The Greatest Books of All Time on Science

Click to learn how this list is calculated.

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.

View: List Grid Table
Filter by: Genres Dates Countries

Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
9696 The Information James Gleick 2011 American English
9719 The Terminal Experiment Robert J. Sawyer 1995 Canadian English
9719 The Moon and the Sun Vonda N. McIntyre 1997 American English
9753 Annals of the Former World John McPhee 1998 American English
9818 The Precipice Toby Ord 2020 British English
9880 Basin And Range John McPhee 1981 American English
9892 The Whole Shebang Timothy Ferris 1997 American English
9900 Trilobite! Richard Fortey 2000 British English
9904 The Demon Haunted World Carl Sagan 1995 American English
9976 The Most Wanted Man In China Fang Lizhi 2016 Unknown English
10001 Where Tigers Are At Home Jean-Marie Blas de Roblès 2008 French French
10008 The End Of Nature Bill McKibben 1989 American English
10056 In the Heart of the Sea Nathaniel Philbrick 2000 American English
10079 The Girl With All The Gifts M. R. Carey 2014 British English
10086 We Have No Idea Daniel Whiteson, Jorge Cham 2017 Unknown English
10095 The People In The Trees Hanya Yanagihara 2013 American English
10114 The Taming of Chance Ian Hacking 1990 Canadian English
10115 The God Delusion Richard Dawkins 2006 British English
10124 The Winds Of Change Eugene Linden 2006 Unknown English
10134 Dealers Of Lightning Michael Hiltzik 2000 American English
10135 Sphere A. R. Ammons 1978 American English
10259 The Ether Dome And Other Poems Allen Grossman 1979 American English
10268 The Mind's Eye Oliver Sacks 2010 British English
10282 The Ascent Of Man Jacob Bronowski 1973 British English
10284 The Light Eaters Zoë Schlanger 2024 Unknown English
10294 Murderland Caroline Fraser 2025 Unknown English
10304 The Dancing Bees Karl von Frisch 1953 German German
10304 Sense And Non Sense Maurice Merleau-Ponty 1948 French French
10304 Worlds In Collision Immanuel Velikovsky 1950 American English
10375 Nuclear War Annie Jacobsen 2024 Unknown Unknown
10396 For Marx Louis Althusser 1965 French French
10401 Oh Pure And Radiant Heart Lydia Millet 2005 American English
10405 The Anxious Generation Jonathan Haidt 2024 American English
10449 Why Does The World Exist? An Existential Detective Story Jim Holt 2012 American English
10449 The Poison Squad Deborah Blum 2018 American English
10449 The Tangled Tree David Quammen 2018 American English
10504 Shadows Of The Mind Roger Penrose 1994 British English
10513 The Cabinet Of Curiosities Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child 2002 American English
10531 Ai Superpowers Kai-Fu Lee 2018 Chinese English
10543 The Character Of Physical Law Richard P. Feynman 1965 American English
10551 The Burning Earth Sunil Amrith 2024 Unknown English
10603 When It All Burns Jordan Thomas 2025 Unknown English
10634 The Country Of The Blind Andrew Leland 2023 Unknown English
10641 The Abstract Wild Jack Turner 1996 Unknown English
10685 Your Face Belongs To Us Kashmir Hill 2024 American English
10682 What An Owl Knows Jennifer Ackerman 2023 Unknown English
10685 The Possibility Of Life Jaime Green 2023 Unknown English
10715 The Beast In The Clouds Nathalia Holt 2025 American English
10841 Who Controls The Internet? Tim Wu, Jack Goldsmith 2006 American English
10887 Everything Is Tuberculosis John Green 2025 Unknown English
10895 After Many A Summer Dies The Swan Aldous Huxley 1939 British English
10922 Robert Grosseteste R. W. Southern 1988 British English
10942 Latitudes Of Longing Shubhangi Swarup 2018 Indian English
10968 This Machine Kills Secrets Andy Greenberg 2012 Unknown English
10974 They Know Not What They Do Jussi Valtonen 2014 Finnish Finnish
11001 Naturalist E. O. Wilson 1994 American English
11001 The Island Of The Day Before Umberto Eco 1994 Italian Italian
11034 Empire Of Ai Karen Hao 2025 American English
11048 An Imagined World June Goodfield 1981 British English
11108 Moving Mars Greg Bear 1993 American English
11108 The Quantum Rose Catherine Asaro 2000 American English
11108 The Speed of Dark Elizabeth Moon 2003 American English
11108 Camouflage Joe Haldeman 2004 American English
11136 O Strange New World Howard Mumford Jones 1964 American English
11160 The Forbidden Garden Simon Parkin 2024 Unknown English
11190 Fox And I Catherine Raven 2021 Unknown English
11205 The Pilgrimage Of Western Man Stringfellow Barr 1949 American English
11273 The Fly Miroslav Holub 1987 Czech Czech
11289 You Are Not A Gadget Jaron Lanier 2010 American English
11299 Spam Finn Brunton 2013 American English
11304 The Immortals René Barjavel 1960 French French
11306 Mysteries Of The Middle Ages Thomas Cahill 2006 American English
11324 The Gene Siddhartha Mukherjee 2016 American English
11361 Lucifer's Hammer Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle 1977 American English
11410 Spin Robert Charles Wilson 2005 Canadian English
11413 Half Earth E. O. Wilson 2016 American English
11423 Ice Station Matthew Reilly 1998 Australian English
11436 Field Notes From A Catastrophe Elizabeth Kolbert 2006 American English
11486 Mary Reilly Valerie Martin 1990 American English
11504 How To Build A Time Machine Paul Davies 2002 British English
11522 206 Bones Kathy Reichs 2009 American English
11532 Countdown To Zero Day Kim Zetter 2014 American English
11537 Perdido Street Station China Miéville 2000 British English
11544 The Course in Positive Philosophy Auguste Comte 1830 French French
11568 Ghostwritten David Mitchell 1999 British English
11620 Finding Beauty In A Broken World Terry Tempest Williams 2008 American English
11620 Where The Wild Things Were William Stolzenburg 2008 Unknown English
11629 Death By Video Game Simon Parkin 2015 British English
11634 The Means Of Reproduction Michelle Goldberg 2009 American English
11641 On Animals Susan Orlean 2021 American English
11660 Roger's Version John Updike 1986 American English
11660 The Ice Stephen J. Pyne 1986 American English
11660 American Eden Victoria Johnson 2018 Unknown English
11660 The Dinosaur Artist Paige Williams 2018 American English
11660 She Has Her Mother's Laugh Carl Zimmer 2018 American English
11795 A Case of Conscience James Blish 1958 American English
11801 The Attention Merchants Tim Wu 2016 American English
11837 The Balance Of Nature John Kricher 2009 Unknown English
11840 Broad Band Claire Evans 2018 Unknown English
11874 Monday Begins On Saturday Arkadi Strugatski 1964 Russian Russian
11932 Animals Strike Curious Poses Elena Passarello 2017 American English
11939 Benjamin Franklin, Self-Revealed William Cabell Bruce 1917 American English
11939 From Immigrant to Inventor Michael I. Pupin 1923 American English
11939 The Life of Sir William Osler Harvey Cushing 1925 American English
11939 Charles W. Eliot Henry James 1909 American Unknown
11939 The Thought and Character of William James Ralph Barton Perry 1935 American English
12048 Omega Minor Paul Verhaeghen 2004 Belgian Dutch
12062 Prelude To Foundation Isaac Asimov 1988 American English
12065 Les Thanatonautes Bernard Werber 1994 French French
12109 Valley Of Forgetting Jennie Erin Smith 2025 American English
12148 The Secret Family David Bodanis 1997 Unknown English
12154 Is A River Alive? Robert Macfarlane 2025 British English
12160 Searches Vauhini Vara 2025 Unknown English
12176 Algorithms Of Oppression Safiya Umoja Noble 2018 American English
12194 Earth Richard Fortey 2004 British English
12224 The Tao of Physics Fritjof Capra 1975 Austrian English
12225 The Collapsing Empire John Scalzi 2017 American English
12250 Rocket Boys Homer Hickam 1998 American English
12250 Ship Of Gold In The Deep Blue Sea Gary Kinder 1998 American English
12292 Strangers And Intimates Tiffany Jenkins 2025 British English