100 All-Time Greatest Popular Science Books

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

About this list

Open Education Database, 100 Books

OEDB.org made this list of the greatest popular science books. here's their description:

These great popular science books offer accessible science to readers from all levels of knowledge. There's something here for everyone, whether you're interested in environmental science, kitchen chemistry, or just want to try out some fun experiments with your kids over the summer. Check out our picks for the best in popular science, and see how you can use them to better understand and explore our world.

This list was originally published in 2013 and was added to this site about 2 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
1035 Cosmos Carl Sagan 1980 American English
5365 Packing For Mars Mary Roach 2010 American English
14901 Astrophysics For People In A Hurry Neil deGrasse Tyson 2017 American English
17008 The Edge Of Physics Anil Ananthaswamy 2010 Indian English
17008 Hidden Figures Margot Lee Shetterly 2016 American English
1120 A Brief History of Time Stephen Hawking 1988 British English
17008 Big Bang Simon Singh 2004 British English
17008 The Planets Dava Sobel 2005 American English
17008 Brother Astronomer Guy Consolmagno 2000 American English
17008 Mapping The Heavens Priyamvada Natarajan 2016 American English
3612 The Right Stuff Tom Wolfe 1979 American English
17008 Turn Left At Orion Guy Consolmagno, Dan M. Davis 1989 American English
17008 The Backyard Astronomer's Guide Terence Dickinson 1991 Canadian English
17008 365 Starry Nights Chet Raymo 1982 American English
17008 Black Holes And Time Warps Kip S. Thorne 1994 American English
17008 The Alchemy Of The Heavens Ken Croswell 1995 American English
14901 The Day We Found The Universe Marcia Bartusiak 2009 American English
17008 The Black Hole War Leonard Susskind 2008 American English
17008 Breaking The Chains Of Gravity Amy Shira Teitel 2015 American English
17008 Exoplanets And Alien Solar Systems Tahir Yaqoob 2011 American English
1816 The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Rebecca Skloot 2010 American English
17008 The Epigenetics Revolution Nessa Carey 2012 British English
14901 The Drunken Botanist Amy Stewart 2013 American English
1843 The Sixth Extinction Elizabeth Kolbert 2014 American English
17008 The Woman With A Worm In Her Head Pamela Nagami 2001 American English
162 Silent Spring Rachel Carson 1962 American English
180 On the Origin of Species Charles Darwin 1859 British English
3851 The Silent World Jacques Cousteau 1953 French French
14901 Wonderful Life Stephen Jay Gould 1989 American English
15786 Birds Of America John James Audubon 1827 British-American English
5596 Krakatoa Simon Winchester 2003 Krakatoa English
14901 Isaac's Storm Erik Larson 1999 American English
17008 How To Cool The Planet Jeff Goodell 2010 American English
11409 In the Shadow of Man Jane Goodall 1971 British English
15786 Born Free Joy Adamson 1960 British English
17008 The Death And Life Of The Great Lakes Dan Egan 2017 American English
17008 Sex In The Sea Marah J. Hardt 2016 American English
17008 Life On The Edge Johnjoe McFadden, Jim Al-Khalili 2015 British English
17008 Cannibalism Bill Schutt 2017 American English
2701 Natural History Pliny the Elder 77 Roman Latin
11162 High Price Carl Hart 2013 American English
17008 Magic Trees Of The Mind Marion Diamond, Janet Hopson 1998 American English
17008 Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome Joy DeGruy 2005 American English
14165 Neurotribes Steve Silberman 2015 American English
14901 White Trash Nancy Isenberg 2016 American English
17008 Queen Bees And Wannabes, 3rd Edition Rosalind Wiseman 2002 American English
7553 Brain On Fire Susannah Cahalan 2012 American English
1981 The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat Oliver Sacks 1985 British English
17008 The Art Of Choosing Sheena Iyengar 2010 American English
17008 Phantoms In The Brain Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, Sandra Blakeslee 1998 American English
2661 The Mismeasure of Man Stephen Jay Gould 1981 American English
6403 The Portable Jung Carl Jung 1971 Swiss English
17008 The Freud Reader Sigmund Freud 1989 German English
17008 The Invisible Gorilla Christopher Chabris, Daniel Simons 2010 American English
17008 The Upside Of Irrationality Dan Ariely 2010 Israeli English
582 Man's Search for Meaning Viktor Frankl 1946 Austrian German
17008 How Pleasure Works Paul Bloom 2010 American English
15786 Rules Of Sociological Method Emile Durkheim 1895 French French
6954 Bowling Alone Robert D. Putnam 2000 American English
17008 Liespotting Pamela Meyer 2010 American English
17008 Women In Science Rachel Ignotofsky 2016 American English
17008 So, You Want To Be A Coder? Jane Bedell 2016 American English
17008 Black Inventors For Children Charles Jones 2002 American Unknown
17008 Math Doesn't Suck Danica McKellar 2007 American English
17008 Bathtub Science Shar Levine 2001 British English
17008 The Berenstain Bears' Big Book Of Science And Nature Stan Berenstain, Jan Berenstain 1997 American English
17008 Candy Experiments Loralee Leavitt 2013 Unknown English
17008 Mythbusters Science Fair Book Samantha Margles 2011 American English
17008 It's Not The Stork! Robie H. Harris 2006 American English
15786 The Stars H. A. Rey 1952 German English
17008 The Story Of Snow Mark Cassino, Jon Nelson 2009 American English
17008 Koko's Kitten Francine Patterson 1985 American English
17008 Mistakes That Worked Charlotte Jones 1991 Unknown English
17008 Almost Astronauts Tanya Lee Stone 2009 American English
17008 What Is The World Made Of? Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld 1994 American English
17008 Earth Heroes Bruce Malnor, Carol Malnor 2009 American English
17008 Charged Up Jacqui Bailey 2004 British English
17008 The Periodic Table Adrian Dingle, Simon Basher 2007 British English
17008 Microlife That Helps Us Steve Parker 2005 British English
17008 Consider The Following Bill Nye 1995 American English
17008 Hyperspace Michio Kaku 1994 American English
17008 The Age Of Entanglement Louisa Gilder 2009 American English
17008 Basic Physics Karl F. Kuhn 1996 American English
14901 The Dancing Wu Li Masters Gary Zukav 1979 American English
17008 The Magic Furnace Marcus Chown 1999 British English
17008 Only The Longest Threads Tasneem Zehra Husain 2014 Pakistani English
17008 101 Quantum Questions Kenneth W. Ford 2011 American English
17008 The Woman Who Knew Too Much Gayle Greene 2005 American English
17008 Most Wanted Particle Jon Butterworth 2015 British English
17008 Martians Of Science Istvan Hargittai 2006 Unknown English
315 Relativity Albert Einstein 1916 German German
17008 Six Easy Pieces Richard P. Feynman 1994 American English
17008 The Cosmic Landscape Leonard Susskind 2005 American English
3446 The Elegant Universe Brian Greene 1999 American English
7058 E=Mc2 David Bodanis 2000 British English
17008 Five Ages Of The Universe Fred C. Adams, Greg Laughlin 1999 American English
17008 Edge Of The Universe Paul Halpern 2012 American English
17008 Classical Mechanics Leonard Susskind, George Hrabovsky 2013 American English
1473 Chaos James Gleick 1987 American English
17008 The Trouble With Physics Lee Smolin 2006 American English