The 25 best nonfiction books
The 25 highest-ranked nonfiction books in our ranking of 3,056, scored on how much readers love them, their prize, best-list and bestseller record, and current buzz. We rank 724 nonfiction books in all. How we rank
- 1
Between the World and Me95.4Must-Read ScoreBetween the World and Me
Written as a letter to his 15-year-old son, this is Ta-Nehisi Coates explaining what it means to live in a Black body in America.
Why it made the listNational Book Award (Nonfiction) winner (2015)#1 New York Times bestseller (4 weeks at #1)107 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2015Pulitzer Prize (General Nonfiction) finalist (2016) - 2
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer93.3Must-Read ScoreThe Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer
Siddhartha Mukherjee, an oncologist, set out to answer a patient's question: what exactly is she fighting?
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize (General Nonfiction) winner (2011)33 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2010NBCC Award (Nonfiction) finalist (2010)NYT 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - 3
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City93.3Must-Read ScoreEvicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
In 2008 and 2009, sociologist Matthew Desmond moved into a trailer park on Milwaukee's south side, and then an inner-city rooming house, to live alongside the people he was studying.
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize (General Nonfiction) winner (2017)NBCC Award (Nonfiction) winner (2016)NYT 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - 4
Educated: A Memoir93.1Must-Read ScoreEducated: A Memoir
Tara Westover grew up on a mountain in Idaho with survivalist parents who didn't believe in schools, doctors or the government.
Why it made the list#1 New York Times bestseller (19 weeks at #1)184 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2018NBCC Award (Memoir) finalist (2018) - 5
The Body Keeps the Score92.2Must-Read ScoreThe Body Keeps the Score
Psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk spent more than thirty years working with survivors of war, abuse and disaster, and this is what he learned: trauma isn't only a memory, it reshapes the brain and the body, leaving people stuck in fear long after the danger has passed.
Why it made the list#1 New York Times bestseller (16 weeks at #1)323 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2019 - 6
Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland91.9Must-Read ScoreSay Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
In 1972, Jean McConville, a widowed mother of ten, was dragged from her Belfast home by masked members of the IRA and never seen again.
Why it made the listNBCC Award (Nonfiction) winner (2019)17 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2019NYT 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - 7
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration91.5Must-Read ScoreThe Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
Between World War I and 1970, about six million Black Americans left the South for the cities of the North and West, one of the largest migrations in American history.
Why it made the listNBCC Award (Nonfiction) winner (2010)39 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2010NYT 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - 8
When Breath Becomes Air91.4Must-Read ScoreWhen Breath Becomes Air
At thirty-six, Paul Kalanithi was about to finish a decade of training as a neurosurgeon at Stanford when he was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer.
Why it made the list#1 New York Times bestseller (13 weeks at #1)92 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2016Pulitzer Prize (Biography) finalist (2017) - 9
I'm Glad My Mom Died91.3Must-Read ScoreI'm Glad My Mom Died
Jennette McCurdy was six when her mother put her in her first audition, and she spent the next decade as a child actor, eventually starring on Nickelodeon's iCarly, all to make her mother happy.
Why it made the listGoodreads Choice (memoir autobiography) winner (2022)#1 New York Times bestseller (8 weeks at #1)151 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2022 - 10
The Making of the Atomic Bomb91.3Must-Read ScoreThe Making of the Atomic Bomb
The full story of how the atomic bomb came to be, from the discovery around 1900 that atoms held unimaginable energy, through the physicists who raced to understand it, often fleeing Nazi Europe as they did, to the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, the first test at Trinity, and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize (General Nonfiction) winner (1988)National Book Award (Nonfiction) winner (1987)NBCC Award (Nonfiction) winner (1987)Modern Library 100 Best Nonfiction - 11
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York91.3Must-Read ScoreThe Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
Robert Moses never won an election, yet for forty years he was the most powerful man in New York.
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize (Biography) winner (1975)Modern Library 100 Best NonfictionTIME All-TIME 100 Nonfiction - 12
Atomic Habits91.1Must-Read ScoreAtomic Habits
James Clear's argument is that if you're struggling to change, the problem isn't you, it's your system.
Why it made the listOne of the ten best-selling books of 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 (Publishers Weekly)416 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2018 - 13
Maus90.6Must-Read ScoreMaus
Art Spiegelman tells the story of his father, Vladek, a Polish Jew who survived Hitler's Europe and Auschwitz, in comic form, with Jews drawn as mice and Nazis as cats.
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize (Special Citation) winner (1992)TIME All-TIME 100 NonfictionGuardian 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read - 14
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This90.5Must-Read ScoreOne Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
In October 2023, a few weeks into the bombardment of Gaza, novelist Omar El Akkad posted a single line that went viral and became this book's title.
Why it made the listNational Book Award (Nonfiction) winner (2025)Goodreads Choice (nonfiction) finalist (2025) - 15
The Passage of Power90.5Must-Read ScoreThe Passage of Power
The fourth volume of Robert Caro's life of Lyndon Johnson covers 1958 to 1964.
Why it made the listNBCC Award (Biography) winner (2012)#1 New York Times bestseller (2 weeks at #1)National Book Award (Nonfiction) finalist (2012)NYT 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - 16
A Brief History of Time90.5Must-Read ScoreA Brief History of Time
Stephen Hawking's attempt to explain the biggest questions in physics to ordinary readers: where the universe came from, how it might end, what black holes are, why time only moves forward, and whether physics can ever find a single theory of everything.
Why it made the listOne of the best-selling books ever (about 25 million copies)#1 New York Times bestseller (19 weeks at #1)TIME All-TIME 100 NonfictionGuardian 100 Best Nonfiction Books of All Time - 17
How to Win Friends and Influence People90.4Must-Read ScoreHow to Win Friends and Influence People
Dale Carnegie's 1936 guide to getting along with people is built on a few simple, practical principles: show genuine interest in others, remember their names, listen more than you talk, let people save face, and never criticize when you can encourage instead.
Why it made the listOne of the best-selling books ever (about 37 million copies)#1 New York Times bestseller (32 weeks at #1)TIME All-TIME 100 NonfictionGuardian 100 Best Nonfiction Books of All Time - 18
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer90.2Must-Read ScoreAmerican Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
The definitive biography of J.
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize (Biography) winner (2006)NBCC Award (Biography) winner (2005)#1 New York Times bestseller (5 weeks at #1) - 19
King: A Life90.1Must-Read ScoreKing: A Life
The first major biography of Martin Luther King Jr.
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize (Biography) winner (2024)NBCC Award (Biography) finalist (2023)Goodreads Choice (history biography) finalist (2023) - 20
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany89.9Must-Read ScoreThe Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany
William Shirer was an American journalist who reported from Berlin in the 1930s, and after the war he gained access to the captured archives of the Nazi government.
Why it made the listNational Book Award (Nonfiction) winner (1961)#1 New York Times bestseller (39 weeks at #1)TIME All-TIME 100 Nonfiction - 21
Roots89.8Must-Read ScoreRoots
In 1767, Kunta Kinte, a young man in the Gambia, is captured while searching for wood to make a drum, survives the Middle Passage and is sold into slavery in Virginia, where he never stops trying to keep his name and his memory of Africa alive.
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize (Special Citation) winner (1977)#1 New York Times bestseller (22 weeks at #1) - 22
The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/1189.6Must-Read ScoreThe Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11
How did 9/11 happen?
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize (General Nonfiction) winner (2007)National Book Award (Nonfiction) finalist (2006)NYT 100 Best Books of the 21st CenturyTIME All-TIME 100 Nonfiction - 23
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea89.5Must-Read ScoreNothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
Journalist Barbara Demick spent years interviewing North Koreans who escaped, and here she follows six of them, all from the city of Chongjin, across fifteen years that included the death of Kim Il-sung and a famine that killed perhaps a million people.
Why it made the listBaillie Gifford Prize winner (2010)National Book Award (Nonfiction) finalist (2010)NBCC Award (Nonfiction) finalist (2010)Guardian 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - 24
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid89.4Must-Read ScoreGödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
What does a mathematician's proof, a printmaker's impossible staircases and a composer's endlessly rising canons have in common?
Why it made the listPulitzer Prize (General Nonfiction) winner (1980)National Book Award (Nonfiction) winner (1980)TIME All-TIME 100 Nonfiction - 25
Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets89.3Must-Read ScoreSecondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets
Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich spent years recording ordinary Russians talking about the collapse of the Soviet Union and the chaos that followed: veterans, shopkeepers, former Party members, refugees, grieving mothers, people who mourned communism and people who cheered its fall.
Why it made the listBaillie Gifford Prize finalist (2016)NYT 100 Best Books of the 21st CenturyGuardian 100 Best Books of the 21st Century
