The 50 Best Nonfiction Books of the Past 25 Years

This is one of the 743 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.

About this list

Slate, 50 Books

Slate’s books team selects the definitive works of reporting, memoir, and argument of the past quarter-century.

This list was originally published in 2019 and was added to this site about 5 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
3217 Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder Lawrence Weschler 1995 American English
2531 Into the Wild Jon Krakauer 1996 American English
17008 Madeleine's World Brian Hall 1997 American English
13514 The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down Anne Fadiman 1997 American English
1563 A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again David Foster Wallace 1997 American English
7160 Out Of Sheer Rage Geoff Dyer 1997 British English
17008 The Tennis Partner Abraham Verghese 1998 American English
4153 We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families Philip Gourevitch 1998 American English
17008 Home Comforts Cheryl Mendelson 1999 American English
14901 The Battle For God Karen Armstrong 2000 British English
1780 A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius Dave Eggers 2000 American English
17008 Borrowed Finery Paula Fox 2001 American English
17008 American Ground William Langewiesche 2002 American English
1433 Random Family Adrian Nicole LeBlanc 2003 American English
14901 Can't Stop Won't Stop Jeff Chang 2005 American English
1058 Fun Home Alison Bechdel 2006 American English
10923 The World Without Us Alan Weisman 2007 American English
14901 The Night Of The Gun David Carr 2008 American English
7651 The Age Of Wonder Richard Holmes 2008 British English
4582 Columbine Dave Cullen 2009 American English
5590 The Lost City of Z David Grann 2009 American English
10424 Finishing The Hat Stephen Sondheim 2010 American English
1816 The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Rebecca Skloot 2010 American English
17008 The Master Switch Tim Wu 2010 American English
1699 The New Jim Crow Michelle Alexander 2010 American English
3572 The Possessed Elif Batuman 2010 Turkish English
17008 Travels In Siberia Ian Frazier 2010 American English
908 The Warmth Of Other Suns Isabel Wilkerson 2010 American English
17008 Harlem Is Nowhere Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts 2011 American English
9678 The Information James Gleick 2011 American English
1494 Behind the Beautiful Forevers Katherine Boo 2012 American English
2171 Far From the Tree Andrew Solomon 2012 American English
17008 The Old Ways Robert Macfarlane 2012 British English
14901 People Who Eat Darkness Richard Lloyd Parry 2010 British English
7016 Going Clear Lawrence Wright 2013 American English
17008 Lost Girls Robert Kolker 2013 American English
17008 The Trip To Echo Spring Olivia Laing 2013 British English
6236 The Unwinding George Packer 2013 American English
5615 Wave Sonali Deraniyagala 2013 Sri Lankan English
1860 Citizen Claudia Rankine 2014 American English
1843 The Sixth Extinction Elizabeth Kolbert 2014 American English
13181 Stuff Matters Mark Miodownik 2013 British English
1817 Barbarian Days William Finnegan 2015 American English
4805 Dreamland Sam Quinones 2015 American English
2675 H Is For Hawk Helen MacDonald 2014 British English
6119 Negroland Margo Jefferson 2015 American English
10863 The Odd Woman And The City Vivian Gornick 2015 American English
8860 How To Survive A Plague David France 2016 American English
14901 Lab Girl Hope Jahren 2016 American English
17008 One Day Gene Weingarten 2019 American English