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The Guardian's Top 100 Non-Fiction Books

Goodreads data suggests most people have read only 1 book on this list. How many have you read?

Original source: The Guardian's 100 Greatest Non-Fiction Books
List Challenge
The average Goodreads member has read 5 out of 100 books on this list — how many have you read?
1

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4.19 avg rating — 3,847,525 ratings
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2

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4.09 avg rating — 677,933 ratings
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3

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3.78 avg rating — 193,204 ratings
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4

by
4.25 avg rating — 95,088 ratings
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5

by
4.01 avg rating — 116,432 ratings
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6

by
3.84 avg rating — 348,535 ratings
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7

by
4.21 avg rating — 444,066 ratings
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8

by
4.01 avg rating — 56,875 ratings
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9

by
3.95 avg rating — 509,913 ratings
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10

by
4.02 avg rating — 14,851 ratings
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11

by
4.04 avg rating — 49,938 ratings
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12

by
3.66 avg rating — 172,709 ratings
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13

by
4.09 avg rating — 63,534 ratings
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14

by
4.23 avg rating — 20,668 ratings
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15

by
3.91 avg rating — 25,085 ratings
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16

by
4.09 avg rating — 77,318 ratings
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17

by
4.21 avg rating — 220,121 ratings
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18

by
3.92 avg rating — 389,295 ratings
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19

by
3.79 avg rating — 5,192 ratings
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20

by
4.17 avg rating — 43,165 ratings
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21

by
3.84 avg rating — 75,631 ratings
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22

by
4.32 avg rating — 31,400 ratings
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23

by
3.92 avg rating — 76,500 ratings
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24

by
4.02 avg rating — 10,252 ratings
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25

by
4.10 avg rating — 71,745 ratings
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26

by
3.97 avg rating — 16,766 ratings
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27

by
4.20 avg rating — 28,651 ratings
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28

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4.03 avg rating — 8,451 ratings
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29

by
3.84 avg rating — 19,248 ratings
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30

by
3.97 avg rating — 39,447 ratings
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31

by
3.96 avg rating — 3,194 ratings
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32

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3.93 avg rating — 14,897 ratings
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33

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3.54 avg rating — 12,841 ratings
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34

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3.71 avg rating — 48,425 ratings
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35

by
4.16 avg rating — 181,873 ratings
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36

by
3.90 avg rating — 11,316 ratings
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37

by
4.28 avg rating — 271,143 ratings
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38

by
4.12 avg rating — 26,403 ratings
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39

by
4.10 avg rating — 1,751 ratings
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40

by
4.11 avg rating — 126,381 ratings
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41

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3.82 avg rating — 1,848 ratings
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42

by
4.30 avg rating — 43,020 ratings
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43

by
4.29 avg rating — 50,144 ratings
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44

by
3.84 avg rating — 14,211 ratings
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45

by
3.79 avg rating — 3,876 ratings
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46

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3.58 avg rating — 8,883 ratings
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47

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3.83 avg rating — 5,942 ratings
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48

by
3.87 avg rating — 29,003 ratings
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49

by
4.22 avg rating — 34,767 ratings
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50

by
4.15 avg rating — 17,642 ratings
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51

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4.09 avg rating — 16,164 ratings
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52

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4.22 avg rating — 22,061 ratings
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53

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3.75 avg rating — 2,486 ratings
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54

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3.96 avg rating — 37,871 ratings
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55

by
4.37 avg rating — 12,695 ratings
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56

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4.01 avg rating — 12,308 ratings
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57

by
4.15 avg rating — 9,253 ratings
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58

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3.69 avg rating — 7,211 ratings
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59

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4.07 avg rating — 157,237 ratings
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60

by
3.75 avg rating — 34,684 ratings
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61

by
3.78 avg rating — 30,944 ratings
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62

by
4.19 avg rating — 71,285 ratings
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63

by
4.28 avg rating — 7,208 ratings
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64

by
4.23 avg rating — 7,160 ratings
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64

by
4.22 avg rating — 20,345 ratings
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64

by
3.89 avg rating — 14,755 ratings
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67

by
4.08 avg rating — 16,789 ratings
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68

by
4.21 avg rating — 3,549 ratings
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69

by
3.98 avg rating — 3,879 ratings
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70

by
3.68 avg rating — 2,685 ratings
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71

by
3.91 avg rating — 2,519 ratings
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72

by
4.24 avg rating — 21,451 ratings
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72

by
4.06 avg rating — 8,586 ratings
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74

by
4.05 avg rating — 98 ratings
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75

by
3.95 avg rating — 684 ratings
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76

by
4.23 avg rating — 33,748 ratings
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77

by
3.74 avg rating — 26,955 ratings
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78

by
3.97 avg rating — 5,807 ratings
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79

by
3.95 avg rating — 251 ratings
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80

by
3.85 avg rating — 4,121 ratings
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81

by
4.04 avg rating — 1,747 ratings
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82

by
4.11 avg rating — 1,509 ratings
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83

by
3.66 avg rating — 2,370 ratings
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84

by
3.94 avg rating — 420 ratings
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85

by
3.96 avg rating — 426,432 ratings
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86

by
4.04 avg rating — 27,864 ratings
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87

by
3.84 avg rating — 18,628 ratings
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88

by
3.96 avg rating — 18,979 ratings
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89

by
4.35 avg rating — 202 ratings
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90

by
4.31 avg rating — 7,530 ratings
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90

by
4.19 avg rating — 2,820 ratings
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92

by
3.86 avg rating — 3,711 ratings
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93

by
3.80 avg rating — 5,206 ratings
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94

by
4.23 avg rating — 15,665 ratings
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95

by
4.60 avg rating — 10 ratings
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96

by
4.21 avg rating — 2,519 ratings
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97

by
3.78 avg rating — 193,204 ratings
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98

by
3.88 avg rating — 1,740 ratings
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99

by
4.19 avg rating — 71,285 ratings
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100

by
4.32 avg rating — 27,758 ratings
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More voters…


Comments Showing 1-22 of 22 (22 new)

dateDown arrow    newest »

message 1: by Valerie (new)

Valerie Out of curiosity, is this the Manchester Guardian?

I don't suppose it's surprising that a British journal would focus on sources about Britain, but I don't quite see why there are so many 'crime' books.

I'd tend to delete the crime books, and add Myths that Cause Crime; The Mismeasure of Man; The Nazi Doctors; Hiroshima-shi, Nagasaki-shi; Nehru's Letters to His Daughter; etc, etc.

Of course, ultimately, you can't limit significant books by any arbitrary metric. There will always be other candidates for deletion/addition.


message 2: by Reese (new)

Reese Can somebody save me the trouble of figuring out which of the 101 books on this list is not one of THE GUARDIAN's top 100 non-fiction books?


message 3: by Moira (new)

Moira CLAY SHIRKY, really.


message 4: by Themis-Athena (Lioness at Large) (last edited Jun 17, 2011 06:04AM) (new)

Themis-Athena (Lioness at Large) Deleted, for not being on The Guardian's original list:

The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl

Also: The entry by Susan Sontag shouldn't actually be Against Interpretation: And Other Essays, but CAMP ...


message 5: by Reese (new)

Reese Thanks for the help.


message 7: by Daniel (new)

Daniel Rekshan Awesome! Thanks for finding the 101st book, it was driving me crazy!


Themis-Athena (Lioness at Large) My pleasure. :)


message 9: by Saarah (new)

Saarah Thanks for the list!


message 10: by Debbie (new)

Debbie "The Medium is the Massage" should actually be "The Medium is the Message". For me it is pitiful, too. I've read only 4 and 3 of those were because of assignments in high school or college.


message 11: by Phillip (new)

Phillip Edwards No, it was meant to called 'The Medium is the Message', but there was a printing error and McLuhan liked it...
http://garydexter.blogspot.com/2009/0...


message 12: by Lindig (new)

Lindig Several of these I read only because I was an English Lit. major in college. Do they count? Well, never mind -- I decided "read" is "read," no matter the reason.


message 13: by Joan (new)

Joan Valerie wrote: "Out of curiosity, is this the Manchester Guardian?"

What used to be called the Manchester Guardian is now just called the Guardian, and is based in London.


message 14: by Kevin (new)

Kevin O'Keeffe The original manuscript of "The Diary of Anne Frank" was written in ballpoint (according to an article I read in the New York Times, back in the 1990s). To paraphrase the Mickey Rourke character from the (excellent) late 1980s film, Angel Heart, "They weren't too big on ballpoint back in '45."

Ergo, the inclusion of the "Diary," in a list of the "Top 100 NONFICTION Books," seems less than entirely warranted.


Susanna - Censored by GoodReads I think your argument is with the Guardian, not with us!


message 16: by Valerie (new)

Valerie The manuscript(s) of Anne Frank's Diary has been repeatedly verified by graphologists and other experts.

Notwithstanding the repeated refutation of disingenous attempts to deny the validity of the document, however, there is still good reason to pick the critical edition as the edition to read, since the editors of said critical edition restored several elisions and deletions introduced by Otto Frank and other earlier publishers, and because parts of the diary were rewritten by Anne herself, with an eye toward publication; and people might prefer to see both the original version and the edited version.


message 17: by Mountainking (new)

Mountainking Great


message 18: by Brent (new)

Brent A superb list. My only addition? "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," by Hunter S. Thompson.


message 19: by John (new)

John Gribbin Valerie wrote: "Out of curiosity, is this the Manchester Guardian?

I don't suppose it's surprising that a British journal would focus on sources about Britain, but I don't quite see why there are so many 'crime' ..."


It hasn't been "Manchester" for about 40 years!


message 20: by Valerie (new)

Valerie Just goes to show the hazards of relying on fiction over a hundred years old as one's primary gazetteer for foreign lands.

I've never actually seen a copy of the periodical in question, though I've seen articles from it, quoted in other sources or reprinted entire.


message 21: by Roland (new)

Roland Howard Where on earth is Hersey's Hiroshima?
Also Bitter Fruit by Stephen Kinzer and Adam Hochchild's King Leopold's Ghost.


Themis-Athena (Lioness at Large) Take it up with the Guardian (see comment 16, above) ...


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