50 Best Nonfiction Books of All Time

This is one of the 759 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
1495 Behind the Beautiful Forevers Katherine Boo 2012 American English
3234 Freakonomics Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner 2005 American English
2183 Far From the Tree Andrew Solomon 2012 American English
17162 Minor Feelings Cathy Park Hong 2020 American English
4752 The Omnivore's Dilemma Michael Pollan 2006 American English
5574 Fast Food Nation Eric Schlosser 2001 American English
11881 The Sea Around Us Rachel Carson 1951 American English
162 Silent Spring Rachel Carson 1962 American English
1557 Pilgrim at Tinker Creek Annie Dillard 1974 American English
6664 How The Word Is Passed Clint Smith 2021 American English
17162 Grand Canyon Jason Chin 2017 American English
2425 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
7723 Unnatural Selection Mara Hvistendahl 2011 American English
17162 Dog Flowers Danielle Geller 2021 American English
3171 The Tipping Point Malcolm Gladwell 2000 American English
1974 The Emperor of All Maladies Siddhartha Mukherjee 2010 American English
14985 How We Die Sherwin B. Nuland 1994 American English
1817 The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Rebecca Skloot 2010 American English
1209 Between the World and Me Ta-Nehisi Coates 2015 American English
6249 Parting the Waters Taylor Branch 1988 American English
582 Man's Search for Meaning Viktor Frankl 1946 Austrian German
909 The Warmth Of Other Suns Isabel Wilkerson 2010 American English
17162 My Broken Language Quiara Alegría Hudes 2021 American English
3155 Notes of a Native Son James Baldwin 1955 American English
557 The Souls of Black Folk W. E. B. Du Bois 1903 American English
14232 The Life Changing Magic Of Tidying Up Marie Kondo 2011 Japanese Japanese
1701 The New Jim Crow Michelle Alexander 2010 American English
3618 The Right Stuff Tom Wolfe 1979 American English
109 In Cold Blood Truman Capote 1966 American English
3218 Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil John Berendt 1994 American English
13560 I Am Malala Malala Yousafzai 2013 Pakistani English
4539 Stiff Mary Roach 2003 American English
6353 The Shallows Nicolas Carr 2010 American English
1750 The Making of the Atomic Bomb Richard Rhodes 1986 American English
1122 A Brief History of Time Stephen Hawking 1988 British English
14985 Astrophysics For People In A Hurry Neil deGrasse Tyson 2017 American English
8973 A Short History Of Nearly Everything Bill Bryson 2003 American English
9756 Annals of the Former World John McPhee 1998 American English
17162 Finding Winnie Lindsay Mattick 2015 Canadian English
1844 The Sixth Extinction Elizabeth Kolbert 2014 American English
3148 All the President's Men Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein 1974 American English
2586 A People's History of the United States Howard Zinn 1980 American English
1884 The Looming Tower Lawrence Wright 2006 American English
17162 Nothing Ever Dies Viet Thanh Nguyen 2016 American English
9756 The Years of Extermination Saul Friedlander 2007 Israeli English
1620 Sister Outsider Audre Lorde 1984 American English
558 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee Dee Alexander Brown 1970 American English
1873 And the Band Played On Randy Shilts 1987 American English
9219 Eats, Shoots and Leaves Lynne Truss 2003 British English