The Greatest Books of All Time on Evolution

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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
294 The Time Machine H. G. Wells 1895 British English
728 Erewhon Samuel Butler 1872 British English
917 The Day of the Triffids John Wyndham 1951 British English
1004 2001 Arthur C. Clarke 1968 British English
1051 The Phenomenon Of Man Pierre Teilhard de Chardin 1955 French French
1345 The Naked Ape Desmond Morris 1967 British English
2161 The Immense Journey Loren Eiseley 1957 American English
2351 The Inheritors William Golding 1955 British English
2478 Quatermass And The Pit Nigel Kneale 1959 British English
3860 The Soul of the White Ant Eugène N. Marais 1925 South African Afrikaans
4195 The Celestine Prophecy James Redfield 1993 American English
4310 Vril Edward Bulwer-Lytton 1871 British English
4812 Gaia James Lovelock 1979 British English
5190 The Professor Challenger Stories Arthur Conan Doyle 1912 British English
5612 The Righteous Mind Jonathan Haidt 2012 American English
5663 The Evolution Man Or How I Ate My Father Roy Lewis 1960 British English
5960 The Time Ships Stephen Baxter 1995 British English
6005 Geological Evidences Of The Antiquity Of Man Charles Lyell 1863 British English
6250 Great Apes Will Self 1997 British English
6437 Blood Music Greg Bear 1985 American English
6935 The Insect Societies E. O. Wilson 1971 American English
7216 Back To Methuselah George Bernard Shaw 1921 Irish English
7681 The Long Journey Johannes V. Jensen 1908 Danish Danish
7685 Startide Rising David Brin 1983 American English
7811 The Song Of The Dodo David Quammen 1996 American English
8245 Bully For Brontosaurus Stephen Jay Gould 1991 American English
8770 Man Meets Dog Konrad Lorenz 1949 German German
9022 Climbing Mount Improbable Richard Dawkins 1996 British English
9093 Pluto's Republic Peter B. Medawar 1982 British English
9905 Trilobite! Richard Fortey 2000 British English
10647 Indica Pranay Lal 2016 Indian English
11007 Naturalist E. O. Wilson 1994 American English
11113 Camouflage Joe Haldeman 2004 American English
11113 2312 Kim Stanley Robinson 2012 American English
11827 Lilith's Brood Octavia E. Butler 1987 American English
12195 Earth Richard Fortey 2004 British English
12326 The Ant And The Peacock Helena Cronin 1991 British English
12326 Huxley Adrian Desmond 1997 British English
12326 Life Richard Fortey 1997 British English
12482 Seveneves Neal Stephenson 2015 American English
13743 Menschen Wie Götter Sergej Snegow 1966 Russian Russian
14138 They'd Rather Be Right Mark Clifton 1954 American English
14520 The Rational Optimist Matt Ridley 2010 British English
14677 Men Of The Old Stone Age Henry Fairfield Osborn 1915 American English
14680 The Vital Question Nick Lane 2015 British English
14939 The City And The Stars Arthur C. Clarke 1956 British English
14986 Wonderful Life Stephen Jay Gould 1989 American English
14986 Hothouse Brian Aldiss 1962 British English
15570 Hacking Darwin Jamie Metzl 2019 American English
15593 Accepting The Universe John Burroughs 1920 American English
15654 The Days Of A Man David Starr Jordan 1922 American English
15919 A Critique of the Theory of Evolution Thomas Hunt Morgan 1916 American English
15919 First Principles Herbert Spencer 1862 British English
15919 The Expression Of The Emotions In Man And Animals Charles Darwin 1872 British English
15919 The Theory Of The Gene Thomas Hunt Morgan 1926 American English
16724 Inherit The Wind Jerome Lawrence, Robert E. Lee 1955 American English
17171 Hopeful Monsters Nicholas Mosley 1990 British English
17171 The Integral Trees Larry Niven 1984 American English
17171 Sundiver David Brin 1980 American English
17171 Dragon's Egg Robert L. Forward 1980 American English
17171 The Language Of The Genes Steve Jones 1993 British English
17171 The Dreaming Dragons Damien Broderick 1980 Australian English
17171 Otherlands Thomas Halliday 2022 British English
17171 Other Minds Peter Godfrey-Smith 2016 Australian English
17171 The Rise And Fall Of The Dinosaurs Steven Brusatte 2018 American English
17171 Dragonsdawn Anne McCaffrey 1988 American English
17171 Evolution Stephen Baxter 2003 British English
17171 Love Is The Plan The Plan Is Death James Tiptree Jr. 1973 American English
17171 Children Of Ruin Adrian Tchaikovsky 2019 British English
17171 Helliconia Winter Brian Aldiss 1985 British English
17171 Helliconia Spring Brian Aldiss 1982 British English
17171 The Extraterrestrial Life Debate, 1750 1900 Michael J. Crowe 1986 American English
17171 The Fabric Of Reality David Deutsch 1997 British English
17171 Fire In The Mind George Johnson 1995 American English
17171 Defenders Of The Truth Ullica Segerstrale 1986 American English
17171 T. Rex And The Crater Of Doom Walter Alvarez 1997 American English
17171 Sex In The Sea Marah J. Hardt 2016 American English
17171 Life On The Edge Johnjoe McFadden, Jim Al-Khalili 2015 British English
17171 Cannibalism Bill Schutt 2017 American English
17171 Nature Via Nurture Matt Ridley 2003 British English
17171 Vacuum Diagrams Stephen Baxter 1997 British English
17171 Darwin Among The Machines George B. Dyson 1997 American English
17171 Bright Air, Brilliant Fire Gerald M. Edelman 1992 American English
17171 Darwin's Dreampond Tijs Goldschmidt 1994 Dutch Dutch
17171 Life Martha Holmes, Michael Gunton 2009 British English
17171 Human Nature After Darwin Janet Radcliffe Richards 2000 British English
17171 Our Posthuman Future Francis Fukuyama 2002 American English
17171 The Darwin Wars Andrew Brown 1999 British English
17171 Parasite Rex Carl Zimmer 2000 American English
17171 The Anthropic Cosmological Principle John D. Barrow, Frank J. Tipler 1986 British English
17171 Grand Canyon Jason Chin 2017 American English
17171 Breath James Nestor 2020 American English
17171 Origin Dan Brown 2017 American English
17171 The Lost World Michael Crichton 1995 American English
17171 The Blind Watchmaker Richard Dawkins 1986 British English
17171 Aurora Kim Stanley Robinson 2015 American English