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Modern Library 100 Best Nonfiction Books

Members: 7 participating members
peach3009, deldevries, kara.shamy, Kristelh, ManWithAnAgenda, aulsmith, Bretzky1

Rank Title Author Added

1

A Room of One's Own

by Virginia Woolf

11,655 members

155 reviews

4.1

4 Members: peach3009, Kristelh, Bretzky1, ManWithAnAgenda

2

The Elements of Style

by William Strunk Jr.

19,024 members

194 reviews

4.2

5 Members: deldevries, peach3009, Kristelh, Bretzky1, ManWithAnAgenda,aulsmith
Explanations: aulsmith : There was much in this book to like, but I've found other books on writing just as helpful, if not more so.

3

by Truman Capote

22,441 members

443 reviews

4.1

4 Members: deldevries, peach3009, Kristelh, ManWithAnAgenda

4

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

by Thomas S. Kuhn

7,709 members

84 reviews

4

3 Members: aulsmith, deldevries, peach3009
Explanations: aulsmith: But read it carefully. It's not as post-modern as some people think

5

Notes of a Native Son

by James Baldwin

1,830 members

28 reviews

4.2

3 Members: aulsmith, peach3009, kara.shamy

6

The Souls of Black Folk

by W. E. B. Du Bois

4,857 members

63 reviews

4.2

3 Members: peach3009, Kristelh, kara.shamy

7

The Proper Study of Mankind: An Anthology of Essays

by Isaiah Berlin

679 members

4 reviews

½ 4.3

2 Members: aulsmith, peach3009
Explanations: aulsmith: Berlin is great, never satisfied with easy answers (or some times any answer)

8

Selected Essays

370 members

4.1

2 Members: peach3009, kara.shamy

9

Up from Slavery

by Booker T. Washington

3,873 members

38 reviews

3.9

2 Members: deldevries, peach3009

10

Aspects of the Novel

by E. M. Forster

2,176 members

37 reviews

3.8

2 Members: aulsmith, peach3009

11

by Richard Ellmann

1,257 members

10 reviews

½ 4.4

2 Members: peach3009, kara.shamy

12

The Right Stuff

4,441 members

66 reviews

4.2

3 Members: deldevries, peach3009, ManWithAnAgenda,aulsmith
Explanations: aulsmith : This was an interesting book, but too cynical for my taste.

13

The Guns of August

by Barbara W. Tuchman

6,205 members

115 reviews

½ 4.3

2 Members: peach3009, kara.shamy

14

Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do

by Studs Terkel

2,039 members

19 reviews

4.2

2 Members: deldevries, peach3009

15

The Civil War (complete 14 volumes)

by Shelby Foote

24 members

2 Members: deldevries, peach3009

16

by Karen Blixen

4,986 members

98 reviews

3.9

2 Members: peach3009, Kristelh

17

The Education of Henry Adams

2,704 members

43 reviews

3.8

Member: peach3009

18

The Journalist and the Murderer

by Janet Malcolm

620 members

12 reviews

3.9

2 Members: deldevries, peach3009

19

Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness

by William Styron

2,903 members

76 reviews

3.9

2 Members: peach3009, kara.shamy

20

The Autobiography of Malcolm X

9,214 members

112 reviews

½ 4.3

2 Members: peach3009, kara.shamy

21

This Boy's Life

by Tobias Wolff

2,818 members

44 reviews

3.9

2 Members: peach3009, kara.shamy

22

The Varieties of Religious Experience

by William James

4,932 members

35 reviews

3.9

Member: peach3009

23

by Rachel Carson

6,074 members

93 reviews

4

2 Members: peach3009, ManWithAnAgenda,aulsmith
Explanations: aulsmith : This is getting very dated. A silent spring is certainly not our greatest ecological worry.

24

The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA

by James D. Watson

2,872 members

42 reviews

3.8

Member: peach3009

25

Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited

by Vladimir Nabokov

3,459 members

42 reviews

4.2

Member: peach3009

26

The American Language: An Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States

by H. L. Mencken

693 members

3 reviews

½ 4.5

Member: peach3009

27

The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money

by John Maynard Keynes

1,683 members

12 reviews

½ 3.6

Member: peach3009

28

The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher

by Lewis Thomas

1,986 members

29 reviews

4.2

Member: peach3009

29

The Frontier in American History

by Frederick Jackson Turner

480 members

6 reviews

4

Member: peach3009

30

by Richard Wright

4,913 members

66 reviews

4

Member: peach3009

31

The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation

by Reinhold Niebuhr

462 members

2 reviews

½ 3.7

Member: peach3009

32

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas

by Gertrude Stein

2,559 members

43 reviews

½ 3.6

Member: peach3009

33

An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy

by Gunnar Myrdal

133 members

2 reviews

3.8

Member: peach3009

34

Principia Mathematica (3-volume set)

by Alfred North Whitehead

71 members

4

Member: peach3009

35

The Mismeasure of Man [Revised & Expanded]

by Stephen Jay Gould

1,746 members

17 reviews

4.1

Member: peach3009

36

The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition

by Meyer H. Abrams

541 members

4 reviews

4

Member: peach3009

37

The Art of the Soluble: Creativity and Originality in Science

by P. B. Medawar

68 members

2 reviews

½ 4.3

Member: peach3009

38

by Bert Hölldobler

334 members

2 reviews

½ 4.3

Member: peach3009

39

A Theory of Justice

2,974 members

25 reviews

3.9

Member: peach3009

40

Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation

by E. H. Gombrich

1,049 members

5 reviews

4

Member: peach3009

41

The Making of the English Working Class

by E. P. Thompson

1,685 members

10 reviews

4.1

Member: peach3009

42

Principia Ethica

644 members

3 reviews

3.8

Member: peach3009

43

Philosophy and Civilization

29 members

3

Member: peach3009

44

On Growth and Form

by D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson

291 members

2 reviews

4.2

Member: peach3009

45

Ideas and Opinions

by Albert Einstein

1,852 members

9 reviews

3.9

Member: peach3009

46

The Age of Jackson

by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

856 members

11 reviews

4

Member: peach3009

47

The Making of the Atomic Bomb

by Richard Rhodes

3,282 members

50 reviews

½ 4.5

Member: peach3009

48

Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey through Yugoslavia

by Rebecca West

1,599 members

22 reviews

4

Member: peach3009

49

Autobiography of William Butler Yeats

by William Butler Yeats

239 members

2 reviews

3.9

Member: peach3009

50

Science and Civilization in China (Science and Civilisation in China)

by Joseph Needham

15 members

5

Member: peach3009

51

Goodbye to All That

by Robert Graves

3,562 members

65 reviews

4

Member: peach3009

52

Homage to Catalonia

by George Orwell

6,266 members

104 reviews

4.1

Member: peach3009

53

The Autobiography of Mark Twain

841 members

9 reviews

4.1

Member: peach3009

54

Children of Crisis: A Study of Courage and Fear

by Robert Coles

140 members

½ 4.6

Member: peach3009

55

A study of history

by Arnold Joseph Toynbee

269 members

4 reviews

3.2

Member: peach3009

56

The Affluent Society

by John Kenneth Galbraith

1,634 members

13 reviews

3.8

Member: peach3009

57

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department

by Dean Acheson

449 members

5 reviews

½ 3.7

Member: peach3009

58

The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge

by David McCullough

2,520 members

57 reviews

½ 4.3

Member: peach3009

59

Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War

by Edmund Wilson

379 members

4 reviews

4.1

Member: peach3009

60

by W. Jackson Bate

385 members

5 reviews

½ 4.4

Member: peach3009

61

Eminent Victorians

by Lytton Strachey

1,685 members

28 reviews

½ 3.7

Member: peach3009

62

The Liberal Imagination

by Lionel Trilling

494 members

5 reviews

3.8

Member: peach3009

63

The Second World War {complete}

by Winston S. Churchill

1,370 members

7 reviews

½ 4.3

Member: peach3009

64

Jefferson and His Time (6 Volume Set)

by Dumas Malone

262 members

3 reviews

4.2

Member: peach3009

65

In the American Grain

by William Carlos Williams

505 members

2 reviews

3.9

Member: peach3009

66

Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water

by Marc Reisner

1,653 members

38 reviews

½ 4.3

Member: peach3009

67

The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance

1,333 members

18 reviews

3.9

Member: peach3009

68

The Open Society and Its Enemies

834 members

13 reviews

½ 4.3

Member: peach3009

69

The Art of Memory

by Frances A. Yates

1,388 members

15 reviews

4

Member: peach3009

70

Religion and the Rise of Capitalism: A Historical Study

by R. H. Tawney

717 members

3 reviews

½ 3.6

Member: peach3009

71

A Preface to Morals

by Walter Lippmann

359 members

3.9

Member: peach3009

72

The Gate of Heavenly Peace: The Chinese and Their Revolution

by Jonathan D. Spence

412 members

1 review

½ 3.7

Member: peach3009

73

The Strange Career of Jim Crow

by C. Vann Woodward

1,027 members

5 reviews

4.1

Member: peach3009

74

The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community

by William H. McNeill

678 members

7 reviews

4.2

Member: peach3009

75

The Gnostic Gospels

by Elaine Pagels

4,691 members

45 reviews

3.9

Member: peach3009

76

Florence Nightingale

by Cecil Woodham-Smith

284 members

4 reviews

½ 3.5

Member: peach3009

77

The Great War and Modern Memory

by Paul Fussell

2,012 members

28 reviews

4.2

Member: peach3009

78

Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era

by James M. McPherson

5,073 members

70 reviews

½ 4.4

Member: peach3009

79

Why We Can't Wait

by Martin Luther King, Jr.

1,392 members

6 reviews

½ 4.4

Member: peach3009

80

The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt

by Edmund Morris

3,813 members

47 reviews

½ 4.4

Member: peach3009

81

Studies in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance

by Erwin Panofsky

428 members

1 review

4.1

Member: peach3009

82

The Face of Battle

2,644 members

26 reviews

4

Member: peach3009

83

The Strange Death of Liberal England

by George Dangerfield

430 members

6 reviews

4.1

Member: peach3009

84

Vermeer (Barnes & Noble Art Series)

by Lawrence Gowing

103 members

1 review

2.9

Member: peach3009

85

A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam

by Neil Sheehan

2,049 members

28 reviews

4.2

Member: peach3009

86

West with the Night

by Beryl Markham

3,437 members

127 reviews

4.1

Member: peach3009

87

A Mathematician's Apology

1,305 members

26 reviews

3.8

Member: peach3009

88

Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics Explained by Its Most Brilliant Teacher

by Richard P. Feynman

3,675 members

37 reviews

4.1

Member: peach3009

89

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

by Annie Dillard

5,203 members

99 reviews

4.2

Member: peach3009

90

by Ralph Ellison

401 members

4

Member: peach3009

91

The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York

by Robert A. Caro

2,640 members

44 reviews

½ 4.6

Member: peach3009

92

The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made it

by Richard Hofstadter

1,191 members

12 reviews

3.9

Member: peach3009

93

The Contours of American History

by William Appleman Williams

128 members

1 review

½ 3.5

Member: peach3009

94

The Promise of American Life

by Herbert Croly

130 members

½ 2.6

Member: peach3009

95

The Taming of Chance

232 members

1 review

½ 3.6

Member: peach3009

96

Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year

1,652 members

33 reviews

4.1

Member: peach3009

97

The Young Melbourne

54 members

2

Member: peach3009

98

The Sweet Science

by A. J. Liebling

240 members

7 reviews

3.8

Member: peach3009,aulsmith
Explanations: aulsmith : I love Liebling's writing, but even he couldn't get me to read about boxing.

99

The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects

by Lewis Mumford

1,328 members

9 reviews

4.1

Member: peach3009,aulsmith
Explanations: aulsmith : This has really been out-dated by more modern archeology.

100

The Golden Bough [set - 15 volumes]

by James George Frazer

23 members

Member: peach3009,aulsmith
Explanations: aulsmith : Even the abridged version is more than most people want to know.

About This List

Started: peach3009
May 2015
Type: Numbered and unnumbered, Adding restricted

Related Tags

20th century (2,005) American history (1,846) autobiography (3,345) biography (5,805) Civil War (967) essays (2,004) fiction (2,118) history (11,143) literature (1,748) memoir (3,902) military history (1,029) non-fiction (14,447) philosophy (3,089) politics (1,454) read (1,717) reference (2,460) religion (1,852) science (3,940) to-read (9,996) true crime (1,281) unread (1,003) USA (1,111) war (1,040) writing (3,478) WWI (2,410)

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