Nonfiction books

Here’s an update to this list.

Best of the best

  • Last Chance to See… – Douglas Adams & Mark Carwardine
  • How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big – Scott Adams
  • The Roving Mind – Isaac Asimov (%)
  • 1984: Spring – A Choice of Futures – Arthur C. Clarke
  • The Ancestor’s Tale – Richard Dawkins (%)
  • The Eco Wars – David Day
  • Collapse – Jared Diamond (%)
  • The Third Chimpanzee – Jared Diamond (%)
  • Celebrations of Life – René Dubos (%)
  • Reflections of Eden – Biruté M.F. Galdikas
  • Blink – Malcolm Gladwell
  • David and Goliath – Malcolm Gladwell
  • Outliers – Malcolm Gladwell
  • The Tipping Point – Malcolm Gladwell
  • What the Dog Saw – Malcolm Gladwell
  • Through a Window – Jane Goodall
  • The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight – Thom Hartmann
  • Manufacturing Consent – Edward S. Herman & Noam Chomsky
  • Final Report – Rick Mercer
  • The Last Lecture – Randy Pausch
  • Beyond Civilization – Daniel Quinn
  • The Invisibility of Success and Other Investigations – Daniel Quinn
  • Amusing Ourselves to Death – Neil Postman
  • Mind Over Medicine – Lissa Rankin, M.D.
  • Drumbeat – Boyce Richardson, ed.
  • The Demon-Haunted World – Carl Sagan (%)
  • Why Do People Believe Weird Things – Michael Shermer (%)
  • Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries – Kory Stamper
  • Good News For a Change – David Suzuki & Holly Dressel (%)
  • Inventing the Future – David Suzuki
  • Indian Givers – Jack Weatherford (%)
  • Native Roots – Jack Weatherford
  • What Would You Do? – John H. Yoder

Runner ups

  • Gold – Isaac Asimov
  • The Great Ape Project – Paola Cavalieri & Peter Singer, eds. (%)
  • The Secrets of Star Trek: Insurrection – Terry J. Erdmann
  • Moonwalking With Einstein – Josh Foer
  • A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future – Michael J. Fox
  • Talking to Strangers – Malcolm Gladwell
  • Why We Make Mistakes – Joseph T. Hallinan
  • The Roswell UFO Crash – Karl K. Korff
  • The Language of Night – Ursula K. Le Guin
  • Adventures in a TV Nation – Michael Moore
  • The Education of Koko – Francine Patterson & Eugene Linden (%)
  • Technopoly – Neil Postman
  • If They Give You Lined Paper, Write Sideways – Daniel Quinn
  • Kanzi – Sue Savage-Rumbaugh & Roger Lewin (%)
  • In the Beginning… was the Command Line – Neal Stephenson
  • Some Remarks – Neal Stephenson
  • Eats, Shoots and Leaves – Lynne Truss
  • What Makes This Book So Great – Jo Walton (%)
  • Firefly: Still Flying – Joss Whedon et al

Best books on teaching

  • The Excellent 11 – Ron Clark
  • How to Talk So Kids Can Learn – Adele Faber et al
  • Beyond Discipline – Alfie Kohn

Best autobiographies & biographies

  • Star Trek Creator – David Alexander
  • I. Asimov – Isaac Asimov
  • Beam Me Up, Scotty – James Doohan & Peter David
  • Gene Roddenberry – Joel Engel
  • Warped Factors – Walter Koenig
  • Beyond Uhura – Nichelle Nichols
  • I Am Spock – Leonard Nimoy
  • I Am Not Spock – Leonard Nimoy
  • Becoming – Michelle Obama (%)
  • From Sawdust to Stardust – Terry Lee Rioux
  • Leonard  – William Shatner & David Fisher
  • Star Trek Memories – William Shatner & Chris Kreski
  • Star Trek Movie Memories – William Shatner & Chris Kreski
  • To the Stars – George Takei

(%) Some books I didn’t read cover to cover but I read a significant portion and still wanted to mention them.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 4th, 2021 at 6:36 pm and is filed under My thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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