The Greatest Books of All Time on Science

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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
2601 Out Of The Silent Planet C. S. Lewis 1938 British English
2627 Capital in the Twenty-First Century Thomas Piketty 2013 French French
2628 Selected Plays of George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw 1976 Irish English
2665 The Lost World Arthur Conan Doyle 1912 British English
2666 The Mismeasure of Man Stephen Jay Gould 1981 American English
2674 Microbe Hunters Paul de Kruif 1926 American English
2679 H Is For Hawk Helen MacDonald 2014 British English
2699 Cod Mark Kurlansky 1997 American English
2704 Natural History Pliny the Elder 77 Roman Latin
2713 Mission Of Gravity Hal Clement 1954 American English
2711 Alan Turing Andrew Hodges 1983 British English
2737 Philosophical Writings Novalis 1798 German German
2741 The Martian Andy Weir 2011 American English
2787 The Philosophy Of Symbolic Forms Ernst Cassirer 1929 German German
2789 A Cultural History Of The Modern Age Egon Friedell 1927 Austrian English
2811 Roadside Picnic Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky 1972 Russian Russian
2873 Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! Richard P. Feynman 1985 American English
2899 Moneyball Michael M. Lewis 2003 American English
2933 The Compleat Werewolf And Other Stories Of Fantasy And Science Fiction Anthony Boucher 1969 American English
2937 The Two Cultures And The Scientific Revolution C. P. Snow 1959 British English
2980 Braiding Sweetgrass Robin Wall Kimmerer 2013 American English
3003 The Savage Mind Claude Lévi-Strauss 1962 French French
3164 Dept. of Speculation Jenny Offill 2014 American English
3171 The Tipping Point Malcolm Gladwell 2000 American English
3180 Flight Behavior Barbara Kingsolver 2012 American English
3192 The Age of Reason Thomas Paine 1794 British English
3195 The Lives of a Cell Lewis Thomas 1974 American English
3205 When We Cease To Understand The World Adrian Nathan West, Benjamin Labatut 2020 Chilean Spanish
3223 Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder Lawrence Weschler 1995 American English
3232 The Strategy Of Conflict Thomas Schelling 1960 American English
3234 Freakonomics Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner 2005 American English
3271 Postmortem Patricia Daniels Cornwell 1990 American English
3324 Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus Scriblerus Club 1741 British English
3452 The Elegant Universe Brian Greene 1999 American English
3540 C Tom McCarthy 2010 British English
3551 The Improvement of Human Reason Ibn Tufayl 1170 Arabic Arabic
3566 Sultana's Dream Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain 1905 Bangladeshi Bengali
3597 Time of Silence Luis Martín-Santos 1962 Spanish Spanish
3638 Homo Ludens Johan Huizinga 1938 Dutch Dutch
3638 The Life of the Bee Maurice Maeterlinck 1901 Belgian French
3638 Why I Am Not a Christian Bertrand Russell 1927 British English
3638 The Memoirs Of Princess Dashkova Ekaterina Romanovna Dashkova 1840 Russian Russian
3638 Religio Medici Sir Thomas Browne 1643 British English
3638 Van Loon's Lives Hendrik Willem van Loon 1942 Dutch English
3638 The Tomb Of Tutankhamun Howard Carter 1954 British English
3638 Theory Of Colours Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1810 German German
3638 The Future Has Already Begun Robert Jungk 1952 Austrian German
3638 The Origins Of Intelligence In Children Jean Piaget 1936 Swiss French
3638 An Outline Of Occult Science Rudolf Steiner 1910 Austrian German
3638 Ich Suchte Adam Herbert Wendt 1954 German German
3843 The Fractal Geometry Of Nature Benoît Mandelbrot 1977 French English
3857 The Silent World Jacques Cousteau 1953 French French
3860 The Soul of the White Ant Eugène N. Marais 1925 South African Afrikaans
3858 Enduring Love Ian McEwan 1997 British English
3944 A Fire on the Moon Norman Mailer 1970 American English
4062 Serengeti Shall Not Die Bernhard Grzimek 1959 German German
4084 The Day of the Dolphin Robert Merle 1967 French French
4169 Letters On England Voltaire 1734 French French
4204 Darwin's Radio Greg Bear 1999 American English
4289 On the Fabric of the Human Body Andreas Vesalius 1543 Belgian Latin
4310 Vril Edward Bulwer-Lytton 1871 British English
4415 The House Book Terence Conran 1974 British English
4420 The Swerve Stephen Greenblatt 2011 American English
4509 The Book about Blanche and Marie Per Olov Enquist 2004 Swedish Swedish
4535 Annihilation Jeff VanderMeer 2014 American English
4539 Stiff Mary Roach 2003 American English
4544 Ingenious Pain Andrew Miller 1997 British English
4582 A Theory Of The Consumption Function Milton Friedman 1957 American English
4613 Civilisation Kenneth Clark 1969 British English
4618 Sociobiology E. O. Wilson 1975 American English
4635 The Inability To Mourn Alexander Mitscherlich, Margarete Mitscherlich 1967 German German
4644 Micrographia Robert Hooke 1665 British English
4734 The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation M. T. Anderson 2006 American English
4738 Trees And Shrubs Of New Zealand Audrey Eagle 1975 New Zealand English
4752 The Omnivore's Dilemma Michael Pollan 2006 American English
4755 Angels And Demons Dan Brown 2000 American English
4758 The Faculty of Useless Knowledge Yuri Dombrovsky 1976 Russian Russian
4797 The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle Hugh Lofting 1922 British English
4812 Gaia James Lovelock 1979 British English
4942 Being Dead Jim Crace 1999 British English
4980 The First Three Minutes Steven Weinberg 1977 American English
4991 Madame Curie - A Biography by Eve Curie Eve Curie 1937 French French
4999 The Sun Is Also A Star Nicola Yoon 2016 American English
5009 Against the Day Thomas Pynchon 2006 American English
5042 Woman Natalie Angier 1999 American English
5042 The Pleasure Of Finding Things Out Richard P. Feynman 1999 American English
5090 On Food and Cooking Harold McGee 1984 American English
5190 The Professor Challenger Stories Arthur Conan Doyle 1912 British English
5253 Carnacki The Ghost Finder William Hope Hodgson 1913 British English
5264 The Great Influenza John Barry 2004 American English
5293 Reflections On Language Noam Chomsky 1975 American English
5322 My First Summer in the Sierra John Muir 1911 American English
5362 The Hite Report Shere Hite 1976 American English
5375 Packing For Mars Mary Roach 2010 American English
5382 Longitude Dava Sobel 1995 American English
5393 New Atlantis Francis Bacon 1627 British English
5414 Bad Science Ben Goldacre 2008 British English
5477 Inherit The Stars James P. Hogan 1977 American English
5502 Does God Exist? Hans Küng 1978 German German
5570 A Whale For The Killing Farley Mowat 1972 Canadian English
5576 Audubon Robert Penn Warren 1969 American English
5606 Krakatoa Simon Winchester 2003 Krakatoa English
5643 Enlightenment Now Steven Pinker 2018 American English
5718 Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World Haruki Murakami 1985 Japanese Japanese
5750 The Message In the Bottle Walker Percy 1975 American English
5762 The Scar China Miéville 2002 British English
5773 The Digging Leviathan James P. Blaylock 1984 American English
5813 The City Of The Sun Tommaso Campanella 1623 Italian Latin
5906 The First Men In The Moon H. G. Wells 1901 British English
5918 The Damnation Of Theron Ware Harold Frederic 1896 American English
5938 Rendezvous with Rama Arthur C. Clarke 1973 British English
5939 The Turning Point Fritjof Capra 1982 American English
5966 A Princess In Theory Alyssa Cole 2018 American English
6005 Theatre Of The World Frances A. Yates 1969 British English
6089 The End Of The World News Anthony Burgess 1982 British English
6091 All the Birds in the Sky Charlie Jane Anders 2016 American English
6121 The Web That Has No Weaver Ted J. Kaptchuk 1983 American English
6175 Philosophy and Civilization John Dewey 1931 American English
6206 Kolymsky Heights Lionel Davidson 1994 British English
6213 Under A Lucky Star Roy Chapman Andrews 1943 American English