The Greatest Nonfiction Books Since 2000

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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
370 The Year of Magical Thinking Joan Didion 2005 American English
597 The Years Annie Ernaux 2008 French French
670 Persepolis Marjane Satrapi 2000 French French
885 A Tale of Love and Darkness Amos Oz 2002 Israeli Hebrew
909 The Warmth Of Other Suns Isabel Wilkerson 2010 American English
1027 Secondhand Time Svetlana Alexievich 2013 Belarusian Russian
1060 Fun Home Alison Bechdel 2006 American English
1204 Nickel And Dimed Barbara Ehrenreich 2001 American English
1209 Between the World and Me Ta-Nehisi Coates 2015 American English
1252 Sapiens Yuval Noah Harari 2011 Israeli Hebrew
1265 On Writing Stephen King 2000 American English
1366 The Adversary Emmanuel Carrère 2000 French French
1392 Evicted Matthew Desmond 2016 American English
1433 Random Family Adrian Nicole LeBlanc 2003 American English
1495 Behind the Beautiful Forevers Katherine Boo 2012 American English
1542 The Devil In The White City Erik Larson 2003 American English
1638 Postwar Tony Judt 2005 British English
1672 Pulphead John Jeremiah Sullivan 2011 American English
1701 The New Jim Crow Michelle Alexander 2010 American English
1703 The Argonauts Maggie Nelson 2015 American English
1752 Men We Reaped Jesmyn Ward 2013 American English
1783 A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius Dave Eggers 2000 American English
1817 The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Rebecca Skloot 2010 American English
1818 Barbarian Days William Finnegan 2015 American English
1827 Experience Martin Amis 2000 British English
1844 The Sixth Extinction Elizabeth Kolbert 2014 American English
1861 Citizen Claudia Rankine 2014 American English
1884 The Looming Tower Lawrence Wright 2006 American English
1895 Me Talk Pretty One Day David Sedaris 2000 American English
1907 Consider The Lobster David Foster Wallace 2005 American English
1974 The Emperor of All Maladies Siddhartha Mukherjee 2010 American English
1995 Say Nothing Patrick Radden Keefe 2018 American English
2077 Thinking, Fast and Slow Daniel Kahneman 2011 Israeli English
2116 Just Kids Patti Smith 2010 American English
2183 Far From the Tree Andrew Solomon 2012 American English
2326 Being Mortal Atul Gawande 2014 American English
2340 Master of the Senate Robert Caro 2002 American English
2395 The Glass Castle Jeannette Walls 2005 American English
2416 Educated Tara Westover 2018 American English
2524 The Passage Of Power Robert Caro 2012 American English
2596 Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? Jeanette Winterson 2011 British English
2603 Regarding the Pain of Others Susan Sontag 2003 American English
2608 Heavy Kiese Laymon 2018 American English
2627 Capital in the Twenty-First Century Thomas Piketty 2013 French French
2679 H Is For Hawk Helen MacDonald 2014 British English
2898 Moneyball Michael M. Lewis 2003 American English
2926 The Return Hisham Matar 2016 Libyan English
2935 The Better Angels Of Our Nature Steven Pinker 2011 American English
2979 Braiding Sweetgrass Robin Wall Kimmerer 2013 American English
2991 Frederick Douglass David W. Blight 2018 American English
3077 River Town Peter Hessler 2001 American English
3089 Factory Girls Leslie T. Chang 2008 American English
3091 Disturbance Philippe Lançon 2018 French French
3101 Reading Lolita in Tehran Azar Nafisi 2003 Iranian English
3170 The Tipping Point Malcolm Gladwell 2000 American English
3177 Priestdaddy Patricia Lockwood 2017 American English
3210 Homo Deus Yuval Noah Harari 2015 Israeli Hebrew
3216 Brown Girl Dreaming Jacqueline Woodson 2014 American English
3233 Freakonomics Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner 2005 American English
3234 When Breath Becomes Air Paul Kalanithi 2016 American English
3237 The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson Ralph Waldo Emerson 2000 American English
3257 Killers Of The Flower Moon David Grann 2017 American English
3282 The Blank Slate Steven Pinker 2002 American English
3421 The Shock Doctrine Naomi Klein 2007 Canadian English
3479 The Bookseller of Kabul Asne Seierstad 2002 Norwegian Norwegian
3494 Eating Animals Jonathan Safran Foer 2009 American English
3501 Borges Adolfo Bioy Casares 2006 Argentine Spanish
3508 Joe Cinque's Consolation Helen Garner 2004 Australian English
3520 Nothing to Envy Barbara Demick 2009 American English
3522 Bad Blood John Carreyrou 2018 American English
3543 The Good Women Of China Xinran 2002 Chinese Chinese
3573 Notes from No Man's Land Eula Biss 2009 American English
3576 The Possessed Elif Batuman 2010 Turkish English
3589 Just Mercy Bryan Stevenson 2014 American English
3594 Thick Tressie McMillan Cottom 2019 American English
3600 Debt David Graeber 2011 American English
3604 Limonov Emmanuel Carrère 2011 French French
3824 Outliers Malcolm Gladwell 2008 Canadian English
3847 Quiet Susan Cain 2012 English
3946 In The Dream House Carmen Maria Machado 2019 American English
4068 Lives Other Than My Own Emmanuel Carrère 2009 French French
4077 Seabiscuit Laura Hillenbrand 2001 American English
4137 The Faraway Nearby Rebecca Solnit 2013 American English
4189 Age of Ambition Evan Osnos 2014 American English
4365 The Anatomy Of A Moment Javier Cercas 2009 Spanish Spanish
4367 Kitchen Confidential Anthony Bourdain 2000 American English
4383 How To End A Story Helen Garner 2021 Australian English
4420 The Swerve Stephen Greenblatt 2011 American English
4443 Oblivion Héctor Abad Faciolince 2006 Colombian Spanish
4456 Mountains Beyond Mountains Tracy Kidder 2003 American English
4539 Stiff Mary Roach 2003 American English
4589 Columbine Dave Cullen 2009 American English
4615 Gulag Anne Applebaum 2003 American English
4624 The Party Richard McGregor 2010 Unknown English
4628 The Opium War Julia Lovell 2011 British English
4633 Christina Rossetti Christina Georgina Rossetti 2001 British English
4653 The Forever War Dexter Filkins 2008 American English
4741 Tell Me How It Ends Valeria Luiselli 2017 Mexican English
4752 The Omnivore's Dilemma Michael Pollan 2006 American English
4815 Dreamland Sam Quinones 2015 American English
4852 Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, And Wear Cows Melanie Joy 2010 American English
4943 Ghettoside Jill Leovy 2015 American English
4950 Dark Money Jane Mayer 2016 American English
4982 The Hare with Amber Eyes Edmund de Waal 2010 British English
4993 The Black Swan Nassim Nicholas Taleb 2007 Lebanese English
4998 Persepolis Two Marjane Satrapi 2004 Iranian French
5006 Feel Free Zadie Smith 2018 British English
5036 I Feel Bad About My Neck Nora Ephron 2006 American English
5088 Imperial Life in the Emerald City Rajiv Chandrasekaran 2006 American English
5094 Amity and Prosperity Eliza Griswold 2018 American English
5113 The War Of Art Steven Pressfield 2002 American English
5144 Eat, Pray, Love Elizabeth Gilbert 2006 American English
5153 Midnight In Peking Paul French 2012 British English
5169 Bad Feminist Roxane Gay 2014 American English
5189 Stay True Hua Hsu 2022 Chinese English
5258 Tiny Beautiful Things Cheryl Strayed 2012 American English
5260 Cockroaches Scholastique Mukasonga 2006 French French
5264 The Great Influenza John Barry 2004 American English
5268 A Long Way Gone Ishmael Beah 2007 Sierra Leonean English
5269 What I Talk About When I Talk About Running Haruki Murakami 2007 Japanese Japanese