The Greatest Books of All Time on Discovery

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This list represents a comprehensive and trusted collection of the greatest books. Developed through a specialized algorithm, it brings together 759 'best of' book lists to form a definitive guide to the world's most acclaimed books. For those interested in how these books are chosen, additional details can be found on the rankings page.

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Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
304 The Double Helix James D. Watson 1968 American English
673 Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea Jules Verne 1870 French French
710 At the Mountains of Madness H. P. Lovecraft 1936 American English
814 The Secret Garden Frances Hodgson Burnett 1911 British English
826 Voss Patrick White 1957 Australian English
926 Journey to the Center of the Earth Jules Verne 1864 French French
1786 Farthest North Fridtjof Nansen 1897 Norwegian Norwegian
1806 Moominland Midwinter Tove Jansson 1957 Finnish Swedish
1897 The Ice People René Barjavel 1968 French French
2300 Journals Meriwether Lewis, William Clark 1804 American English
2352 Contact Carl Sagan 1985 American English
2464 Non Stop Brian Aldiss 1958 British English
2487 Measuring the World Daniel Kehlmann 2005 German German
2498 The South Pole Roald Amundsen 1912 Norwegian Norwegian
2534 Into the Wild Jon Krakauer 1996 American English
2664 The Lost World Arthur Conan Doyle 1912 British English
3185 The Quest For Corvo A. J. A. Symons 1934 British English
3204 When We Cease To Understand The World Adrian Nathan West, Benjamin Labatut 2020 Chilean Spanish
3638 The Endless Adventure F. S. Oliver 1930 British English
3638 The Tomb Of Tutankhamun Howard Carter 1954 British English
3638 Gods, Graves, And Scholars C. W. Ceram 1949 German German
3638 The Logbook Of Christopher Columbus Christopher Columbus 1493 Multiple Spanish
3638 How I Found Livingstone Henry M. Stanley 1871 British English
3849 Piranesi Susanna Clarke 2020 British English
4513 Comet In Moominland Tove Jansson 1946 Finnish Swedish
4534 Annihilation Jeff VanderMeer 2014 American English
4878 The Little Black Fish Samad Behrangi 1968 Iranian Persian
4988 Madame Curie - A Biography by Eve Curie Eve Curie 1937 French French
5039 The Pleasure Of Finding Things Out Richard P. Feynman 1999 American English
5188 The Professor Challenger Stories Arthur Conan Doyle 1912 British English
5427 Hello Summer, Goodbye Michael G. Coney 1975 British English
5500 The Trip To Panama Janosch 1978 German German
5597 The Lost City of Z David Grann 2009 American English
5770 The Digging Leviathan James P. Blaylock 1984 American English
5902 The First Men In The Moon H. G. Wells 1901 British English
5934 Rendezvous with Rama Arthur C. Clarke 1973 British English
6209 Under A Lucky Star Roy Chapman Andrews 1943 American English
6379 A Voyage Round The World Georg Forster 1777 German German
6506 Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture Apostolos Doxiadis 1992 Greek Greek
6659 Mendeleyev's Dream Paul Strathern 2000 British English
7083 The Art of the Soluble Peter B. Medawar 1967 British English
7215 Anabasis Saint-John Perse 1924 French French
7666 The Age Of Wonder Richard Holmes 2008 British English
7680 The Long Journey Johannes V. Jensen 1908 Danish Danish
7791 The Gods Themselves Isaac Asimov 1972 American English
7819 On The Track Of Unknown Animals Bernard Heuvelmans 1955 Belgian French
8180 Timescape Gregory Benford 1980 American English
8249 The Sun Chemist Lionel Davidson 1976 British English
8315 Subterranean James Rollins 1999 American English
8432 Shadow Divers Robert Kurson 2004 American English
8583 The Accidental Indies Robert Finley 2000 Canadian English
8711 Are We There Yet? A Journey Around Australia Alison Lester 2004 Australian English
10056 In the Heart of the Sea Nathaniel Philbrick 2000 American English
10095 The People In The Trees Hanya Yanagihara 2013 American English
11048 An Imagined World June Goodfield 1981 British English
11108 Seeker Jack McDevitt 2005 American English
11273 Gospel Wilton Barnhardt 1993 American English
11423 Ice Station Matthew Reilly 1998 Australian English
11500 State Of Wonder Ann Patchett 2011 American English
11528 Journals (Cook) James Cook 1768 British English
11660 The Lost Painting Jonathan Harr 2005 American English
11939 Admiral of the Ocean Sea Samuel Eliot Morison 1942 American English
12065 Les Thanatonautes Bernard Werber 1994 French French
12258 The Samaritan Treasure Marianne Luban 1990 American Unknown
12250 Ship Of Gold In The Deep Blue Sea Gary Kinder 1998 American English
12324 Headlong Michael Frayn 1999 British English
12482 The Sisters Of Sinai Janet Soskice 2009 Unknown English
13498 Jerusalem Plays Hide And Seek Ariella Deem 2021 Unknown Unknown
13817 Le Isole Del Paradiso Stanislao Nievo 1996 Italian Italian
14025 The Big Book Of Adventure Stories Otto Penzler 2011 American English
14232 Where Is The Green Sheep? Mem Fox 2004 Australian English
14347 Ship Fever and Other Stories Andrea Barrett 1996 American English
14362 Water Music T. C. Boyle 1982 American English
14553 The Cat's Table Michael Ondaatje 2011 Canadian English
14857 Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile John Hanning Speke 1863 British English
14983 Cooper's Creek Alan Moorehead 1963 Australian English
14983 Orbitsville Bob Shaw 1975 British English
14983 The 10,000 Doors Of January Alix E. Harrow 2019 American English
14983 Fatherland Burkhard Bilger 2023 Unknown English
15579 The Alien Realm Bo Yang 1996 Chinese Unknown
15608 The Code Breaker Walter Isaacson 2021 American English
16502 Starlight and Storm Gaston Rébuffat 1954 French French
15897 A Hole Is To Dig Ruth Krauss 1952 American English
15897 The Radium Woman Eleanor Doorly 1939 British English
15897 Paddle To The Sea Holling C. Holling 1941 American English
15897 Blind Journey Bruce Lancaster 1953 American English
16517 My Life as an Explorer Sven Hedin 1925 Swedish Swedish
16691 The Principal Navigations Richard Hakluyt 1589 British English
16696 Incidents of Travel in Yucatan James Stephens 1843 American English
16725 My Life As an Explorer (Amundsen) Roald Amundsen 1927 Norwegian Norwegian
17119 The Launching of Modern American Science, 1846-1876 Robert V. Bruce 1987 American English
16816 The Adventures of Captain Bonneville Washington Irving 1837 American English
16849 Through the Brazilian Wilderness Theodore Roosevelt 1914 American English
17008 Journal of the Voyage to the Pacific Alexander Mackenzie 1801 Canadian English
17057 I Married Adventure Osa Johnson 1940 American English
17067 The Descent of Pierre Saint-Martin Norbert Casteret 1952 French French
17085 Narrative of a Journey Across the Rocky Mountains to the Columbia River John Kirk Townsend 1839 American English
17119 Exploration and Empire William H. Goetzmann 1966 American English
17119 Genoa Paul C. Metcalf 1965 American English
17119 Die andere Bildung. Was man von den Naturwissenschaften wissen sollte Ernst Peter Fischer 2001 German German
17050 Little Fuzzy H. Beam Piper 1962 American English
17119 Doctor Copernicus John Banville 1976 Irish English
17119 The Wisdom Of Bones Alan Walker, Pat Shipman 1996 American English
17119 The Particle At The End Of The Universe Sean Carroll 2012 American English
17119 The Long Tomorrow Leigh Brackett 1955 American English
17119 Mudlarking Lara Maiklem 2019 British English
17119 Renegades Of Pern Anne McCaffrey 1989 American English
17119 All The Weyrs Of Pern Anne McCaffrey 1991 American English
17119 The Chronicles Of Pern Anne McCaffrey 1993 Irish English
17119 Commander Perkins H. G. Francis 1978 German German
17119 Children Of Ruin Adrian Tchaikovsky 2019 British English
17119 The Cult Of Emptiness The Western Discovery Of Buddhist Thought And The Invention Of Oriental Philosophy Urs App 2012 Swiss English
17119 Mapping The Heavens Priyamvada Natarajan 2016 American English
17119 Mistakes That Worked Charlotte Jones 1991 Unknown English
17119 The Age Of Entanglement Louisa Gilder 2009 American English
17119 Only The Longest Threads Tasneem Zehra Husain 2014 Pakistani English
17119 Most Wanted Particle Jon Butterworth 2015 British English
17119 Martians Of Science Istvan Hargittai 2006 Unknown English
17119 The Piano Shop On The Left Bank Thad Carhart 2000 American English
17119 Advice To A Young Scientist Peter B. Medawar 1979 British English