The 50 Best Nonfiction Books of the Past 25 Years

This is one of the 759 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
3223 Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder Lawrence Weschler 1995 American English
2535 Into the Wild Jon Krakauer 1996 American English
17152 Madeleine's World Brian Hall 1997 American English
13560 The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down Anne Fadiman 1997 American English
1565 A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again David Foster Wallace 1997 American English
7176 Out Of Sheer Rage Geoff Dyer 1997 British English
17152 The Tennis Partner Abraham Verghese 1998 American English
4158 We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families Philip Gourevitch 1998 American English
17152 Home Comforts Cheryl Mendelson 1999 American English
14985 The Battle For God Karen Armstrong 2000 British English
1783 A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius Dave Eggers 2000 American English
17152 Borrowed Finery Paula Fox 2001 American English
17152 American Ground William Langewiesche 2002 American English
1433 Random Family Adrian Nicole LeBlanc 2003 American English
14985 Can't Stop Won't Stop Jeff Chang 2005 American English
1060 Fun Home Alison Bechdel 2006 American English
10952 The World Without Us Alan Weisman 2007 American English
14985 The Night Of The Gun David Carr 2008 American English
7667 The Age Of Wonder Richard Holmes 2008 British English
4588 Columbine Dave Cullen 2009 American English
5599 The Lost City of Z David Grann 2009 American English
10450 Finishing The Hat Stephen Sondheim 2010 American English
1817 The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Rebecca Skloot 2010 American English
17152 The Master Switch Tim Wu 2010 American English
1701 The New Jim Crow Michelle Alexander 2010 American English
3576 The Possessed Elif Batuman 2010 Turkish English
17152 Travels In Siberia Ian Frazier 2010 American English
909 The Warmth Of Other Suns Isabel Wilkerson 2010 American English
17152 Harlem Is Nowhere Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts 2011 American English
9697 The Information James Gleick 2011 American English
1495 Behind the Beautiful Forevers Katherine Boo 2012 American English
2182 Far From the Tree Andrew Solomon 2012 American English
17152 The Old Ways Robert Macfarlane 2012 British English
14985 People Who Eat Darkness Richard Lloyd Parry 2010 British English
7028 Going Clear Lawrence Wright 2013 American English
17152 Lost Girls Robert Kolker 2013 American English
17152 The Trip To Echo Spring Olivia Laing 2013 British English
6246 The Unwinding George Packer 2013 American English
5624 Wave Sonali Deraniyagala 2013 Sri Lankan English
1861 Citizen Claudia Rankine 2014 American English
1844 The Sixth Extinction Elizabeth Kolbert 2014 American English
13214 Stuff Matters Mark Miodownik 2013 British English
1818 Barbarian Days William Finnegan 2015 American English
4814 Dreamland Sam Quinones 2015 American English
2679 H Is For Hawk Helen MacDonald 2014 British English
6129 Negroland Margo Jefferson 2015 American English
10892 The Odd Woman And The City Vivian Gornick 2015 American English
8876 How To Survive A Plague David France 2016 American English
14985 Lab Girl Hope Jahren 2016 American English
17152 One Day Gene Weingarten 2019 American English