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.