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
9700 The Information James Gleick 2011 American English
9723 The Terminal Experiment Robert J. Sawyer 1995 Canadian English
9723 The Moon and the Sun Vonda N. McIntyre 1997 American English
9757 Annals of the Former World John McPhee 1998 American English
9822 The Precipice Toby Ord 2020 British English
9884 Basin And Range John McPhee 1981 American English
9896 The Whole Shebang Timothy Ferris 1997 American English
9904 Trilobite! Richard Fortey 2000 British English
9908 The Demon Haunted World Carl Sagan 1995 American English
9922 The God Delusion Richard Dawkins 2006 British English
9981 The Most Wanted Man In China Fang Lizhi 2016 Unknown English
10006 Where Tigers Are At Home Jean-Marie Blas de Roblès 2008 French French
10013 The End Of Nature Bill McKibben 1989 American English
10062 In the Heart of the Sea Nathaniel Philbrick 2000 American English
10085 The Girl With All The Gifts M. R. Carey 2014 British English
10092 We Have No Idea Daniel Whiteson, Jorge Cham 2017 Unknown English
10101 The People In The Trees Hanya Yanagihara 2013 American English
10120 The Taming of Chance Ian Hacking 1990 Canadian English
10129 The Winds Of Change Eugene Linden 2006 Unknown English
10139 Dealers Of Lightning Michael Hiltzik 2000 American English
10140 Sphere A. R. Ammons 1978 American English
10264 The Ether Dome And Other Poems Allen Grossman 1979 American English
10273 The Mind's Eye Oliver Sacks 2010 British English
10287 The Ascent Of Man Jacob Bronowski 1973 British English
10289 The Light Eaters Zoë Schlanger 2024 Unknown English
10299 Murderland Caroline Fraser 2025 Unknown English
10309 The Dancing Bees Karl von Frisch 1953 German German
10309 Sense And Non Sense Maurice Merleau-Ponty 1948 French French
10309 Worlds In Collision Immanuel Velikovsky 1950 American English
10380 Nuclear War Annie Jacobsen 2024 Unknown Unknown
10401 For Marx Louis Althusser 1965 French French
10406 Oh Pure And Radiant Heart Lydia Millet 2005 American English
10410 The Anxious Generation Jonathan Haidt 2024 American English
10454 Why Does The World Exist? An Existential Detective Story Jim Holt 2012 American English
10454 The Poison Squad Deborah Blum 2018 American English
10454 The Tangled Tree David Quammen 2018 American English
10509 Shadows Of The Mind Roger Penrose 1994 British English
10518 The Cabinet Of Curiosities Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child 2002 American English
10536 Ai Superpowers Kai-Fu Lee 2018 Chinese English
10548 The Character Of Physical Law Richard P. Feynman 1965 American English
10556 The Burning Earth Sunil Amrith 2024 Unknown English
10608 When It All Burns Jordan Thomas 2025 Unknown English
10639 The Country Of The Blind Andrew Leland 2023 Unknown English
10646 The Abstract Wild Jack Turner 1996 Unknown English
10690 Your Face Belongs To Us Kashmir Hill 2024 American English
10687 What An Owl Knows Jennifer Ackerman 2023 Unknown English
10690 The Possibility Of Life Jaime Green 2023 Unknown English
10720 The Beast In The Clouds Nathalia Holt 2025 American English
10845 Who Controls The Internet? Tim Wu, Jack Goldsmith 2006 American English
10892 Everything Is Tuberculosis John Green 2025 Unknown English
10900 After Many A Summer Dies The Swan Aldous Huxley 1939 British English
10927 Robert Grosseteste R. W. Southern 1988 British English
10947 Latitudes Of Longing Shubhangi Swarup 2018 Indian English
10973 This Machine Kills Secrets Andy Greenberg 2012 Unknown English
10979 They Know Not What They Do Jussi Valtonen 2014 Finnish Finnish
11006 Naturalist E. O. Wilson 1994 American English
11006 The Island Of The Day Before Umberto Eco 1994 Italian Italian
11039 Empire Of Ai Karen Hao 2025 American English
11053 An Imagined World June Goodfield 1981 British English
11113 Moving Mars Greg Bear 1993 American English
11113 The Quantum Rose Catherine Asaro 2000 American English
11113 The Speed of Dark Elizabeth Moon 2003 American English
11113 Camouflage Joe Haldeman 2004 American English
11141 O Strange New World Howard Mumford Jones 1964 American English
11165 The Forbidden Garden Simon Parkin 2024 Unknown English
11195 Fox And I Catherine Raven 2021 Unknown English
11210 The Pilgrimage Of Western Man Stringfellow Barr 1949 American English
11278 The Fly Miroslav Holub 1987 Czech Czech
11294 You Are Not A Gadget Jaron Lanier 2010 American English
11304 Spam Finn Brunton 2013 American English
11309 The Immortals René Barjavel 1960 French French
11311 Mysteries Of The Middle Ages Thomas Cahill 2006 American English
11329 The Gene Siddhartha Mukherjee 2016 American English
11365 Lucifer's Hammer Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle 1977 American English
11414 Spin Robert Charles Wilson 2005 Canadian English
11417 Half Earth E. O. Wilson 2016 American English
11427 Ice Station Matthew Reilly 1998 Australian English
11440 Field Notes From A Catastrophe Elizabeth Kolbert 2006 American English
11489 Mary Reilly Valerie Martin 1990 American English
11507 How To Build A Time Machine Paul Davies 2002 British English
11525 206 Bones Kathy Reichs 2009 American English
11535 Countdown To Zero Day Kim Zetter 2014 American English
11540 Perdido Street Station China Miéville 2000 British English
11547 The Course in Positive Philosophy Auguste Comte 1830 French French
11570 Ghostwritten David Mitchell 1999 British English
11623 Finding Beauty In A Broken World Terry Tempest Williams 2008 American English
11623 Where The Wild Things Were William Stolzenburg 2008 Unknown English
11632 Death By Video Game Simon Parkin 2015 British English
11637 The Means Of Reproduction Michelle Goldberg 2009 American English
11644 On Animals Susan Orlean 2021 American English
11663 Roger's Version John Updike 1986 American English
11663 The Ice Stephen J. Pyne 1986 American English
11663 American Eden Victoria Johnson 2018 Unknown English
11663 The Dinosaur Artist Paige Williams 2018 American English
11663 She Has Her Mother's Laugh Carl Zimmer 2018 American English
11797 A Case of Conscience James Blish 1958 American English
11803 The Attention Merchants Tim Wu 2016 American English
11839 The Balance Of Nature John Kricher 2009 Unknown English
11842 Broad Band Claire Evans 2018 Unknown English
11876 Monday Begins On Saturday Arkadi Strugatski 1964 Russian Russian
11934 Animals Strike Curious Poses Elena Passarello 2017 American English
11941 Benjamin Franklin, Self-Revealed William Cabell Bruce 1917 American English
11941 From Immigrant to Inventor Michael I. Pupin 1923 American English
11941 The Life of Sir William Osler Harvey Cushing 1925 American English
11941 Charles W. Eliot Henry James 1909 American Unknown
11941 The Thought and Character of William James Ralph Barton Perry 1935 American English
12050 Omega Minor Paul Verhaeghen 2004 Belgian Dutch
12064 Prelude To Foundation Isaac Asimov 1988 American English
12066 Les Thanatonautes Bernard Werber 1994 French French
12110 Valley Of Forgetting Jennie Erin Smith 2025 American English
12149 The Secret Family David Bodanis 1997 Unknown English
12155 Is A River Alive? Robert Macfarlane 2025 British English
12161 Searches Vauhini Vara 2025 Unknown English
12177 Algorithms Of Oppression Safiya Umoja Noble 2018 American English
12195 Earth Richard Fortey 2004 British English
12225 The Tao of Physics Fritjof Capra 1975 Austrian English
12226 The Collapsing Empire John Scalzi 2017 American English
12251 Rocket Boys Homer Hickam 1998 American English
12251 Ship Of Gold In The Deep Blue Sea Gary Kinder 1998 American English
12293 Strangers And Intimates Tiffany Jenkins 2025 British English