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
2301 Journals Meriwether Lewis, William Clark 1804 American English
2354 Contact Carl Sagan 1985 American English
2466 Non Stop Brian Aldiss 1958 British English
2489 Measuring the World Daniel Kehlmann 2005 German German
2500 The South Pole Roald Amundsen 1912 Norwegian Norwegian
2536 Into the Wild Jon Krakauer 1996 American English
2665 The Lost World Arthur Conan Doyle 1912 British English
3186 The Quest For Corvo A. J. A. Symons 1934 British English
3205 When We Cease To Understand The World Adrian Nathan West, Benjamin Labatut 2020 Chilean Spanish
3637 The Endless Adventure F. S. Oliver 1930 British English
3637 The Tomb Of Tutankhamun Howard Carter 1954 British English
3637 Gods, Graves, And Scholars C. W. Ceram 1949 German German
3637 The Logbook Of Christopher Columbus Christopher Columbus 1493 Multiple Spanish
3637 How I Found Livingstone Henry M. Stanley 1871 British English
3847 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
4990 Madame Curie - A Biography by Eve Curie Eve Curie 1937 French French
5041 The Pleasure Of Finding Things Out Richard P. Feynman 1999 American English
5190 The Professor Challenger Stories Arthur Conan Doyle 1912 British English
5429 Hello Summer, Goodbye Michael G. Coney 1975 British English
5502 The Trip To Panama Janosch 1978 German German
5600 The Lost City of Z David Grann 2009 American English
5773 The Digging Leviathan James P. Blaylock 1984 American English
5906 The First Men In The Moon H. G. Wells 1901 British English
5938 Rendezvous with Rama Arthur C. Clarke 1973 British English
6212 Under A Lucky Star Roy Chapman Andrews 1943 American English
6382 A Voyage Round The World Georg Forster 1777 German German
6508 Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture Apostolos Doxiadis 1992 Greek Greek
6661 Mendeleyev's Dream Paul Strathern 2000 British English
7083 The Art of the Soluble Peter B. Medawar 1967 British English
7216 Anabasis Saint-John Perse 1924 French French
7667 The Age Of Wonder Richard Holmes 2008 British English
7681 The Long Journey Johannes V. Jensen 1908 Danish Danish
7793 The Gods Themselves Isaac Asimov 1972 American English
7820 On The Track Of Unknown Animals Bernard Heuvelmans 1955 Belgian French
8182 Timescape Gregory Benford 1980 American English
8251 The Sun Chemist Lionel Davidson 1976 British English
8317 Subterranean James Rollins 1999 American English
8435 Shadow Divers Robert Kurson 2004 American English
8586 The Accidental Indies Robert Finley 2000 Canadian English
8714 Are We There Yet? A Journey Around Australia Alison Lester 2004 Australian English
10061 In the Heart of the Sea Nathaniel Philbrick 2000 American English
10100 The People In The Trees Hanya Yanagihara 2013 American English
11052 An Imagined World June Goodfield 1981 British English
11112 Seeker Jack McDevitt 2005 American English
11277 Gospel Wilton Barnhardt 1993 American English
11426 Ice Station Matthew Reilly 1998 Australian English
11502 State Of Wonder Ann Patchett 2011 American English
11530 Journals (Cook) James Cook 1768 British English
11662 The Lost Painting Jonathan Harr 2005 American English
11940 Admiral of the Ocean Sea Samuel Eliot Morison 1942 American English
12066 Les Thanatonautes Bernard Werber 1994 French French
12259 The Samaritan Treasure Marianne Luban 1990 American Unknown
12251 Ship Of Gold In The Deep Blue Sea Gary Kinder 1998 American English
12326 Headlong Michael Frayn 1999 British English
12484 The Sisters Of Sinai Janet Soskice 2009 Unknown English
13500 Jerusalem Plays Hide And Seek Ariella Deem 2021 Unknown Unknown
13818 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
14348 Ship Fever and Other Stories Andrea Barrett 1996 American English
14363 Water Music T. C. Boyle 1982 American English
14554 The Cat's Table Michael Ondaatje 2011 Canadian English
14859 Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile John Hanning Speke 1863 British English
14985 Cooper's Creek Alan Moorehead 1963 Australian English
14985 Orbitsville Bob Shaw 1975 British English
14985 The 10,000 Doors Of January Alix E. Harrow 2019 American English
14985 Fatherland Burkhard Bilger 2023 Unknown English
15587 The Alien Realm Bo Yang 1996 Chinese Unknown
15616 The Code Breaker Walter Isaacson 2021 American English
16521 Starlight and Storm Gaston Rébuffat 1954 French French
15914 A Hole Is To Dig Ruth Krauss 1952 American English
15914 The Radium Woman Eleanor Doorly 1939 British English
15914 Paddle To The Sea Holling C. Holling 1941 American English
15914 Blind Journey Bruce Lancaster 1953 American English
16534 My Life as an Explorer Sven Hedin 1925 Swedish Swedish
16720 The Principal Navigations Richard Hakluyt 1589 British English
16731 Incidents of Travel in Yucatan James Stephens 1843 American English
16760 My Life As an Explorer (Amundsen) Roald Amundsen 1927 Norwegian Norwegian
17159 The Launching of Modern American Science, 1846-1876 Robert V. Bruce 1987 American English
16854 The Adventures of Captain Bonneville Washington Irving 1837 American English
16888 Through the Brazilian Wilderness Theodore Roosevelt 1914 American English
17045 Journal of the Voyage to the Pacific Alexander Mackenzie 1801 Canadian English
17096 I Married Adventure Osa Johnson 1940 American English
17109 The Descent of Pierre Saint-Martin Norbert Casteret 1952 French French
17125 Narrative of a Journey Across the Rocky Mountains to the Columbia River John Kirk Townsend 1839 American English
17159 Exploration and Empire William H. Goetzmann 1966 American English
17159 Genoa Paul C. Metcalf 1965 American English
17159 Die andere Bildung. Was man von den Naturwissenschaften wissen sollte Ernst Peter Fischer 2001 German German
17088 Little Fuzzy H. Beam Piper 1962 American English
17159 Doctor Copernicus John Banville 1976 Irish English
17159 The Wisdom Of Bones Alan Walker, Pat Shipman 1996 American English
17159 The Particle At The End Of The Universe Sean Carroll 2012 American English
17159 The Long Tomorrow Leigh Brackett 1955 American English
17159 Mudlarking Lara Maiklem 2019 British English
17159 Renegades Of Pern Anne McCaffrey 1989 American English
17159 All The Weyrs Of Pern Anne McCaffrey 1991 American English
17159 The Chronicles Of Pern Anne McCaffrey 1993 Irish English
17159 Commander Perkins H. G. Francis 1978 German German
17159 Children Of Ruin Adrian Tchaikovsky 2019 British English
17159 The Cult Of Emptiness The Western Discovery Of Buddhist Thought And The Invention Of Oriental Philosophy Urs App 2012 Swiss English
17159 Mapping The Heavens Priyamvada Natarajan 2016 American English
17159 Mistakes That Worked Charlotte Jones 1991 Unknown English
17159 The Age Of Entanglement Louisa Gilder 2009 American English
17159 Only The Longest Threads Tasneem Zehra Husain 2014 Pakistani English
17159 Most Wanted Particle Jon Butterworth 2015 British English
17159 Martians Of Science Istvan Hargittai 2006 Unknown English
17159 The Piano Shop On The Left Bank Thad Carhart 2000 American English
17159 Advice To A Young Scientist Peter B. Medawar 1979 British English