th...
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37 . On Writing by Stephen King
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft is an autobiography and writing guide by Stephen King, published during 2000. It is a book about the prolific author's experiences as a writer. Although he discuss...
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38 . Battle Cry of Freedom by James M. McPherson
Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era is a Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the American Civil War published in 1988 by James M. McPherson. Writing for the The New York Times, historian Hugh Br...
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39 . Jefferson and His Time by Dumas Malone
Dumas Malone's classic biography "Jefferson and His Time" — originally published in six volumes over a period of thirty-four years, between 1948 and 1982 — was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in history...
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40 . Maus by Art Spiegelman
Maus: A Survivor's Tale is an autobiography by Art Spiegelman, told using the comics form. Parts of the story were originally published in the magazine RAW between 1980 to 1991. The complete story ...
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43 . Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey
Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness is a literary nonfiction work by Edward Abbey (1927–89), published originally in 1968. His fourth book and his first book length non-fiction work, it f...
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45 . Witness by Whittaker Chambers
First published in 1952, Witness was at once a literary effort, a philosophical treatise, and a bestseller. Whittaker Chambers had just participated in America's trial of the century in which Chamb...
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46 . The Power Broker by Robert Caro
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York is a Pulitzer Prize-winning 1974 biography of Robert Moses, "New York City's Master Builder", by Robert Caro. In the years since its publicat...
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47 . Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman
Capitalism and Freedom is a book by Milton Friedman originally published in 1962 which discusses the role of economic capitalism in liberal society. In accessible, jargon-free language, Friedman...
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48 . The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman
The Guns of August, originally published as August 1914 (1962), is a military history book written by Barbara Tuchman. It primarily describes the events of the first month of World War I. The focus...
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49 . Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain
Life on the Mississippi is a memoir by Mark Twain detailing his days as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River before and after the American Civil War.
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52 . The Joy of Cooking by Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, Ethan Becker
The Joy of Cooking is one of the United States' most-published cookbooks, having been in print continuously since 1936 and with more than 18 million copies sold. It was privately published in 1931 ...
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53 . 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...
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54 . The City in History by Lewis Mumford
The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects is a 1961 National Book Award winner by American historian Lewis Mumford. In the book Mumford urges for a world not in wh...
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55 . The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan
The Feminine Mystique, published 25 February 1963, is a book written by Betty Friedan which brought to light the lack of fulfillment in many women's lives, which was generally kept hidden[citation ...
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56 . And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts
And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic is a nonfiction book written by San Francisco Chronicle journalist Randy Shilts, published in 1987. It chronicles the discovery and s...
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57 . The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care by Benjamin Spock
The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care (often referred to simply as Baby and Child Care), written by Benjamin Spock, was first published on 14 July 1946, and is one of the biggest best-seller...
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58 . How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
Dale Breckenridge Carnegie (originally Carnagey until 1922 and possibly somewhat later) (November 24, 1888 – November 1, 1955) was an American writer and lecturer and the developer of famous course...
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60 . The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
A national bestseller when it first appeared in 1963, The Fire Next Time galvanized the nation and gave passionate voice to the emerging civil rights movement. At once a powerful evocation of James...
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61 . Roll, Jordan, Roll by Eugene Genovese
This weighty book intends to "tell the story of slave life as carefully and accurately as possible."
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62 . Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values is the first of Robert M. Pirsig's texts in which he explores his Metaphysics of Quality. The 1974 book describes, in first person,...
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63 . The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright
The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 is a historical look at the way in which Al-Qaeda came into being, the background for various terrorist attacks and how they were investigated, and ...
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64 . The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is the traditional name for the unfinished record of his own life written by Benjamin Franklin from 1771 to 1790; however, Franklin himself appears to have ca...
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65 . Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies is a 1997 book by Jared Diamond, professor of geography and physiology at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). In 1998 it won a Pulitze...
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66 . The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould
The Mismeasure of Man is a 1981 book written by the Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002). The book is a history and critique of the methods and motivations underlying biological det...
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67 . The Conservative Mind by Russell Kirk
The Conservative Mind by Russell Kirk is arguably one of the greatest contributions to twentieth-century American Conservatism. Brilliant in every respect, from its conception to its choice of sign...
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68 . A Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan
A Bright Shining Lie is a book by Neil Sheehan, a former New York Times reporter who covered the Vietnam War. It is about U.S. Army retired Lieutenant Colonel John Paul Vann and the United States i...
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70 . Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington
Up from Slavery is the 1901 autobiography of Booker T. Washington detailing his slow and steady rise from a slave child during the Civil War, to the difficulties and obstacles he overcame to get an...
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71 . The Age of Reform by Richard Hofstadter
The Age of Reform is a 1955 Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Richard Hofstadter. The book is an American history that traces events from the Populist Movement of the 1890s through the Progressive Era...
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72 . The Frontier in American History by Frederick Jackson Turner
One of the most influential and important books written about the impact of frontier life on a transplanted civilization. Reprinted from original 1920 edition, this edition lucidly reflects Jackson...
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73 . The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
One of the New York Times Book Review's Ten Best Books of the Year Winner of the James Beard Award Author of #1 New York Times Bestsellers In Defense of Food and Food Rules Today, buffeted by one f...
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74 . A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (ISBN 0-330-48455-9) is a memoir by Dave Eggers released in 2000. It chronicles his stewardship of younger brother Christopher "Toph" Eggers following the ...
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75 . Nature and Destiny of Man by Reinhold Niebuhr
Arguably Niebuhl's most important work, this book offers a sustained articulation of his theological ethics and is considered a landmark in 20th-century thought. This book issues a challenge to Wes...
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76 . In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick
In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex is a National Book Award winning work of maritime history by Nathaniel Philbrick. It tells the story of the Whaleship Essex from the poin...
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77 . Common Ground by J. Anthony Lukas
The book traces the history of three families: the African-American Twymons, the Irish McGoffs and the Yankee Divers. It gives brief genealogical histories of each families, focusing on how the eve...
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78 . Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin
Notes of a Native Son collects ten of Baldwin's essays, which had previously appeared in such magazines as Harper's Magazine, Partisan Review, and The New Leader. The essays mostly tackle issues of...
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79 . Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything is a 2005 non-fiction book by University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt and New York Times journalist Stephen J. Dubner. T...
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80 . A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold
Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac has enthralled generations of nature lovers and conservationists and is indeed revered by everyone seriously interested in protecting the natural world. Hailed ...
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81 . Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is a 1974 nonfiction narrative book by Annie Dillard. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1975. The book is about Dillard's experiences at Tinker Creek, which is located in Virg...
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82 . Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
Me Talk Pretty One Day, published in 2000, is a bestselling collection of essays by American humorist David Sedaris. The book is separated into two parts. The first consists of essays about Sedaris...
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83 . The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by journalist William L. Shirer, is the first and most successful, large scale history of Nazi Germany in English for a general audience, first published in 19...
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84 . Patriotic Gore by Edmund Wilson
Critical/biographical portraits of such notable figures as Harriet Beecher Stowe, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Ambrose Bierce, Mary Chesnut, William Tecumseh Sherman, and Oliver Wendell Holme...
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86 . Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Alexander Brown
Documents, personal narratives, and illustrations record the experiences of Native Americans during the nineteenth century.
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87 . Future Shock: The Third Wave by Alvin Toffler
Explores the nature and implications of a third wave of change that is now creating a new civilization with its own life-styles, jobs, sexual attitudes, concepts of family and love, economic struct...
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89 . Essays of E. B. White by E. B. White
The classic collection by one of the greatest essayists of our time. White is the apotheosis of the American liberal now spurned and detested by the Left (and the cultural mainstream). His mesme...
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90 . Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression by Studs Terkel
In this unique recreation of one of the most dramatic periods in modern American history, Studs Terkel recaptures the Great Depression of the 1930s in all its complexity. featuring a mosaic of memo...
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91 . Genetics and the Origin of Species by Theodosius Dobzhansky
Genetics and the Origin of Species (ISBN 0-231-05475-0) is a 1937 book by the Ukrainian-American evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky and one of the important books of the modern evolutiona...
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92 . Coming of Age in Samoa by Margaret Mead
Coming of Age in Samoa is a book by Margaret Mead based upon youth in Samoa and lightly relating to youth in America, first published in 1928. In the foreword to Coming of Age in Samoa, Mead's advi...
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93 . Dust Tracks on a Road: An Autobiography by Zora Neale Hurston
First published in 1942 at the height of her popularity, Dust Tracks on a Road is Zora Neale Hurston's candid, funny, bold, and poignant autobiography, an imaginative and exuberant account of her r...
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94 . The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson
An intrepid voyage out to the frontiers of the latest thinking about love, language, and family Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts is a genre-bending memoir, a work of "autotheory" offering fresh, fierc...
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95 . Reveille in Washington by Margaret Leech
Margaret Kernochan Leech (November 7, 1893 – February 24, 1974) also known as Margaret Pulitzer, was an American author and historian, who won two Pulitzer Prizes in history, for her books Reveille...
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97 . This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolff
This Boy's Life is a memoir by Tobias Wolff first published in 1989. It describes the author's adolescence as he wanders the continental United States with his itinerant mother. The first leg of th...
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98 . Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Winner of the Lincoln Prize Acclaimed historian Doris Kearns Goodwin illuminates Lincoln's political genius in this highly original work, as the one-term congressman and prairie lawyer rises from o...
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99 . The Ants by E. O. Wilson, Bert Hölldobler
This book is primarily aimed at academics as a reference work, detailing the anatomy, physiology, social organization, ecology, and natural history of ants. The Ants is a Pulitzer Prize-winning...
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100 . Sociobiology by Edward O. Wilson
Sociobiology: The New Synthesis is a book written by E. O. Wilson, which started the sociobiology debate, one of the great scientific controversies in biology of the 20th century. Wilson popularize...
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101 . The Habit of Being by Flannery O'Connor
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Special Award "I have come to think that the true likeness of Flannery O'Connor will be painted by herself, a self-portrait in words, to be found in her l...
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102 . The Age of Jackson by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. won the Pulitzer Prize for The Age of Jackson. It is a triumph of historical scholarship, analysis, and interpretation and throws much new light on a host of Americans, well...
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103 . The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert
A major book about the future of the world, blending intellectual and natural history and field reporting into a powerful account of the mass extinction unfolding before our eyes Over the last half...
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104 . 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...
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105 . The Noonday Demon by Andrew Solomon
The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression is a 2001 memoir written by Andrew Solomon. It examines the personal, cultural, and scientific aspects of depression through Solomon's published interviews...
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106 . Present at the Creation by Dean Acheson
Acheson (1893-1971) was not only present at the creation of the postwar world, he was one of its chief architects. He joined the Department of State in 1941 as Assistant Secretary of State for Econ...
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107 . The American Language by H. L. Mencken
The American Language, first published in 1919, is H. L. Mencken's book about the English language as spoken in the United States. Mencken was inspired by "the argot of the colored waiters" in W...
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108 . Roughing It by Mark Twain
Roughing It is a book of semi-autobiographical travel literature written by American humorist Mark Twain. It was written during 1870–71 and published in 1872 as a prequel to his first book Innocent...
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109 . The Lives of a Cell by Lewis Thomas
The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher is a 1974 collection of 29 essays written by Lewis Thomas for the New England Journal of Medicine during the preceding three years. The pieces are lo...
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110 . The House of Morgan by Ron Chernow
The winner of the National Book Award and now considered a classic, The House of Morgan is the most ambitious history ever written about an American banking dynasty. Acclaimed by The Wall Street Jo...
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111 . Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers by Tom Wolfe
Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers was a 1970 book by Tom Wolfe. The book, Wolfe's fourth, is composed of two articles by Wolfe, "These Radical Chic Evenings," first published in June of 1...
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112 . On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen by Harold McGee
Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking is a kitchen classic. Hailed by Time magazine as "a minor masterpiece" when it first appeared in 1984, On Food and Cooking is the bible to which food lovers and p...
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114 . James Joyce by Richard Ellmann
This acclaimed biography has won both the James Tait Black and the Duff Cooper Memorial Prizes, and is considered by many to be the definitive account of Joyce's life and work. The fresh materia...
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115 . The Liars' Club by Mary Karr
The Liars' Club is the childhood memoir of American author Mary Karr. Published in 1995 and a New York Times bestseller for over a year it tells the story of Mary Karr's childhood in the 1960s in a...
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116 . The Invention of Solitude by Paul Auster
The Invention of Solitude is Paul Auster's first memoir, published in the year 1982. The book is divided into two separate parts, Portrait of an Invisible Man, which concerns the sudden death of Au...
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117 . The End of History and the Last Man by Francis Fukuyama
The End of History and the Last Man is a 1992 book by Francis Fukuyama, expanding on his 1989 essay "The End of History?", published in the international affairs journal The National Interest. In t...
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118 . Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE • Hailed as the top nonfiction book of the year by Time magazine • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for biography and the ...
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119 . 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 ...
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120 . All the President's Men by Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein
The full account of the Watergate scandal from the two Washington Post reporters who broke the story. This is “the work that brought down a presidency…perhaps the most influential piece of journali...
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121 . Duke of Deception by Geoffrey Wolff
Duke Wolff was a flawless specimen of the American clubman -- a product of Yale and the OSS, a one-time fighter pilot turned aviation engineer. Duke Wolff was a failure who flunked out of a series ...
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122 . Priestdaddy: A Memoir by Patricia Lockwood
Affectionate and very funny . . . wonderfully grounded and authentic. This book proves Lockwood to be a formidably gifted writer who can do pretty much anything she pleases.” – The New York Times B...
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123 . Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991 by Michael Azerrad
This is the never-before-told story of the musical revolution that happened right under the nose of the Reagan Eighties--when a small but sprawling network of bands, labels, fanzines, radio station...
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124 . Hollywood Babylon by Kenneth Anger
Hollywood Babylon is a book by avant-garde filmmaker Kenneth Anger which details the sordid scandals of many famous and infamous Hollywood denizens from the 1900s to the 1950s. First published in t...
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125 . The Americans by Robert Frank
The Americans, by Robert Frank, was a highly influential book in post-war American photography. It was first published in France in 1958, and the following year in the United States. The photograph...
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126 . Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (commonly GEB) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Douglas Hofstadter, described as "a metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis C...
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127 . God and Man at Yale by William F. Buckley, Jr
God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of "Academic Freedom," is a book published in 1951 by William F. Buckley, Jr., who eventually became a leading voice in the American conservative movement in ...
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128 . Ideas Have Consequences by Richard M. Weaver
Ideas Have Consequences is a philosophical work by Richard M. Weaver, published in 1948. The book is largely a treatise on the deleterious effects that the doctrine of nominalism has had on Western...
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130 . The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom
One of our country's most distinguished political philosophers argues that the social/political crisis of 20th-century America is really an intellectual crisis. Allan Bloom's sweeping analysis is e...
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131 . Ethnic America by Thomas Sowell
A distinguished economist traces the history of nine American ethnic groups--the Irish, the Germans, the Jews, the Italians, the Chinese, the Japanese, the Blacks, the Puerto Ricans, and the Mexica...
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132 . The Road from Coorain by Jill Ker Conway
Jill Ker Conway is a noted historian, specializing in the experience of women in America, and was the first woman president of Smith College.
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133 . Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
Zeitoun is a nonfiction book written by Dave Eggers and published by McSweeney's in 2009. It tells the story of Abdulrahman Zeitoun, the Syrian-American owner of a painting and contracting company ...
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134 . Democracy and Leadership by Irving Babbitt
Irving Babbitt was a leader of the intellectual movement called American Humanism, or the New Humanism, and a distinguished professor of French literature at Harvard. Democracy and Leadership, firs...
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135 . The Machiavellians by James Burnham
Burnham is the greatest political analyst of our century and this is his best book.
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136 . The Armies of the Night by Norman Mailer
The Armies of the Night (1968) is a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning nonfiction novel written by Norman Mailer and sub-titled History as a Novel/The Novel as History. Mailer essential...
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137 . The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell
The Hero with a Thousand Faces (first published in 1949) is a non-fiction book, and seminal work of comparative mythology by Joseph Campbell. In this publication, Campbell discusses his theory of t...
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138 . The ABC of Reading by Ezra Pound
ABC of Reading is a book by Ezra Pound published in 1934. In it, Pound sets out an approach to the appreciation and understanding of literature (focusing primarily on poetry).
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139 . The Making of Homeric Verse by Milman Parry
Milman Parry, who died in 1935 while a young assistant professor at Harvard, is now considered one of the leading classical scholars of this century. Yet Parry's articles and French dissertations--...
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140 . Great Bridge by David McCullough
This monumental book is the enthralling story of one of the greatest events in our nation's history, during the Age of Optimism — a period when Americans were convinced in their hearts that all thi...
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141 . The Good Society by Walter Lippmann
The Good Society is a critical text in the history of liberalism. Initially a series of articles published in a variety of Lippmann's favorite magazines, as the whole evolved, it became a frontal a...
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142 . The Christian Tradition by Jaroslav Pelikan
The century's most comprehensive account of Christian teaching from the second century on.
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143 . Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres by Henry Adams
Widely considered one of the most valuable works on European religion, philosophy, economics, politics, and art in the middle ages.
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144 . Poetry and the Age by Randall Jarrell
The book for showing how 20th- century poets think, what their poetry does, and why it matters.
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146 . Darwin's Black Box by Michael J. Behe
Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution (1996, first edition; 2006, second edition) is a book written by Michael J. Behe and published by Free Press in which he presents his noti...
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147 . The Way the World Works by Jude Wanniski
Jude Wanniski's masterpiece defined the economic policies of the 1980s responsible for a booming stock market, the creation of thirty million new jobs. untold wealth, and unparalleled prosperity. T...
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148 . To the Finland Station by Edmund Wilson
To the Finland Station: A Study in the Writing and Acting of History is the most famous book by the American critic and historian Edmund Wilson. Published in 1940, the work presents the history of ...
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149 . A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn
A People's History of the United States is a 1980 non-fiction book by American historian and political scientist Howard Zinn. In the book, Zinn seeks to present American history through the eyes of...
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150 . The Last Lion by William Manchester
The Last Lion is the second book in a planned trilogy of biographies on Winston Churchill by author and historian William Manchester.
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151 . The Starr Report by Kenneth W. Starr
THE STARR REPORT contains the complete text of the Independent Counsel
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152 . On Death and Dying by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
Explains the attitudes of the dying toward themselves and others and presents a humane approach to relieving the psychological suffering of the terminally ill and their families
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153 . Superhighway--superhoax by Helen Leavitt
Points out that the original plan as conceived in 1944 was to have the system link cities but not to enter them. Explains why the cores of the cities have been invaded by the highway system and why...
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154 . Woman Suffrage and Politics: The Inner Story of the Suffrage Movement by Carrie Chapman Catt
This book addresses the question of why women in twenty-six other countries received the right to vote before American women were enfranchised. The authors blame the liquor lobby for the delay.
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156 . Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics and at Home by Emily Post
Upon publication in 1922 her book, “Etiquette: In Society, In Business, In Politics and At Home,” topped the nonfiction bestseller list, and the phrase “according to Emily Post” soon entered our la...
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157 . A Theory Of The Consumption Function by Milton Friedman
What is the exact nature of the consumption function? Can this term be defined so that it will be consistent with empirical evidence and a valid instrument in the hands of future economic researche...
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158 . Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City is a 2016 non-fiction book by the American author Matthew Desmond. Set in the poorest areas of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the book follows eight families...
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159 . A Field Guide to the Birds by Roger Tory Peterson
The Peterson Field Guides (PFG) are a popular and influential series of American field guides intended to assist the layman in identification of birds, plants, insects and other natural phenomena. ...
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160 . The House on Henry Street by Lillian D. Wald
Nearly one hundred years after the Henry Street Settlement was founded, this venerable institution still serves the people of the lower East Side of New York. Much of the credit for its survival ma...
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161 . The Politics of Ecstasy by Timothy Leary
Writings that sparkle with the psychedelic revolution. The Politics of Ecstasy is Timothy Leary's most provocative and influential exploration of human consciousness, written during the period from...
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162 . Russia Leaves the War by George F. Kennan
Russia Leaves the War (1956) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning book by George F. Kennan. The book also won the National Book Award for Nonfiction, the George Bancroft Prize, and the Francis Parkman Prize...
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163 . The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
The Story of My Life, first published in 1903, is Helen Keller's autobiography detailing her early life, especially her experiences with Anne Sullivan. Portions of it were adapted by William Gibson...
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164 . Against Our Will by Susan Brownmiller
Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape is a 1975 book about rape by Susan Brownmiller, in which the author argues that rape is "a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in...
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165 . The Haunted Land by Tina Rosenberg
The Haunted Land: Facing Europe's Ghosts After Communism written by Tina Rosenberg and published by Random House in 1995, won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction and the 1995 National B...
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166 . The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron
The Artist’s Way is the seminal book on the subject of creativity. An international bestseller, millions of readers have found it to be an invaluable guide to living the artist’s life. Still as vit...
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167 . The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T. J. Stiles
A biography of the combative man whose genius and force of will created modern capitalism, documenting how Vanderbilt helped launch the transportation revolution, propel the Gold Rush, reshape Manh...
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168 . A Stillness at Appomattox by Bruce Catton
A Stillness at Appomattox is a history on the American Civil War that recounts the final year. Some of Catton's extensive work describes the Battle of the Wilderness, the assault of the Mule Sho...
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169 . The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt
Winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction Winner of the 2011 National Book Award for Non-Fiction One of the world's most celebrated scholars, Stephen Greenblatt has crafted both an innovati...
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170 . The Path to Power by Robert Caro
The Path to Power, Caro retraced Lyndon Johnson's life by temporarily moving to rural Texas and Washington, D.C., to better understand Johnson's upbringing and to interview anyone who had known Joh...
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171 . Democratic Vistas by Walt Whitman
Democratic Vistas is a major work of comparative politics and letters written by the American poet and author Walt Whitman. Walt Whitman does much to expound on the influence of the Louisiana Purch...
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172 . Growing Up Absurd by Paul Goodman
Growing Up Absurd: Problems of Youth in the Organized Society is a 1960 book by Paul Goodman.
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173 . Twenty Years at Hull-House by Jane Addams
A refuge for Chicago's poor, Hull-House provided an unprecedented variety of social services. Its founder's inspiring autobiography chronicles the institution's early years and discusses its guidin...
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174 . The Diversity of Life by Edward O. Wilson
An account of how the living world became diverse and how humans are destroying that diversity traces the processes that create new species and identifies the events that have disrupted evolution o...
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175 . The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens by Lincoln Steffens
Rediscover a man Americans turned to not only for news but for humor and wisdom as well. Growing up in Sacramento, Steffens (1866-1936) was an editor at the New York Evening Post, and later at McCl...
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176 . There Are No Children Here by Alex Kotlowitz
There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America is a 1992 biography by Alex Kotlowitz that describes the experiences of two brothers growing up in Chicago's Henry ...
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177 . Experience in Education by John Dewey
Experiential education is a philosophy of education that focuses on the transactive process between teacher and student involved in direct experience with the learning environment and content. The ...
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178 . Master of the Senate by Robert Caro
In the third and most-recently published volume, Master of the Senate, Caro chronicles Johnson's rapid ascent in the United States Congress, including his tenure as Senate Majority Leader. This 116...
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179 . Basic Documents in American History by Richard Brandon Morris
Timely and timeless, these basic documents are designed to remind us of the durable qualities of American values and traditions, and how adaptable they are to a changing world. This concise collect...
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180 . A Fire on the Moon by Norman Mailer
Mailer's superb account, written as it was happening, of the first attempt to land men on the moon 'Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.' A Fire on the Moon tells the scarcely cred...
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181 . The Hemingses of Monticello by Annette Gordon-Reed
The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family is a 2008 book by American historian Annette Gordon-Reed. It recounts the history of four generations of the African American Hemings family, from th...
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182 . My Fight for Birth Control by Margaret Sanger
Margaret Sanger writes of her efforts and struggles to bring birth control education to working class women in order to combat issues such as infant and maternal mortality, abortion, and poverty. S...
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183 . The Great War and Modern Memory by Paul Fussell
Fussell's landmark study of WWI remains as original and gripping today as ever before: a literate, literary, and illuminating account of the Great War, the one that changed a generation, ushered in...
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184 . Why We Can't Wait by Martin Luther King
Why we can't wait is a book by Martin Luther King, Jr. about the civil rights struggle against racial segregation in the United States, and specifically in Birmingham, Alabama.
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185 . Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson, David Oliver Relin
In 1993 Greg Mortenson was the exhausted survivor of a failed attempt to ascend K2, an American climbing bum wandering emaciated and lost through Pakistan’s Karakoram Himalaya. After he was taken i...
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186 . Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is a memoir and treatise on abolition written by famous orator and ex-slave, Frederick Douglass. It is generally held to be the most famous of a number o...
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187 . The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm
The Journalist and the Murderer is a 1990 study by Janet Malcolm about the ethics of journalism. Attracting heavy criticism upon first publication, it is now regarded as a "seminal" work.
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188 . Shadow and ACT by Ralph Ellison
Ralph Ellison examines his antecedents and in so doing illuminates the literature, music, and culture of both black and white America.
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189 . Nickel And Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America is a book written by Barbara Ehrenreich. Written from the perspective of the undercover journalist, it sets out to investigate the impact of the 199...
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190 . The Unsettling of America by Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry (born August 5, 1934, Henry County, Kentucky) is an American man of letters, academic, cultural and economic critic, and farmer. He is a prolific author of novels, short stories, poem...
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191 . Protestant, Catholic, Jew by Will Herberg
Protestant, Catholic, Jew created a sociological framework for the study of religion in the United States. Herberg demonstrated how immigration and American ethnic culture were reflected in religio...
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192 . Natural Right and History by Leo Strauss
In this classic work, Leo Strauss examines the problem of natural right and argues that there is a firm foundation in reality for the distinction between right and wrong in ethics and politics. On ...
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193 . The New Science of Politics by Eric Voegelin
Compressed within the Draconian economy of the six Walgreen lectures is a complete theory of man, society, and history, presented at the most profound and intellectual level. . . . Voegelin's [work...
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194 . Lost in the Cosmos by Walker Percy
Lost in the Cosmos by the late Walker Percy is a mock self-help book and social satire on the American value of autonomy published in 1983. Organized into roughly four sections that explore ideas ...
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195 . Prejudices by H. L. Mencken
With a style that combined biting sarcasm with the "language of the free lunch counter," Henry Louis Mencken shook politics and politicians for nearly half a century
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196 . The Triumph of the Therapeutic by Philip Rieff
"The Triumph of the Therapeutic" has been hailed as a work of genuine brilliance, one of those books whose insights uncannily anticipate cultural developments and whose richness of argumentation re...
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197 . Understanding Poetry by Robert Penn Warren, Cleanth Brooks
Understanding Poetry was an influential American college textbook and poetry anthology by Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren, first published in 1938. The book influenced New Criticism and went ...
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198 . The Great Chain of Being by Arthur Lovejoy
From later antiquity down to the close of the eighteenth century, most philosophers and men of science and, indeed, most educated men, accepted without question a traditional view of the plan and s...
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199 . Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Between the World and Me is a 2015 book written by Ta-Nehisi Coates and published by Spiegel & Grau. It is written as a letter to the author's teenaged son about the feelings, symbolism, and realit...
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200 . Microbe Hunters by Paul de Kruif
In this classic bestseller, Paul de Kruif dramatizes the pioneering bacteriological work of such scientists as Leeuwenhoek, Spallanzani, Koch, Pasteur, Reed, and Ehrlich. This seventieth anniversar...
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201 . Galapagos: World's End by William Beebe
More than 100 splendid illustrations enhance this fascinating firsthand account of a 1923 expedition to survey the wildlife of the Galápagos Islands. Beebe, a renowned biologist and explorer, combi...
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202 . The Two-Ocean War: A Short History of the United States Navy in the Second World War by Samuel Eliot Morison
Originally published in 1963, this classic, single-volume history draws on Morison's definitive 15-volume History of United States Naval Operations in World War II,/I. More than a condensation, The...
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203 . Escape from Freedom by Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm’s bestselling 1941 debut, about freedom and authoritarianism, is as relevant today as when it was first published The pursuit of freedom has indelibly marked Western culture since Renai...
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204 . Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox (1882–1940) by James MacGregor Burns
This first of Burns’s definitive and award-winning two-volume biography of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, mapping the personal and professional development of one of America’s most brilliant politician...
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205 . The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee
An assessment of cancer addresses both the courageous battles against the disease and the misperceptions and hubris that have compromised modern understandings, providing coverage of such topics as...
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206 . Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel
Fun Home (subtitled A Family Tragicomic) is a graphic memoir by Alison Bechdel, author of the comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For. It chronicles the author's childhood and youth in rural Pennsylvani...
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207 . Zami: A New Spelling of My Name by Audre Lorde
Zami: A New Spelling of My Name is a 1982 autobiography by American poet Audre Lorde. It started a new genre that the author calls biomythography, which combines history, biography, and myth. In th...
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208 . Born to Run by Chris McDougall
At the heart of Born to Run lies a mysterious tribe of Mexican Indians, the Tarahumara, who live quietly in canyons and are reputed to be the best distance runners in the world; in 1993, one of the...
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209 . Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
Kitchen Confidential reveals what Bourdain calls "twenty-five years of sex, drugs, bad behavior and haute cuisine." Last summer, The New Yorker published Chef Bourdain's shocking, "Don't Eat Before...
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210 . Letters from an American Farmer by J. Crevecoeur
First published in England in 1782, Crevecoeur's Letters from an American Farmer was one of the first works to describe the character of the average American at the close of the Revolutionary War. ...
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211 . Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brené Brown
Researcher and thought leader Dr. Bren Brown offers a powerful new vision in Daring Greatly that encourages us to embrace vulnerability and imperfection, to live wholeheartedly and courageously. 'I...
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212 . The Mirror and the Lamp by Meyer Howard Abrams
This clear, accessible account of Hegelian logic makes a case for its enormous seductiveness, its surprising presence in the collective consciousness, and the dangers associated therewith. Offering...
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213 . A Theory of Justice by John Rawls
A Theory of Justice is a widely-read book of political philosophy and ethics by John Rawls. Rawls attempts to solve the problem of distributive justice by utilising a variant of the familiar dev...
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214 . Falling Leaves by Adeline Yen Mah
The story of an unwanted Chinese daughter growing up during the Communist Revolution, blamed for her mother's death, ignored by her millionaire father and unwanted by her Eurasian step mother. A st...
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216 . The Afterlife: A Memoir by Donald Antrim
From "a fiercely intelligent writer" (The New York Times), a wry, poignant story of the difficult love between a mother and a son In the winter of 2000, shortly after his mother's death from cancer...
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217 . The Gentrification of the Mind by Sarah Schulman
In this memoir of the AIDS years (1981-1996) in New York, CUNY Professor of English Sarah Schulman recalls how much of the queer culture, cheap rents, and virbrant downtown arts movement vanished a...
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218 . Albert Murray: Collected Essays & Memoirs by Albert Murray
In his 1970 classic The Omni-Americans, Albert Murray (1916–2013) took aim at protest writers and social scientists who accentuated the “pathology” of race in American life. Against narratives of m...
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219 . Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward
Two-time National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward (Salvage the Bones, Sing, Unburied, Sing) contends with the deaths of five young men dear to her, and the risk of being a black man in the rural Sout...
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220 . Enrique's Journey by Sonia Nazario
An astonishing story that puts a human face on the ongoing debate about immigration reform in the United States, now updated with a new Epilogue and Afterword, photos of Enrique and his family, an ...
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221 . American Shaolin by Matthew Polly
Describes the childhood dream that led the author to study martial arts at China's famed Shaolin Temple, his initial disenchantment that turned into respect for the instructors, and the training th...
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222 . Chinese Cinderella by Adeline Yen Mah
A riveting memoir of a girl's painful coming-of-age in a wealthy Chinese family during the 1940s. A Chinese proverb says, "Falling leaves return to their roots." In Chinese Cinderella, Adeline Yen ...
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223 . Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
Jonathan Safran Foer spent much of his teenage and college years oscillating between omnivore and vegetarian. But on the brink of fatherhood-facing the prospect of having to make dietary choices on...
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224 . "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!": Adventures of a Curious Character by Richard P. Feynman
A New York Times bestseller—the outrageous exploits of one of this century's greatest scientific minds and a legendary American original. Richard Feynman, winner of the Nobel Prize in physics, thri...
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225 . Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in Challenging Times by Paul Rogat Loeb
Soul of a Citizen awakens within us the desire and the ability to make our voices heard and our actions count. We can lead lives worthy of our convictions. A book of inspiration and integrity, Soul...
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226 . 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,...
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227 . The Autobiography of Mark Twain by Mark Twain
Mark Twain’s Autobiography is a two-volume set published over ten years after Twain's death in order to protect the "guilty". It was well received, as the public was hungry for some new books by Ma...
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229 . Consider The Lobster by David Foster Wallace
Consider the Lobster (2005) is a collection of essays by novelist David Foster Wallace. It is also the title of one of the essays, which was published in Gourmet Magazine in 2004. The entire list o...
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230 . Slavery by Another Name by Douglas A. Blackmon
The book describes the exploitation of black Americans after the end of the American Civil War. Blackmon presents evidence that slavery in the United States did not end with the Civil War, instead ...
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233 . The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures is a 1997 book by Anne Fadiman that chronicles the struggles of a Hmong refugee fami...
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234 . Mary Chestnut's Civil War by Mary Chesnut
Mary Boykin Chesnut began her diary on February 18, 1861, and ended it on June 26, 1865. She was an eyewitness to many historic events as she accompanied her husband to significant sites of the Civ...
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235 . Backlash by Susan Faludi
Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women is the title of a 1991 nonfiction book by Pulitzer Prize winner Susan Faludi, which argues for the existence of a media driven "backlash" against...
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236 . We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda is a 1998 non-fiction book about the genocide of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda in 1994, wr...
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237 . John Adams by David McCullough
John Adams is a 2001 biography of Founding Father and second U.S. President John Adams written by popular historian David McCullough. It won a 2002 Pulitzer Prize (for "Biography or Autobiography")...
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239 . Far From the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity by Andrew Solomon
From the National Book Award–winning author of The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression comes a monumental new work, a decade in the writing, about family. In Far from the Tree, Andrew Solomon tel...
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240 . Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez
Barry Lopez's National Book Award-winning classic study of the Far North is widely considered his masterpiece. Lopez offers a thorough examination of this obscure world-its terrain, its wildlife...
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241 . Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child, Simone Beck, Louisette Bertholle
Mastering the Art of French Cooking is a two-volume French cookbook written by American Julia Child, and Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle both of France. The book was written for the American ma...
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242 . The Good War by Studs Terkel
"The Good War": An Oral History of World War Two is a telling of the oral history of World War II written by Studs Terkel. The work won the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction. It is a firs...
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244 . A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman
A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century, published in 1978, is a work by American historian Barbara Tuchman, focusing on life in 14th century Europe. To provide a central figure in her swe...
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245 . The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
One of The New York Times Book Review’s 10 Best Books of the Year In this epic, beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold sto...
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246 . The Making of the President, 1960 by Theodore White
The Making of the President, 1960, written by Theodore White analyzes the 1960 election in which John F. Kennedy was elected President of the United States. The book, written in a novelistic st...
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247 . We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live: Collected Nonfiction by Joan Didion
A definitive compilation of essays and nonfiction writings spanning more than forty years includes the author's reflections on politics, lifestyle, place, and cultural figures, including her studie...
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248 . Anti-intellectualism in American Life by Richard Hofstadter
Written in response to the political and intellectual conditions of the 1950s, Anti-intellectualism in American Life emerged as a grand attack on the institutions to which society historically entr...
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249 . The Forever War by Dexter Filkins
The Forever War is a non-fiction book by American journalist Dexter Filkins about his observations on assignment in Afghanistan and Iraq during the Iraq War. The book made the New York Times Book R...
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250 . Working by Studs Terkel
Working (full title: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do) is a book by the noted oral historian and radio broadcaster Studs Terkel. It is an exploration o...
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251 . Darkness Visible by William Styron
Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness is U.S. writer William Styron's memoir about his descent into depression, and the triumph of recovery. First published in December 1989 in Vanity Fair, the ...
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252 . The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf
The Beauty Myth examines beauty as a demand and as a judgment upon women. Subtitled How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women, Wolf examines how modern conceptions of women's beauty impact the sp...
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253 . A Child Called 'It' by Dave Pelzer
A Child Called "It": One Child's Courage to Survive is Dave Pelzer's 1995 autobiographical account of his alleged abuse as a child by an alcoholic mother, Catherine Roerva.
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254 . In the American Grain by William Carlos Williams
Essays ranging in theme from Christopher Columbis to Abraham Lincoln about what it means to be an American. Although admired by D. H. Lawrence, this modern classic went generally unnoticed duri...
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255 . Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner
Cadillac Desert is about land development and water policy in the western United States. Subtitled The American West and its Disappearing Water, it gives the history of the Bureau of Reclamation an...
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256 . The Sweet Science by A. J. Liebling
A.J. Liebling's classic New Yorker pieces on the "sweet science of bruising" bring vividly to life the boxing world as it once was. It depicts the great events of boxing's American heyday: Sugar Ra...
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257 . A Preface to Morals by Walter Lippmann
Lippman, a Pulitzer Prize winning political columnist, helped found the liberal New Republic magazine. His writings there influenced Woodrow Wilson, who selected Lippman to help formulate his famou...
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258 . 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...
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259 . The Strange Career of Jim Crow by C. Vann Woodward
The Strange Career of Jim Crow is one of the great works of Southern history. Indeed, the book actually helped shape that history. Published in 1955, a year after the Supreme Court in Brown v. Boar...
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260 . The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels
The first major and eminently readable book on gnosticism benefiting from the discovery in 1945 of a collection of Gnostic Christian texts at Nag Hammadi in Egypt.
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261 . 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.
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262 . The American Political Tradition by Richard Hofstadter
The American Political Tradition is a 1948 book by Richard Hofstadter, an account on the ideology of previous U.S. presidents and other political figures. The full title is The American Political T...
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263 . Contours of American History by William Appleman Williams
The obvious result of years of scholarly research, this vast tome by a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin, author of The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, etc., presents a lengthy int...
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264 . Operating Instructions by Anne Lamott
"I woke up with a start at 4:00 one morning and realized that I was very, very pregnant." So begins novelist Anne Lamott's journal of the birth of her son, Sam, and their first year together. She m...
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265 . Entropy by Jeremy Rifkin, Ted Howard
For the first time Entropy has been completely revised and updated to include a new subtitle which reflects the expanded focus on the greenhouse effect--the largest crisis ever to face mankind.
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266 . The Road Less Travelled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth by M. Scott Peck
Confronting and solving problems is a painful process which most of us attempt to avoid. Avoiding resolution results in greater pain and an inability to grow both mentally and spiritually. Drawing ...
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267 . Free to Choose: A Personal Statement by Milton Friedman, Rose Friedman
The international bestseller on the extent to which personal freedom has been eroded by government regulations and agencies while personal prosperity has been undermined by government spending and ...
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268 . The Dancing Wu Li Masters by Gary Zukav
With its unique combination of depth, clarity, and humor that has enchanted millions, this beloved classic by bestselling author Gary Zukav opens the fascinating world of quantum physics to readers...
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269 . Mountains Beyond Mountains: One doctor's quest to heal the world by Tracy Kidder
Profound and powerful, Mountains Beyond Mountains takes us from Harvard to Haiti, Peru, Cuba and Russia, as the charismatic but flawed genius Dr Paul Farmer challenges widely-held preconceptions ab...
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270 . Against Interpretation by Susan Sontag
Against Interpretation and Other Essays is a collection of essays by Susan Sontag which was published in 1966. It includes some of Sontag's best-known works, including "On Style", "Notes on 'Camp'"...
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271 . Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi
Americans like to insist that we are living in a postracial, color-blind society. In fact, racist thought is alive and well; it has simply become more sophisticated and more insidious. And as award...
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276 . In the Days of McKinley by Margaret Leech
Margaret Kernochan Leech (November 7, 1893 – February 24, 1974) also known as Margaret Pulitzer, was an American author and historian, who won two Pulitzer Prizes in history, for her books Reveille...
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278 . The Dead Are Arising by Les Payne
The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X is a biography of Malcolm X by Les Payne and Tamara Payne. The book was published in late 2020 by Liveright in hardcover format while an audiobook, narra...
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279 . The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation by David Brion Davis
A conclusion to the historian's three-volume history of slavery in Western culture covers the influential Haitian revolution, the complex significance of colonization, and the less-recognized impor...
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280 . The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson
The Sea Around Us is a prize-winning 1951 bestseller by Rachel Carson about oceanography, marine biology and the ecosystem within and around the world's oceans and seas.
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281 . Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan by Steve Coll
Winner of the 2018 National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction Longlisted for the 2018 National Book Award for Nonfiction From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Ghost Wars, the epic and en...
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282 . The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America by Frances FitzGerald
A history of the Evangelical movement in America traces the revivals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that rendered evangelism a dominant religious force, describing the rise and fall of ...
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283 . W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and The American Century by David Levering Lewis
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (pronounced /duːˈbɔɪs/ doo-BOYSS) (February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, sociologist, historian, author, and e...
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289 . W.E.B. Dubois : Biography of a Race, 1868–1919 by David Levering Lewis
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois - the premier architect of the civil rights movement in America - was a towering and controversial personality, a fiercely proud individual blessed with the languag...
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292 . Edmund Pendleton 1721–1803 by David J. Mays
Edmund Pendleton (September 9, 1721 – October 23, 1803) was a Virginia politician, lawyer and judge, active in the American Revolutionary War.
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293 . Arab and Jew by David K. Shipler
Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land, written by David K. Shipler and published by Times Books in 1986, won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction.
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296 . Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS by Joby Warrick
Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS is a 2015 non-fiction book by the American journalist Joby Warrick. The book traces the rise and spread of militant Islam behind the Islamic State of Iraq and the Lev...
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298 . The War of Independence by Claude H. Van Tyne
The War of Independence is a Pulitzer Prize-winning book by American historian Claude H. Van Tyne. The book was published in 1929. It explains the history and causes of the American Revolutionary W...
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299 . Washington's Crossing by David Hackett Fischer
Washington's Crossing is a Pulitzer Prize winning book written by David Hackett Fischer and part of the "Pivotal Moments in American History" series. The book is primarily about George Washington's...
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300 . The Price of Power by Seymour M. Hersh
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301 . Voyagers to the West: A Passage in the Peopling of America on the Eve of the Revolution by Bernard Bailyn
The Pulitzer Prize for History has been awarded since 1917 for a distinguished book upon the history of the United States. Many history books have also been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General N...
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302 . Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy by Heather Ann Thompson
Ever since the USS Walkercame from another world war to defy the terrifying Grik and diabolical Dominion, Matt Reddy and his crew have given their all to protect the oppressed Lemurians. But with t...
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306 . Encounters at the Heart of the World by Elizabeth A. Fenn
Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People is a Pulitzer Prize-winning non-fiction history book about the Mandan people, a Native American tribe in North Dakota. It was wr...
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308 . Woodrow Wilson, Life and Letters by Ray Stannard Baker
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856–February 3, 1924) was the 28th President of the United States. A leading intellectual of the Progressive Era, he served as President of Princeton University...
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309 . Custer's Trials by T.J. Stiles
Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America is a book by T. J. Stiles. It won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for History.
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311 . A Civil Action by Jonathan Harr
A Civil Action is a 1996 non-fiction novel by Jonathan Harr depicting the real-life water contamination case in Woburn, Massachusetts in the 1980s. The book became a best-seller and won the Nationa...
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313 . The Life of Andrew Jackson by Marquis James
Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was the seventh President of the United States (1829–1837). He was military governor of Florida (1821), commander of the American forces at the Battle...
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318 . Summer for the Gods by Edward Larson
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320 . Fire in the Lake by Frances FitzGerald
Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam, written by Frances FitzGerald and published by both Back Bay Publishing and Little, Brown and Company in 1972, in 1973 won the Pulitze...
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331 . Is There No Place On Earth For Me? by Susan Sheehan
This book recounts the lonely, harrowing life of Sylvia Frumkin who is diagnosed schizophrenic. Is There No Place On Earth For Me? written by Susan Sheehan and published in 1982 by Houghton Miff...
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333 . The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia by Masha Gessen
WINNER OF THE 2017 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN NONFICTION NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2017 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, LOS ANGELES TIMES, WASHINGTON POST, BOSTON GLOBE, SEATTLE TIMES, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE ...
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334 . Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser
The first comprehensive historical biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder, the beloved author of the Little House on the Prairie books Millions of readers of Little House on the Prairie believe they kno...
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339 . Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire by David Remnick
The book is equal parts history and eyewitness account, covering the collapse of the Soviet Union. Opening with the excavation of the corpses of men killed in the Katyn massacre, "Lenin's Tomb" beg...
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342 . Imperial Reckoning by Caroline Elkins
Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya written by Caroline Elkins, published by Henry Holt, won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction.
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343 . Ghost Wars by Steve Coll
The book describes the CIA's efforts in Afghanistan to include the covert paramilitary programs against the Soviet Union and the Taliban. It also includes detailed descriptions of operations that a...
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344 . Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper by Nicholson Baker
Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper is a non-fiction book by Nicholson Baker that was published in April, 2001. An excerpt appeared in the July 24, 2000 issue of The New Yorker, under t...
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347 . The American Leonardo: The Life of Samuel F B. Morse by Carleton Mabee
Samuel Finley Breese Morse (April 27, 1791 – April 2, 1872) was the American inventor of a single-wire telegraph system and Morse code and a painter of historic scenes.
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348 . Facts of Life by Maureen Howard
Maureen Keans-Howard (born 1930 in Bridgeport, Connecticut) is an American writer, editor, and lecturer known for her award winning autobiography Facts of Life.
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350 . The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power by Daniel Yergin
The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power is Daniel Yergin's 800-page history of the global oil industry from the 1850s through 1990. The Prize benefited from extraordinary timing: publis...
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351 . Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America by Eliza Griswold
Winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction In Amity and Prosperity, the prizewinning poet and journalist Eliza Griswold tells the story of the energy boom’s impact on a small town at ...
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352 . How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter by Sherwin B. Nuland
The 1994 NBA nonfiction winner, Yale physician Nuland's study of the clinical, biological and emotional details of dying.
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353 . A Midwife's Tale by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
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354 . Original Meanings by Jack N. Rakove
Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution (ISBN 0679781218) is a 464 page, non-fiction book authored by Jack N. Rakove and published on May 27, 1997 by Vintage Books. ...
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355 . Freedom From Fear: The American People by David M. Kennedy
Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945 is a Pulitzer Prize-winning book written in 1999 by historian David M. Kennedy. It is part of the Oxford History of the Unite...
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364 . The Gulf: The Making of An American Sea by Jack E. Davis
Winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for History Winner of the 2017 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction A National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction Finalist A New York Times Notable Book of 2017 One o...
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366 . John Hay by Tyler Dennett
Tyler Dennett (June 13, 1883, Spencer, Wisconsin – 1949) was an American historian and educator. He is best known for his book John Hay (1933), for which he won the 1934 Pulitzer Prize for biography.
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367 . Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom by David W. Blight
Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom is a 2018 biography of African American abolitionist Frederick Douglass, written by historian David W. Blight. It was published in 2018 by Simon & Schuster a...
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368 . The Land Where the Blues Began by Alan Lomax
Working for the Library of Congress and other cultural institutions, legendary roots-music connoisseur Lomax ( Mister Jelly Roll ) visited the Mississippi Delta with his father, folklorist John Lom...
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369 . And Their Children After Them by Dale Maharidge, Michael Williamson
And Their Children After Them, written by Dale Maharidge and Michael Williamson and published by Pantheon Books in 1989, won the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction.[1] It is about sharecro...
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370 . Move Your Shadow by Joseph Lelyveld
Move Your Shadow: South Africa, Black and White, written by Joseph Lelyveld and published by Times Books in 1985, won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction as well as the 1986 Los Angeles...
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371 . Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World by Maya Jasanoff
A global history of the post-Revolutionary War exodus of 60,000 Americans loyal to the British Empire to such regions as Canada, India and Sierra Leone traces the experiences of specific individual...
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372 . No Ordinary Time by Doris Kearns Goodwin
A compelling chronicle of a nation and its leaders during the period when modern America was created. With an uncanny feel for detail and a novelist's grasp of drama and depth, Doris Kearns Goodwin...
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374 . The Course of Empire by Bernard A. DeVoto
This sweeping narrative traces North American expansion over a period of 278 years, from Balboa's route to the Pacific through the early days of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. It is the dramatic s...
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376 . The People's Choice by Herbert Agar
The People's Choice from Washington to Harding is a book by Herbert Agar, published by Houghton Mifflin, 1933.
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377 . Sons of Mississippi by Paul Hendrickson
To help us understand racism in America, former Washington Post journalist Hendrickson tells the story of the seven white Mississippi sheriffs shown admiring a billy club in a famed 1962 photograph.
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385 . Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II by John W. Dower
The book covers the Occupation of Japan by the Allies between August 1945 and April 1952, delving into topics such as Douglas MacArthur's administration, the Tokyo war crimes trials and Hirohito's ...
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394 . Brother, I'm Dying by Edwidge Danticat
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography A National Book Award Finalist A New York Times Notable Book From the age of four, award-winning writer Edwidge Danticat came to t...
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395 . Julia Ward Howe by Laura E. Richards, Maud Howe Elliott
Maud Howe Elliott (November 9, 1854, Boston, Massachusetts – March 19, 1948, Newport, Rhode Island) was an American writer, most notable for her Pulitzer prize-winning collaboration with her sister...
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396 . Stilwell and the American Experience in China by Barbara Wertheim Tuchman
Using the life of Joseph Stilwell, the military attache to China in 1935-39 and commander of United States forces and allied chief of staff to Chiang Kai-shek in 1942-44, this book explores the his...
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397 . Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing by Ted Conover
Acclaimed journalist Conover sets a new standard for reporting when he applies for a job as a prison officer. So begins his odyssey at Sing Sing, once a model prison but now the New York State's mo...
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401 . Carry Me Home by Diane McWhorter
Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, the Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution, written by Diane McWhorter and published by Simon & Schuster in 2001, won the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize an...
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408 . What Hath God Wrought by Daniel Walker Howe
The book tracks the period in American history from the end of the War of 1812 to the end of the Mexican American War. It is focused on the revolutionary changes in transportation and communication...
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413 . O Strange New World by Howard Mumford Jones
O Strange New World: American Culture-The Formative Years was written by Howard Mumford Jones and published by Viking Press in 1964; it won the 1965 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction.
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414 . Between War and Peace: The Potsdam Conference by Herbert Feis
Herbert Feis (born in 1893 in New York, died in 1972) was an American Author and former Economic Advisor for International Affairs to the Department of State in the Hoover and Roosevelt administrat...
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417 . Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan by Herbert P. Bix
Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan is a book by Herbert P. Bix on Emperor Hirohito, emperor of Japan from December 25, 1926 until his death on January 7, 1989, won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for ...
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420 . Polio: An American Story by David M. Oshinsky
Polio: An American Story is a book by David M. Oshinsky, professor of history at The University of Texas at Austin, which documents the polio epidemic in the United States during the 1940s and 1950...
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421 . Lincoln at Gettysburg by Garry Wills
The book uses Lincoln's notably short speech at Gettysburg to examine his rhetoric overall. In particular, Wills compares Lincoln's speech to Edward Everett's delivered on the same day, focusing on...
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423 . Medical Apartheid by Harriet A. Washington
Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present is a 2007 book by Harriet A. Washington. It is a comprehensive history of medica...
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424 . Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo
Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity is a non-fiction book written by the Pulitzer Prize-winner Katherine Boo in 2012. It won the National Book Award and the L...
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426 . Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow
Washington: A Life is a 2010 biography of George Washington, the first President of the United States, written by American historian and biographer Ron Chernow. The book is a "one-volume, cradle-to...
