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
2600 Out Of The Silent Planet C. S. Lewis 1938 British English
2626 Capital in the Twenty-First Century Thomas Piketty 2013 French French
2627 Selected Plays of George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw 1976 Irish English
2664 The Lost World Arthur Conan Doyle 1912 British English
2665 The Mismeasure of Man Stephen Jay Gould 1981 American English
2673 Microbe Hunters Paul de Kruif 1926 American English
2678 H Is For Hawk Helen MacDonald 2014 British English
2698 Cod Mark Kurlansky 1997 American English
2703 Natural History Pliny the Elder 77 Roman Latin
2712 Mission Of Gravity Hal Clement 1954 American English
2710 Alan Turing Andrew Hodges 1983 British English
2736 Philosophical Writings Novalis 1798 German German
2740 The Martian Andy Weir 2011 American English
2785 The Philosophy Of Symbolic Forms Ernst Cassirer 1929 German German
2787 A Cultural History Of The Modern Age Egon Friedell 1927 Austrian English
2822 Roadside Picnic Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky 1972 Russian Russian
2870 Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! Richard P. Feynman 1985 American English
2897 Moneyball Michael M. Lewis 2003 American English
2931 The Compleat Werewolf And Other Stories Of Fantasy And Science Fiction Anthony Boucher 1969 American English
2935 The Two Cultures And The Scientific Revolution C. P. Snow 1959 British English
2978 Braiding Sweetgrass Robin Wall Kimmerer 2013 American English
3001 The Savage Mind Claude Lévi-Strauss 1962 French French
3163 Dept. of Speculation Jenny Offill 2014 American English
3170 The Tipping Point Malcolm Gladwell 2000 American English
3179 Flight Behavior Barbara Kingsolver 2012 American English
3191 The Age of Reason Thomas Paine 1794 British English
3194 The Lives of a Cell Lewis Thomas 1974 American English
3204 When We Cease To Understand The World Adrian Nathan West, Benjamin Labatut 2020 Chilean Spanish
3222 Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder Lawrence Weschler 1995 American English
3231 The Strategy Of Conflict Thomas Schelling 1960 American English
3233 Freakonomics Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner 2005 American English
3270 Postmortem Patricia Daniels Cornwell 1990 American English
3324 Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus Scriblerus Club 1741 British English
3451 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
3844 The Fractal Geometry Of Nature Benoît Mandelbrot 1977 French English
3858 The Silent World Jacques Cousteau 1953 French French
3861 The Soul of the White Ant Eugène N. Marais 1925 South African Afrikaans
3859 Enduring Love Ian McEwan 1997 British English
3943 A Fire on the Moon Norman Mailer 1970 American English
4061 Serengeti Shall Not Die Bernhard Grzimek 1959 German German
4083 The Day of the Dolphin Robert Merle 1967 French French
4168 Letters On England Voltaire 1734 French French
4203 Darwin's Radio Greg Bear 1999 American English
4288 On the Fabric of the Human Body Andreas Vesalius 1543 Belgian Latin
4309 Vril Edward Bulwer-Lytton 1871 British English
4414 The House Book Terence Conran 1974 British English
4419 The Swerve Stephen Greenblatt 2011 American English
4507 The Book about Blanche and Marie Per Olov Enquist 2004 Swedish Swedish
4533 Annihilation Jeff VanderMeer 2014 American English
4537 Stiff Mary Roach 2003 American English
4542 Ingenious Pain Andrew Miller 1997 British English
4580 A Theory Of The Consumption Function Milton Friedman 1957 American English
4611 Civilisation Kenneth Clark 1969 British English
4616 Sociobiology E. O. Wilson 1975 American English
4633 The Inability To Mourn Alexander Mitscherlich, Margarete Mitscherlich 1967 German German
4642 Micrographia Robert Hooke 1665 British English
4732 The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation M. T. Anderson 2006 American English
4736 Trees And Shrubs Of New Zealand Audrey Eagle 1975 New Zealand English
4750 The Omnivore's Dilemma Michael Pollan 2006 American English
4753 Angels And Demons Dan Brown 2000 American English
4756 The Faculty of Useless Knowledge Yuri Dombrovsky 1976 Russian Russian
4795 The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle Hugh Lofting 1922 British English
4810 Gaia James Lovelock 1979 British English
4939 Being Dead Jim Crace 1999 British English
4977 The First Three Minutes Steven Weinberg 1977 American English
4987 Madame Curie - A Biography by Eve Curie Eve Curie 1937 French French
4995 The Sun Is Also A Star Nicola Yoon 2016 American English
5005 Against the Day Thomas Pynchon 2006 American English
5038 Woman Natalie Angier 1999 American English
5038 The Pleasure Of Finding Things Out Richard P. Feynman 1999 American English
5087 On Food and Cooking Harold McGee 1984 American English
5187 The Professor Challenger Stories Arthur Conan Doyle 1912 British English
5251 Carnacki The Ghost Finder William Hope Hodgson 1913 British English
5262 The Great Influenza John Barry 2004 American English
5291 Reflections On Language Noam Chomsky 1975 American English
5320 My First Summer in the Sierra John Muir 1911 American English
5360 The Hite Report Shere Hite 1976 American English
5373 Packing For Mars Mary Roach 2010 American English
5380 Longitude Dava Sobel 1995 American English
5390 New Atlantis Francis Bacon 1627 British English
5411 Bad Science Ben Goldacre 2008 British English
5474 Inherit The Stars James P. Hogan 1977 American English
5499 Does God Exist? Hans Küng 1978 German German
5568 A Whale For The Killing Farley Mowat 1972 Canadian English
5574 Audubon Robert Penn Warren 1969 American English
5603 Krakatoa Simon Winchester 2003 Krakatoa English
5640 Enlightenment Now Steven Pinker 2018 American English
5715 Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World Haruki Murakami 1985 Japanese Japanese
5747 The Message In the Bottle Walker Percy 1975 American English
5759 The Scar China Miéville 2002 British English
5770 The Digging Leviathan James P. Blaylock 1984 American English
5810 The City Of The Sun Tommaso Campanella 1623 Italian Latin
5903 The First Men In The Moon H. G. Wells 1901 British English
5915 The Damnation Of Theron Ware Harold Frederic 1896 American English
5934 Rendezvous with Rama Arthur C. Clarke 1973 British English
5935 The Turning Point Fritjof Capra 1982 American English
5962 A Princess In Theory Alyssa Cole 2018 American English
6002 Theatre Of The World Frances A. Yates 1969 British English
6086 The End Of The World News Anthony Burgess 1982 British English
6088 All the Birds in the Sky Charlie Jane Anders 2016 American English
6118 The Web That Has No Weaver Ted J. Kaptchuk 1983 American English
6172 Philosophy and Civilization John Dewey 1931 American English
6202 Kolymsky Heights Lionel Davidson 1994 British English
6209 Under A Lucky Star Roy Chapman Andrews 1943 American English