The best popular science books of all time
The top 3 according to 42 votes from people: A Short History of Nearly Everything · Cosmos · A Brief History of Time. (Updated Jan 15, 2021.)
The books that explain science to everyone and appear on every list, from Darwin to Sagan, Hawking and Bryson.
Automatically translated (original in Español). See the original
Top 18
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1
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Bill Bryson, 2003. All of science with humour.
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2
Cosmos
Carl Sagan, 1980. The universe told with poetry; companion to the TV series.
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3
A Brief History of Time
Stephen Hawking, 1988. Black holes and the Big Bang; the genre's best-seller.
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4
The Selfish Gene
Richard Dawkins, 1976. Evolution from the gene's point of view.
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5
Guns, Germs, and Steel
Jared Diamond, 1997. Why some societies came to dominate others; Pulitzer Prize.
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6
The Blind Watchmaker
Richard Dawkins, 1986. Evolution without a designer.
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7
The Demon-Haunted World
Carl Sagan, 1995. Science as a candle in the dark.
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8
The Elegant Universe
Brian Greene, 1999. String theory explained.
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9
Thinking, Fast and Slow
Daniel Kahneman, 2011. The two systems we think with.
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10
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Yuval Noah Harari, 2011. The history of humankind in one book.
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11
Silent Spring
Rachel Carson, 1962. The book that launched environmentalism.
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12
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
Oliver Sacks, 1985. Brain case studies told as stories.
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13
Gödel, Escher, Bach
Douglas Hofstadter, 1979. Mathematics, art and music intertwined.
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14
The Gene: An Intimate History
Siddhartha Mukherjee, 2016. The history of genetics.
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15
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!
Richard Feynman, 1985. The adventures of a curious physicist.
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16
The Double Helix
James Watson, 1968. How the structure of DNA was discovered.
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17
The Dragons of Eden
Carl Sagan, 1977. The evolution of intelligence; Pulitzer Prize.
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18
On the Origin of Species
Charles Darwin, 1859. Natural selection explained for everyone.
How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.
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Comments (1)
Cosmos me cambió la forma de mirar el cielo, lo leí con 15 años