50 Best Nonfiction Books of All Time

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

About this list

Reader's Digest, 51 Books

This list presents a curated selection of the best nonfiction books of all time, aimed at readers seeking enlightening, educational, and compelling reads. The selection criteria for this list include books that have been recognized by major literary awards such as the Pulitzer, the National Book Critics Circle, and the National Book Foundation, as well as influential best-seller lists. The compilation was curated by Jennifer Kushnier and offers a diverse range of nonfiction genres, including true crime, science, history, and politics, among others. This list is independently selected, and the methodology focuses on books that provide comprehensive views on topics, essential insights, or transformative storytelling.

This list was originally published in 2024 and was added to this site almost 2 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
1494 Behind the Beautiful Forevers Katherine Boo 2012 American English
3228 Freakonomics Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner 2005 American English
2171 Far From the Tree Andrew Solomon 2012 American English
17008 Minor Feelings Cathy Park Hong 2020 American English
4742 The Omnivore's Dilemma Michael Pollan 2006 American English
5565 Fast Food Nation Eric Schlosser 2001 American English
14810 The Sea Around Us Rachel Carson 1951 American English
162 Silent Spring Rachel Carson 1962 American English
1555 Pilgrim at Tinker Creek Annie Dillard 1974 American English
6651 How The Word Is Passed Clint Smith 2021 American English
17008 Grand Canyon Jason Chin 2017 American English
2418 Into Thin Air Jon Krakauer 1997 American English
140 The Second Sex Simone de Beauvoir 1949 French French
709 The Feminine Mystique Betty Friedan 1963 American English
7706 Unnatural Selection Mara Hvistendahl 2011 American English
17008 Dog Flowers Danielle Geller 2021 American English
3165 The Tipping Point Malcolm Gladwell 2000 American English
1969 The Emperor of All Maladies Siddhartha Mukherjee 2010 American English
14901 How We Die Sherwin B. Nuland 1994 American English
1816 The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Rebecca Skloot 2010 American English
1207 Between the World and Me Ta-Nehisi Coates 2015 American English
8709 Parting the Waters Taylor Branch 1988 American English
582 Man's Search for Meaning Viktor Frankl 1946 Austrian German
908 The Warmth Of Other Suns Isabel Wilkerson 2010 American English
17008 My Broken Language Quiara Alegría Hudes 2021 American English
3150 Notes of a Native Son James Baldwin 1955 American English
553 The Souls of Black Folk W. E. B. Du Bois 1903 American English
14165 The Life Changing Magic Of Tidying Up Marie Kondo 2011 Japanese Japanese
1699 The New Jim Crow Michelle Alexander 2010 American English
3612 The Right Stuff Tom Wolfe 1979 American English
108 In Cold Blood Truman Capote 1966 American English
3212 Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil John Berendt 1994 American English
13514 I Am Malala Malala Yousafzai 2013 Pakistani English
4532 Stiff Mary Roach 2003 American English
6341 The Shallows Nicolas Carr 2010 American English
1748 The Making of the Atomic Bomb Richard Rhodes 1986 American English
1120 A Brief History of Time Stephen Hawking 1988 British English
14901 Astrophysics For People In A Hurry Neil deGrasse Tyson 2017 American English
8956 A Short History Of Nearly Everything Bill Bryson 2003 American English
9735 Annals of the Former World John McPhee 1998 American English
17008 Finding Winnie Lindsay Mattick 2015 Canadian English
1843 The Sixth Extinction Elizabeth Kolbert 2014 American English
3143 All the President's Men Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein 1974 American English
2584 A People's History of the United States Howard Zinn 1980 American English
1883 The Looming Tower Lawrence Wright 2006 American English
17008 Nothing Ever Dies Viet Thanh Nguyen 2016 American English
9735 The Years of Extermination Saul Friedlander 2007 Israeli English
1616 Sister Outsider Audre Lorde 1984 American English
555 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee Dee Alexander Brown 1970 American English
1872 And the Band Played On Randy Shilts 1987 American English
9199 Eats, Shoots and Leaves Lynne Truss 2003 British English