The 100 Greatest Non-Fiction Books of the 21st Century

The twenty-first century has seen some insightful, provocative, moving and enlightening non-fiction, as well as the development of trends such as the medical memoir and the resurgence in nature writing. Below is a run-down of 100 of the very best the past twenty years has had to offer. One title per author and all books had to have been published in English between 2000 and 2019. 

THE BOOKS  

100  Jerusalem - Simon Sebag Montefiore (2011)

99  Put Me Back On My Bike - William Fotheringham (2002)

98  Return Of A King - William Dalrymple (2012)

97  Reading Lolita In Tehran - Azar Nafisi (2003)

96  The Reason I Jump - Naoki Higashida (2013)

95  The Third Reich: A New History - Michael Burleigh (2000)

94  Killers Of The Flower Moon - David Grann (2017)

93  The Sleepwalkers - Christopher Clark (2012)

92  Hillbilly Elegy - J.D. Vance (2016)

91  Sightlines - Kathleen Jamie (2012)

90  Fast Food Nation - Eric Schlosser (2001)

89  Priestdaddy - Patricia Lockwood (2017)

88  East West Street - Philippe Sands (2016)

87  The Psychopath Test - Jon Ronson (2011)

86  Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self - Claire Tomalin (2002)

85  Why Nations Fail - Daron Acemoglu/ James A. Robinson (2012)

84  Into The Silence - Wade Davis (2011)

83  Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? - Jeanette Winterson (2011)

82  The Suspicions Of Mr Whicher - Kate Summerscale (2008) 

81  Provided You Don't Kiss Me - Duncan Hamilton (2007)

80  Thomas Cromwell - Diarmaid MacCulloch (2018)

79  The Better Angels Of Our Nature - Steven Pinker (2011)

78  A Life's Work - Rachel Cusk (2001)

77  London: The Biography - Peter Ackroyd (2000)

76  Barbarian Days - William Finnegan (2015)

75  Peacemakers (Paris 1919) - Margaret Macmillan (2001)

74  Feral - George Monbiot (2013)

73  London Orbital - Iain Sinclair (2002)

72  Kitchen Confidential - Anthony Bourdain (2000)

71  Women & Power - Mary Beard (2017)

70  The Rest Is Noise - Alex Ross (2007)

69  Chernobyl - Serhii Plokhy (2018)

68  Collapse - Jared Diamond (2005)

67  Everyday Sexism - Laura Bates (2014)

66  Adults In The Room - Yanis Varoufakis (2017)

65  Austerity Britain - David Kynaston (2007)

64  Stuart: A Life Backwards - Alexander Masters (2005)

63  The Bookseller Of Kabul - Asne Seierstad (2002)

62  Negroland - Margo Jefferson (2015)

61  Regarding The Pain Of Others - Susan Sontag (2003)

60  The Swerve - Stephen Greenblatt (2011)

59  Evicted - Matthew Desmond (2016)

58  Seven Brief Lessons On Physics - Carlo Rovelli (2015)

57  The Cost Of Living - Deborah Levy (2018)

56  Being Mortal - Atul Gawande (2014)

55  Experience - Martin Amis (2000)

54  Nature Cure - Richard Mabey (2005)

53  The Black Swan - Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2007)

52  Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris (2000)

51  Invisible Women - Caroline Criado Perez (2019)

50  Team Of Rivals - Dorothy Kearns Goodwin (2005)

49  Freakonomics - Steven D. Levitt/ Stephen J. Dubner (2005)

48  Born To Run - Christopher McDougall (2009)

47  The Unwinding - George Packer (2013)

46  The Omnivore's Dilemma - Michael Pollan (2006)

45  Postwar - Tony Judt (2005)

44  The Silk Roads - Peter Frankopan (2015)

43  The Spirit Level - Richard Wilkinson/ Kate Pickett (2009)

42  Chronicles Volume One - Bob Dylan (2004)

41  On Writing - Stephen King (2000)

40  Hitch-22 - Christopher Hitchens (2010)

39  The Age Of Surveillance Capitalism - Shoshana Zuboff (2019)

38  Moneyball - Michael Lewis (2003)

37  When Breath Becomes Air - Paul Kalanithi (2016)

36  Stasiland - Anna Funder (2003)

35  On Chapel Sands - Laura Cumming (2019)

34  The Five - Hallie Rubenhold (2019)

33  Why I'm No Longer Talking To White People About Race - Reni Eddo-Lodge (2017)

32  Bad Blood - Lorna Sage (2000)

31  The Years Of Lyndon Johnson Volume 4: The Passage Of Power - Robert A. Caro (2012)

30  Nickel and Dimed - Barbara Ehrenreich (2001)

29  Three Women - Lisa Taddeo (2019)

28  The Salt Path - Raynor Winn (2018)

27  The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell (2000)

26  The Hare With The Amber Eyes - Edmund De Waal (2010)

25  Men Explain Things To Me - Rebecca Solnit (2014)

24  The Noonday Demon - Andrew Solomon (2001)

23  H Is For Hawk - Helen Macdonald (2014)

22  The Looming Tower - Lawrence Wright (2006)

21  Secondhand Time - Svetlana Alexievich (2013)

20  A Short History Of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson (2003)

19  Just Kids - Patti Smith (2010)

18  Quiet - Susan Cain (2012)

17  Thinking Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman (2011)

16  Underland - Robert Macfarlane (2019)

15  The Sixth Extinction - Elizabeth Kolbert (2014)

14  We Should All Be Feminists - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2014)

13  Nothing To Envy - Barbara Demick (2009)

12  Behind The Beautiful Forevers - Katherine Boo (2012)

11  The Emperor Of All Maladies - Siddhartha Mukherjee (2010)

10  The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins (2006)

9  The Argonauts - Maggie Nelson (2015)

8  Educated - Tara Westover (2018)

7  The Shock Doctrine - Naomi Klein (2007)

6  The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks - Rebecca Skloot (2010)

5  Capital In The Twenty-First Century - Thomas Piketty (2014)

4  A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius - Dave Eggers (2000)

3  Sapiens - Yuval Noah Harari (2014)

2  The Year Of Magical Thinking - Joan Didion (2005)

1  Between The World And Me - Ta-Nehisi Coates (2015)