100 Best Humanity Books of All Time

We've ranked the best humanity books using expert recommendations, sales data, and millions of reader ratings. At Shortform, we know books. Our book guides are the best in the world. Learn why.

Man's Search for Meaning book cover1

Man's Search for Meaning

Viktor E. Frankl

5.0
Man's Search for Meaning has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Between 1942 and 1945 psychiatrist Viktor Frankl labored in four different camps, including Auschwitz, while his parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished. Based on his own experience and the stories of his many patients, Frankl argues that we can
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind book cover2

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Yuval Noah Harari

5.0
100,000 years ago, at least six human species inhabited the earth. Today there is just one. Us. Homo sapiens.

How did our species succeed in the battle for dominance? Why did our foraging ancestors come together to create cities and kingdoms? How did we come to believe in gods, nations and human rights; to trust money, books and laws; and to be enslaved by bureaucracy, timetables and consumerism?
Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies book cover3

Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

Jared Diamond

4.8
Explaining what William McNeill called The Rise of the West has become the central problem in the study of global history. In Guns, Germs, and Steel Jared Diamond presents the biologist's answer: geography, demography, and ecological happenstance. Diamond evenhandedly reviews human history on every continent since the Ice Age at a rate that emphasizes only the broadest movements of peoples and ide
Thinking, Fast and Slow book cover4

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Kahneman

4.6
Major New York Times bestseller
Winner of the National Academy of Sciences Best Book Award in 2012
Selected by the New York Times Book Review as one of the best books of 2011
A Globe and Mail Best Books of the Year 2011 Title
One of The Economist's 2011 Books of the Year
One of The Wall Street Journal's Best Nonfiction Books of the Year 2011
2013 Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient

In the internatio
Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow book cover5

Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

Yuval Noah Harari

4.6
Yuval Noah Harari, author of the critically-acclaimed New York Times bestseller and international phenomenon Sapiens, returns with an equally original, compelling, and provocative book, turning his focus toward humanity’s future, and our quest to upgrade humans into gods.

Over the past century humankind has managed to do the impossible and rein in famine, plague, and war. This may seem hard to acce
Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think book cover6

Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think

Hans Rosling

4.5
Factfulness: The stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which you have strong supporting facts.

When asked simple questions about global trends—what percentage of the world’s population live in poverty; why the world’s population is increasing; how many girls finish school—we systematically get the answers wrong. So wrong that a chimpanzee choosing answers at random will consistently o
7

Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress

Steven Pinker

4.5
If you think the world is coming to an end, think again: people are living longer, healthier, freer, and happier lives, and while our problems are formidable, the solutions lie in the Enlightenment ideal of using reason and science.

Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In this elegant assessment of the human condition in the third millennium, cognitive scientist and
How to Win Friends & Influence People book cover8

How to Win Friends & Influence People

Dale Carnegie

4.5
You can go after the job you want—and get it!
You can take the job you have—and improve it!
You can take any situation—and make it work for you!

Dale Carnegie’s rock-solid, time-tested advice has carried countless people up the ladder of success in their business and personal lives. One of the most groundbreaking and timeless bestsellers of all time, How to Win Friends & Influence People will teach
The Selfish Gene book cover9

The Selfish Gene

Richard Dawkins

4.5
Inheriting the mantle of revolutionary biologist from Darwin, Watson, and Crick, Richard Dawkins forced an enormous change in the way we see ourselves and the world with the publication of The Selfish Gene. Suppose, instead of thinking about organisms using genes to reproduce themselves, as we had since Mendel's work was rediscovered, we turn it around and imagine that "our" genes build and mainta
The Alchemist book cover10

The Alchemist

Paulo Coelho

4.4
Paulo Coelho's enchanting novel has inspired a devoted following around the world. This story, dazzling in its powerful simplicity and inspiring wisdom, is about an Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago who travels from his homeland in Spain to the Egyptian desert in search of a treasure buried in the Pyramids. What starts out as a journey to find worldly goods turns into a discovery of the treas
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness book cover11

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

Michelle Alexander

4.4
"Jarvious Cotton's great-great-grandfather could not vote as a slave. His great-grandfather was beaten to death by the Klu Klux Klan for attempting to vote. His grandfather was prevented from voting by Klan intimidation; his father was barred by poll taxes and literacy tests. Today, Cotton cannot vote because he, like many black men in the United States, has been labeled a felon and is currently o
Meditations book cover12

Meditations

Marcus Aurelius

4.4
One measure, perhaps, of a book's worth, is its intergenerational pliancy: do new readers acquire it and interpret it afresh down through the ages? The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, translated and introduced by Gregory Hays, by that standard, is very worthwhile, indeed. Hays suggests that its most recent incarnation--as a self-help book--is not only valid, but may be close to the author's intent
Becoming book cover13

Becoming

Michelle Obama

4.4
In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As First Lady of the United States of America—the first African American to serve in that role—she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history, while also establishing herself as a powerful advocate for women and girls in the U.S. and aro
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption book cover14

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption

Bryan Stevenson

4.4
A powerful true story about the potential for mercy to redeem us, and a clarion call to fix our broken system of justice—from one of the most brilliant and influential lawyers of our time

Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children tr
21 Lessons for the 21st Century book cover15

21 Lessons for the 21st Century

Yuval Noah Harari

4.4
In Sapiens, he explored our past. In Homo Deus, he looked to our future. Now, one of the most innovative thinkers on the planet turns to the present to make sense of today's most pressing issues.

How do computers and robots change the meaning of being human? How do we deal with the epidemic of fake news? Are nations and religions still relevant? What should we teach our children?

Yuval Noah Harari's
When Breath Becomes Air book cover16

When Breath Becomes Air

Paul Kalanithi

4.4
At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a naïve me
1984 book cover17

1984

George Orwell

4.4
A PBS Great American Read Top 100 Pick

With extraordinary relevance and renewed popularity, George Orwell’s 1984 takes on new life in this hardcover edition.

“Orwell saw, to his credit, that the act of falsifying reality is only secondarily a way of changing perceptions. It is, above all, a way of asserting power.”—The New Yorker

In 1984, London is a grim city in the totalitarian state of Oceania
So You Want to Talk About Race book cover18

So You Want to Talk About Race

Ijeoma Oluo

4.3
In this New York Times bestseller, Ijeoma Oluo offers a hard-hitting but user-friendly examination of race in America
Widespread reporting on aspects of white supremacy--from police brutality to the mass incarceration of Black Americans--has put a media spotlight on racism in our society. Still, it is a difficult subject to talk about. How do you tell your roommate her jokes are racist? Why did you
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking book cover19

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

Susan Cain

4.3
The book that started the Quiet Revolution

At least one-third of the people we know are introverts. They are the ones who prefer listening to speaking; who innovate and create but dislike self-promotion; who favor working on their own over working in teams. It is to introverts—Rosa Parks, Chopin, Dr. Seuss, Steve Wozniak—that we owe many of the great contributions to society.

In Quiet, Susan Cain a
Principles: Life and Work book cover20

Principles: Life and Work

Ray Dalio

4.3
Ray Dalio, one of the world’s most successful investors and entrepreneurs, shares the unconventional principles that he’s developed, refined, and used over the past forty years to create unique results in both life and business—and which any person or organization can adopt to help achieve their goals.

In 1975, Ray Dalio founded an investment firm, Bridgewater Associates, out of his two-bedroom apa
A Short History of Nearly Everything book cover21

A Short History of Nearly Everything

Bill Bryson

4.3
In Bryson's biggest book, he confronts his greatest challenge: to understand—and, if possible, answer—the oldest, biggest questions we have posed about the universe and ourselves. Taking as territory everything from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization, Bryson seeks to understand how we got from there being nothing at all to there being us. To that end, he has attached himself to a host of the
Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead book cover22

Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

Brené Brown

4.3
Researcher and thought leader Dr. Brené Brown offers a powerful new vision that encourages us to dare greatly: to embrace vulnerability and imperfection, to live wholeheartedly, and to courageously engage in our lives.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is
The Diary of a Young Girl book cover23

The Diary of a Young Girl

Anne Frank

4.3
In Everyman’s Library for the first time—one of the most moving and eloquent accounts of the Holocaust, read by tens of millions of people around the world since its publication in 1947.

The Diary of a Young Girl
is the record of two years in the life of a remarkable Jewish girl whose triumphant humanity in the face of unfathomable deprivation and fear has made the book one of the most enduring doc
White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism book cover24

White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism

Robin J. DiAngelo

4.3
The New York Times best-selling book exploring the counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality.

Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt and by behaviors including argumentation and
To Kill a Mockingbird book cover25

To Kill a Mockingbird

Harper Lee, Sissy Spacek, et al

4.3
The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it, To Kill A Mockingbird became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was later made into an Academy Award-winning film, also a classic.

Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, To Kill A Mocki
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End book cover26

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

Atul Gawande

4.3
Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming the dangers of childbirth, injury, and disease from harrowing to manageable. But when it comes to the inescapable realities of aging and death, what medicine can do often runs counter to what it should.

Through eye-opening research and gripping stories of his own patients and family, Atul Gawande, a practicing surgeon, reveals the suffering this
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals book cover27

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

Michael Pollan

4.3
What should we have for dinner? For omnivore's like ourselves, this simple question has always posed a dilemma: When you can eat just about anything nature (or the supermarket) has to offer, deciding what you should eat will inevitably stir anxiety, especially when some of the foods on offer might shorten your life. Today, buffeted by one food fad after another, America is suffering from what can
Outliers: The Story of Success book cover28

Outliers: The Story of Success

Malcolm Gladwell

4.3
In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"--the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different?

His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their
Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men book cover29

Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men

Caroline Criado Perez

4.3
Imagine a world where your phone is too big for your hand, where your doctor prescribes a drug that is wrong for your body, where in a car accident you are 47% more likely to be seriously injured, where every week the countless hours of work you do are not recognised or valued. If any of this sounds familiar, chances are that you're a woman.

Invisible Women shows us how, in a world largely built fo
The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion book cover30

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion

Jonathan Haidt

4.3
Why can’t our political leaders work together as threats loom and problems mount? Why do people so readily assume the worst about the motives of their fellow citizens? In The Righteous Mind, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explores the origins of our divisions and points the way forward to mutual understanding.

His starting point is moral intuition—the nearly instantaneous perceptions we all ha
Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst book cover31

Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst

Robert M. Sapolsky

4.3
The New York Times bestseller

"It's no exaggeration to say that Behave is one of the best nonfiction books I've ever read." --David P. Barash, The Wall Street Journal


"It has my vote for science book of the year." --Parul Sehgal, The New York Times

"Hands-down one of the best books I've read in years. I loved it." --Dina Temple-Raston, The Washington Post

Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washin
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer book cover32

The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer

Siddhartha Mukherjee

4.3
Alternate Cover Edition ISBN 1439107955 (ISBN13: 9781439107959)

The Emperor of All Maladies is a magnificent, profoundly humane “biography” of cancer—from its first documented appearances thousands of years ago through the epic battles in the twentieth century to cure, control, and conquer it to a radical new understanding of its essence.

Physician, researcher, and award-winning science writer, Sid
33

Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

Neil Postman

4.3
Television has conditioned us to tolerate visually entertaining material measured out in spoonfuls of time, to the detriment of rational public discourse and reasoned public affairs. In this eloquent, persuasive book, Neil Postman alerts us to the real and present dangers of this state of affairs, and offers compelling suggestions as to how to withstand the media onslaught. Before we hand over pol
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks book cover34

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Rebecca Skloot

4.3
Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. If you could pile all He
I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban book cover35

I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban

Malala Yousafzai

4.3
I come from a country that was created at midnight. When I almost died it was just after midday.

When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, one girl spoke out. Malala Yousafzai refused to be silenced and fought for her right to an education.

On Tuesday, October 9, 2012, when she was fifteen, she almost paid the ultimate price. She was shot in the head at point-blank range while ri
The Hero With a Thousand Faces book cover36

The Hero With a Thousand Faces

Joseph Campbell

4.3

The first popular work to combine the spiritual and psychological insights of modern psychoanalysis with the archetypes of world mythology, the book creates a roadmap for navigating the frustrating path of contemporary life. Examining heroic myths in the light of modern psychology, it considers not only the patterns and stages of mythology but also its relevance to our lives today--and to the life

Between the World and Me book cover37

Between the World and Me

Ta-Nehisi Coates

4.3
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER [[ LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD [[ Hailed by Toni Morrison as "required reading," a bold and personal literary exploration of America's racial history by "the single best writer on the subject of race in the United States" (The New York Observer)

"This is your country, this is your world, this is your body, and you must find some way to live within the all of
38

Ego is the Enemy

Ryan Holiday

4.3
As in the Obstacle is the way, Ryan holiday delivers practical and inspiring philosophy, this time exploring a powerful concept that runs back centuries, across borders and schools of thought: Ego. Ego is our biggest enemy. Early in our careers, it can prevent us from learning and developing our talents. When we taste success, ego can blind us to our own faults, alienate us from others and lead to
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma book cover39

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

Bessel van der Kolk

4.3
• A New York Times Science Bestseller •

“Packed with science and human stories, the book is an intense read. . . . The struggle and resilience of [van der Kolk’s] patients is very moving.” —New Scientist


A pioneering researcher transforms our understanding of trauma and offers a bold new paradigm for healing


Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of comb
The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom book cover40

The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom

Jonathan Haidt

4.3
In his widely praised book, award-winning psychologist Jonathan Haidt examines the world’s philosophical wisdom through the lens of psychological science, showing how a deeper understanding of enduring maxims-like Do unto others as you would have others do unto you, or What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger-can enrich and even transform our lives.
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America book cover41

Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America

Ibram X. Kendi

4.3
Americans like to insist that they are living in a post-racial, color-blind society. In fact, racist thought is alive and well; it has simply become more sophisticated and more insidious. And as award-winning historian Ibram X. Kendi argues in Stamped from the Beginning, racist ideas in America have a long and lingering history, one in which nearly every great American thinker is complicit.

In this
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything book cover42

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

Steven D. Levitt

4.3
Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? How much do parents really matter? What kind of impact did Roe v. Wade have on violent crime? Freakonomics will literally redefine the way we view the modern world.

These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven
The Art of War book cover43
For more than two thousand years, The Art of War has stood as a cornerstone of Chinese culture-a lucid epigrammatic text that reveals as much about human psychology, politics, and economics as it does about battlefield strategy. The influence of Sun-tzu's text has grown tremendously in the West in recent years, with military leaders, politicians, and corporate executives alike finding valuable ins
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life book cover44

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

Mark Manson

4.3
Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780062457738

In this generation-defining self-help guide, a superstar blogger cuts through the crap to show us how to stop trying to be "positive" all the time so that we can truly become better, happier people.

For decades, we’ve been told that positive thinking is the key to a happy, rich life. "Fk positivity," Mark Manson says. "Let’s be honest, shit is fked and w
Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder book cover45

Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

4.2
From the bestselling author of The Black Swan and one of the foremost philosophers of our time, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a book on how some systems actually benefit from disorder.

In The Black Swan Taleb outlined a problem; in Antifragile he offers a definitive solution: how to gain from disorder and chaos while being protected from fragilities and adverse events. For what he calls the "antifragile"
The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure book cover46

The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure

Greg Lukianoff, Jonathan Haidt

4.2
A timely investigation into the campus assault on free speech and what it means for students, education, and our democracy.

The generation now coming of age has been taught three Great Untruths: their feelings are always right; they should avoid pain and discomfort; and they should look for faults in others and not themselves. These three Great Untruths are part of a larger philosophy that sees you
How to Be an Antiracist book cover47

How to Be an Antiracist

Ibram X. Kendi

4.2
Ibram X. Kendi's concept of antiracism reenergizes and reshapes the conversation about racial justice in America--but even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other. In How to be an Antiracist, Kendi asks us to think about what an antiracist society might look like, and how we can play an active role in building it.

In this book, Kendi weav
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City book cover48

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City

Matthew Desmond

4.2
In Evicted, Princeton sociologist and MacArthur "Genius" Matthew Desmond follows eight families in Milwaukee as they struggle to keep a roof over their heads. Evicted transforms our understanding of poverty and economic exploitation while providing fresh ideas for solving one of 21st-century America's most devastating problems. Its unforgettable scenes of hope and loss remind us of the centrality
Leonardo da Vinci book cover49

Leonardo da Vinci

Walter Isaacson

4.2
Based on thousands of pages from Leonardo's astonishing notebooks and new discoveries about his life and work, Walter Isaacson weaves a narrative that connects his art to his science. He shows how Leonardo's genius was based on skills we can improve in ourselves, such as passionate curiosity, careful observation, and an imagination so playful that it flirted with fantasy. He produced the two most
Night book cover50

Night

Elie Wiesel

4.2
Night is Elie Wiesel's masterpiece, a candid, horrific, and deeply poignant autobiographical account of his survival as a teenager in the Nazi death camps. This new translation by Marion Wiesel, Elie's wife and frequent translator, presents this seminal memoir in the language and spirit truest to the author's original intent. And in a substantive new preface, Elie reflects on the enduring importan
The Last Lecture book cover51

The Last Lecture

Randy Pausch

4.2
A lot of professors give talks titled 'The Last Lecture'. Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy?

When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn't
Walden book cover52

Walden

Henry David Thoreau

4.2
At Walden Pond, Henry David Thoreau reflected on simpler living in the natural world. By removing himself from the distractions of materialism, Thoreau hoped to not only improve his spiritual life but also gain a better understanding of society through solitary introspection.

In Walden, Thoreau condenses his two-year, two-month, two-day stay into a single year, using the four seasons to symbolize h
Frankenstein book cover53

Frankenstein

Mary Shelley

4.2
Mary Shelley began writing Frankenstein when she was only eighteen. At once a Gothic thriller, a passionate romance, and a cautionary tale about the dangers of science, Frankenstein tells the story of committed science student Victor Frankenstein. Obsessed with discovering the cause of generation and life and bestowing animation upon lifeless matter, Frankenstein assembles a human being from stole
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable book cover54

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

4.2
A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was.

The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9/11. For Nassim Nicholas Taleb, black swans underlie almost everything about our world, from t
The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined book cover55

The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

Steven Pinker

4.2
Believe it or not, today we may be living in the most peaceful moment in our species' existence. In his gripping and controversial new work, New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker shows that despite the ceaseless news about war, crime, and terrorism, violence has actually been in decline over long stretches of history. Exploding myths about humankind's inherent violence and the curse of m
Lord of the Flies book cover56

Lord of the Flies

William Golding

4.2
At the dawn of the next world war, a plane crashes on an uncharted island, stranding a group of schoolboys. At first, with no adult supervision, their freedom is something to celebrate; this far from civilization the boys can do anything they want. Anything. They attempt to forge their own society, failing, however, in the face of terror, sin and evil. And as order collapses, as strange howls echo
Animal Farm book cover57

Animal Farm

George Orwell and Christopher Hitchens

4.2
Animal Farm is one of the most famous warnings ever written. Orwell's immortal satire - 'against Stalin' as he wrote to his French translator - can be read on many levels. With its piercing clarity and deceptively simple style it is no surprise that this novel is required reading for schoolchildren and politicians alike. This fable of the steadfast horses Boxer and Clover, the opportunistic pigs S
Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence book cover58

Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Max Tegmark

4.2
How will Artificial Intelligence affect crime, war, justice, jobs, society and our very sense of being human? The rise of AI has the potential to transform our future more than any other technology--and there's nobody better qualified or situated to explore that future than Max Tegmark, an MIT professor who's helped mainstream research on how to keep AI beneficial.

How can we grow our prosperity th
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis book cover59

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis

J. D. Vance

4.2
From a former marine and Yale Law School graduate, a powerful account of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town that offers a broader, probing look at the struggles of America’s white working class

Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans. The decline of this group, a demographic of our country that has been slowly disintegratin
Permanent Record book cover60

Permanent Record

Edward Snowden

4.2
Edward Snowden, the man who risked everything to expose the US government’s system of mass surveillance, reveals for the first time the story of his life, including how he helped to build that system and what motivated him to try to bring it down.

In 2013, twenty-nine-year-old Edward Snowden shocked the world when he broke with the American intelligence establishment and revealed that the United St
The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself book cover61

The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself

Michael A. Singer

4.2
Who are you? When you start to explore this question, you find out how elusive it really is. Are you a physical body? A collection of experiences and memories? A partner in a relationship? Each time you consider these aspects of yourself, you realize that there is much more to you than any of these can define.

In The Untethered Soul—now a New York Times bestseller—spiritual teacher Michael Singer
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History book cover62

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History

Elizabeth Kolbert

4.2
Over the last half-billion years, there have been five mass extinctions, when the diversity of life on earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. Scientists around the world are currently monitoring the sixth extinction, predicted to be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. This time around, the cataclysm is us.

In prose that is at once fran
Brave New World book cover63

Brave New World

Aldous Huxley

4.2
Now reissued in a gorgeous hardcover edition: "one of the most prophetic dystopian works of the 20th century" (Wall Street Journal) must be read and understood by anyone concerned with preserving the human spirit in the face of our "brave new world." Huxley's masterpiece has become a bestseller once again after the American election.

Aldous Huxley's profoundly important classic of world literature,
The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1) book cover64

The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)

Suzanne Collins

4.2
WINNING MEANS FAME AND FORTUNE.
LOSING MEANS CERTAIN DEATH.
THE HUNGER GAMES HAVE BEGUN. . . .


In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and once girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in
The Sovereign Individual: How to Survive and Thrive During the Collapse of the Welfare State book cover65

The Sovereign Individual: How to Survive and Thrive During the Collapse of the Welfare State

James Dale Davidson

4.2
In Blood in the Streets and The Great Reckoning, Davidson and Rees-Mogg foresaw many of the cataclysmic effects of the shift from an industrial to an information-based society. In their new book, they prepare readers for the chaotic upheaval that lies ahead and outline the far-reaching, practical consequences of adapting for the new global economy and the information age.
A Thousand Splendid Suns book cover66

A Thousand Splendid Suns

Khaled Hosseini

4.2
A Thousand Splendid Suns is a breathtaking story set against the volatile events of Afghanistan's last thirty years—from the Soviet invasion to the reign of the Taliban to post-Taliban rebuilding—that puts the violence, fear, hope, and faith of this country in intimate, human terms. It is a tale of two generations of characters brought jarringly together by the tragic sweep of war, where personal
The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language book cover67

The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language

Steven Pinker

4.2
The classic book on the development of human language by the world’s leading expert on language and the mind.

In this classic, the world's expert on language and mind lucidly explains everything you always wanted to know about language: how it works, how children learn it, how it changes, how the brain computes it, and how it evolved. With deft use of examples of humor and wordplay, Steven Pinker w
The Handmaid's Tale book cover68

The Handmaid's Tale

Margaret Atwood

4.2
Before The Testaments, there was The Handmaid’s Tale: an instant classic and eerily prescient cultural phenomenon, from “the patron saint of feminist dystopian fiction” (New York Times).

The Handmaid’s Tale is a novel of such power that the reader will be unable to forget its images and its forecast. Set in the near future, it describes life in what was once the United States and is now called the
The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World book cover69

The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World

Dalai Lama

4.2
Two great spiritual masters share their own hard-won wisdom about living with joy even in the face of adversity.

The occasion was a big birthday. And it inspired two close friends to get together in Dharamsala for a talk about something very important to them. The friends were His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The subject was joy. Both winners of the Nobel Prize, both great
The Little Prince Family Storybook: Unabridged Original Text book cover70

The Little Prince Family Storybook: Unabridged Original Text

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

4.1
Rediscover Antoine de Saint-Exupery's universal masterpiece with original text and magnificent new illustrations created by masters of film animation. This wise and enchanginting fable teaches the secret of what is really important in life.
Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know book cover71

Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know

Malcolm Gladwell

4.1
Malcolm Gladwell, host of the podcast Revisionist History and author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Outliers, offers a powerful examination of our interactions with strangers -- and why they often go wrong.

How did Fidel Castro fool the CIA for a generation? Why did Neville Chamberlain think he could trust Adolf Hitler? Why are campus sexual assaults on the rise? Do television sitcoms teach us
Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity book cover72

Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity

Katherine Boo

4.1
From Pulitzer Prize-winner Katherine Boo, a landmark work of narrative nonfiction that tells the dramatic and sometimes heartbreaking story of families striving toward a better life in one of the twenty-first century's great, unequal cities.

In this brilliantly written, fast-paced book, based on three years of uncompromising reporting, a bewildering age of global change and inequality is made human
The Silk Roads: A New History of the World book cover73

The Silk Roads: A New History of the World

Peter Frankopan

4.1
The sun is setting on the Western world. Slowly but surely, the direction in which the world spins has reversed: where for the last five centuries the globe turned westwards on its axis, it now turns to the east...For centuries, fame and fortune was to be found in the west - in the New World of the Americas. Today, it is the east which calls out to those in search of adventure and riches. The regi
The Kite Runner book cover74

The Kite Runner

Khaled Hosseini and Simon & Schuster Audi

4.1
The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father’s servant, The Kite Runner is a beautifully crafted novel set in a country that is in the process of being destroyed. It is about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption; and an exploration of the power of fathers over sons—their love, their sacri
The Martian book cover75

The Martian

Andy Weir

4.1
Note: Alternate-Cover Edition for this ASIN can be found here

Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars.

Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there.

After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even i
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking book cover76

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

Malcolm Gladwell

4.1
Drawing on cutting-edge neuroscience and psychology and displaying all of the brilliance that made The Tipping Point a classic, Blink changes the way you'll understand every decision you make. Never again will you think about thinking the same way.

Malcolm Gladwell redefined how we understand the world around us. Now, in Blink, he revolutionizes the way we understand the world within. Blink is a bo
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed book cover77

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

Jared Diamond

4.1
In Jared Diamond’s follow-up to the Pulitzer-Prize winning Guns, Germs and Steel, the author explores how climate change, the population explosion and political discord create the conditions for the collapse of civilization

Environmental damage, climate change, globalization, rapid population growth, and unwise political choices were all factors in the demise of societies around the world, but some
The Fault in Our Stars book cover78

The Fault in Our Stars

John Green

4.1
Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel's story is about to be completely rewritten.

Insightful, bold, irreverent, and raw, The Fault in Our Stars is award-winning author
Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief book cover79

Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief

Jordan B. Peterson

4.1
Why have people from different cultures and eras formulated myths and stories with similar structures? What does this similarity tell us about the mind, morality, and structure of the world itself? Jordan Peterson offers a provocative new hypothesis that explores the connection between what modern neuropsychology tells us about the brain and what rituals, myths, and religious stories have long nar
Crime and Punishment: A Russian Realistic Novel book cover80

Crime and Punishment: A Russian Realistic Novel

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

4.1
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the
Brief Answers to the Big Questions book cover81

Brief Answers to the Big Questions

Stephen Hawking

4.1
Stephen Hawking was recognized as one of the greatest minds of our time and a figure of inspiration after defying his ALS diagnosis at age twenty-one. He is known for both his breakthroughs in theoretical physics as well as his ability to make complex concepts accessible for all, and was beloved for his mischievous sense of humor. At the time of his death, Hawking was working on a final project: a
Jane Eyre book cover82

Jane Eyre

Charlotte Brontë

4.1

Orphaned as a child, Jane has felt an outcast her whole young life. Her courage is tested once again when she arrives at Thornfield Hall, where she has been hired by the brooding, proud Edward Rochester to care for his ward Adèle. Jane finds herself drawn to his troubled yet kind spirit. She falls in love. Hard.

But there is a terrifying secret inside the gloomy, forbidding Thornfield Hall. Is Roc

The Book Thief book cover83

The Book Thief

Markus Zusak

4.1
It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will be busier still.

By her brother's graveside, Liesel's life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow. It is The Gravedigger's Handbook, left behind there by accident, and it is her first act of book thievery. So begins a love affair with books and words, as Liesel, wit
Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone book cover84

Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone

Brené Brown

4.1
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A timely and important new book that challenges everything we think we know about cultivating true belonging in our communities, organizations, and culture, from the #1 bestselling author of Rising Strong, Daring Greatly, and The Gifts of Imperfection

"True belonging doesn't require us to change who we are. It requires us to be who we are." Social scientist Brene Brow
Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality book cover85

Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality

Christopher Ryan, Cacilda Jethá

4.1
“Sex at Dawn challenges conventional wisdom about sex in a big way. By examining the prehistoric origins of human sexual behavior the authors are able to expose the fallacies and weaknesses of standard theories proposed by most experts. This is a provocative, entertaining, and pioneering book. I learned a lot from it and recommend it highly.” — Andrew Weil, M.D.

“Sex at Dawn irrefutably shows that
86

Wonder

R. J. Palacio

4.1
NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING JULIA ROBERTS, OWEN WILSON, AND JACOB TREMBLAY!

Over 6 million people have read the #1 New York Times bestseller WONDER and have fallen in love with Auggie Pullman, an ordinary boy with an extraordinary face.

The book that inspired the Choose Kind movement.

I won’t describe what I look like. Whatever you’re thinking, it’s probably worse.

August Pullman was born wi
The Five People You Meet in Heaven book cover88

The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Mitch Albom

4.1
From the author of the phenomenal #1 New York Times bestseller Tuesdays with Morrie, a novel that explores the unexpected connections of our lives, and the idea that heaven is more than a place; it's an answer.

Eddie is a wounded war veteran, an old man who has lived, in his mind, an uninspired life. His job is fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. On his 83rd birthday, a tragic accident kills
The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds book cover89

The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds

Michael Lewis

4.1
Forty years ago, Israeli psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky wrote a series of breathtakingly original papers that invented the field of behavioral economics. One of the greatest partnerships in the history of science, Kahneman and Tversky’s extraordinary friendship incited a revolution in Big Data studies, advanced evidence-based medicine, led to a new approach to government regulation
Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope book cover90

Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope

Mark Manson

4.1
From the author of the international mega-bestseller The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck comes a counterintuitive guide to the problems of hope.

We live in an interesting time. Materially, everything is the best it’s ever been—we are freer, healthier and wealthier than any people in human history. Yet, somehow everything seems to be irreparably and horribly f*cked—the planet is warming, government
A Man Called Ove book cover91

A Man Called Ove

Fredrik Backman

4.1
A grumpy yet loveable man finds his solitary world turned on its head when a boisterous young family moves in next door.

Meet Ove. He’s a curmudgeon—the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him “the bitter neighbor from hell.” But must Ove be bitter just beca
The Grapes of Wrath book cover92

The Grapes of Wrath

John Steinbeck, Robert DeMott

4.1
The Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression, a book that galvanized—and sometimes outraged—millions of readers.

First published in 1939, Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression chronicles the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and tells the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads—driven from their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of Cal
Tuesdays with Morrie book cover93

Tuesdays with Morrie

Mitch Albom

4.1
Maybe it was a grandparent, or a teacher or a colleague. Someone older, patient and wise, who understood you when you were young and searching, and gave you sound advice to help you make your way through it. For Mitch Albom, that person was Morrie Schwartz, his college professor from nearly twenty years ago.

Maybe, like Mitch, you lost track of this mentor as you made your way, and the insights fad
The Help book cover94

The Help

Kathryn Stockett

4.0
Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step.

Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and
The Road book cover95

The Road

Cormac McCarthy

4.0
A searing, postapocalyptic novel destined to become Cormac McCarthy’s masterpiece.

A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have noth
The World Without Us book cover96

The World Without Us

Alan Weisman

4.0
A penetrating, page-turning tour of a post-human Earth

In The World Without Us, Alan Weisman offers an utterly original approach to questions of humanity's impact on the planet: he asks us to envision our Earth, without us. In this far-reaching narrative, Weisman explains how our massive infrastructure would collapse and finally vanish without human presence; which everyday items may become immorta
The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World book cover97

The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World

Melinda Gates

4.0
A debut from Forbes' third most powerful woman in the world, Melinda Gates, a timely and necessary call to action for women's empowerment.

For the last twenty years, Melinda Gates has been on a mission. Her goal, as co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has been to find solutions for people with the most urgent needs, wherever they live. Throughout this journey, one thing has become incr
The Color Purple book cover98

The Color Purple

Alice Walker

4.0
The Color Purple is a classic. With over a million copies sold in the UK alone, it is hailed as one of the all-time 'greats' of literature, inspiring generations of readers.

Set in the deep American South between the wars, it is the tale of Celie, a young black girl born into poverty and segregation. Raped repeatedly by the man she calls 'father', she has two children taken away from her, is separa
Voices from Chernobyl book cover99

Voices from Chernobyl

Svetlana Alexievich

4.0
On April 26, 1986, the worst nuclear reactor accident in history occurred at the Chernobyl complex in Pripyat. English-language reportage on the incident has, so far, focused on facts, names, and data; Voices from Chernobyl presents first-hand accounts of what happened to the people of Belarus and the fear, anger, and uncertainty that they lived through. In order to give voice to their experiences
Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think book cover100

Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think

Peter H. Diamandis

4.0
Providing abundance is humanity’s grandest challenge—this is a book about how we rise to meet it.

We will soon be able to meet and exceed the basic needs of every man, woman and child on the planet. Abundance for all is within our grasp. This bold, contrarian view, backed up by exhaustive research, introduces our near-term future, where exponentially growing technologies and three other powerful f