Best non-fiction books, by genre
Twelve non-fiction genres, each with a ranked list of 50 books that are worth reading and easy to find.
Good non-fiction teaches you something, changes your mind or helps you do something better. Pick a subject below to see 50 well-regarded books on it, ranked, with a plain-English line on what each one covers and where to read it. Many of these are standard texts on their subject, so you can start with the first few and go deeper later.
12 non-fiction genres
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Biography & Memoir
Starts with Educated, Becoming and Born a Crime.
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Self-Help
Starts with Atomic Habits, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and How to Win Friends and Influence People.
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Business & Money
Starts with Good to Great, Built to Last and The Lean Startup.
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History
Starts with Sapiens, Guns, Germs, and Steel and A People's History of the United States.
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Science & Nature
Starts with A Brief History of Time, Cosmos and The Selfish Gene.
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Psychology
Starts with Thinking, Fast and Slow, The Body Keeps the Score and Man's Search for Meaning.
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Philosophy
Starts with Meditations, The Republic and Nicomachean Ethics.
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Religion & Spirituality
Starts with The Holy Bible (NIV), The Quran (Saheeh International Translation) and The Bhagavad Gita.
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Health & Wellness
Starts with Why We Sleep, The Body Keeps the Score and How Not to Die.
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Cooking & Food
Starts with Salt Fat Acid Heat, The Joy of Cooking and Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
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Travel
Starts with A Walk in the Woods, Notes from a Small Island and Under the Tuscan Sun.
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True Crime
Starts with In Cold Blood, The Stranger Beside Me and Helter Skelter.
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