Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Inspired by the Guardian’s list of the 100 best nonfiction books of all time, the New York Times asked a bunch of its staff writers to pick their five favorites. There was a four-way tie for first place, and the reason for the tie is more interesting than the names of the books themselves:

Of the 33 lists submitted, each of those books appeared three times. (Yes, I know that is a completely unscientific basis for deeming them our picks as the best of all time, but what did I say about rigor?)

That’s sort of remarkable. Out of 33 lists, not a single book was mentioned by more than three people. And unless I missed something, only four books out of a total of 167 (two staffers imperiously listed six books instead of five) were written before the 20th century. What’s interesting is that this is such a dramatic demonstration of how atomized we are these days: we all read wildly different things, and even within a group of fairly similar people there’s not a whole lot of crossover. Not only are there no classics that we’ve all read and treasured, but even among modern books there’s precious little that we all have in common.

But this is a hard exercise. I’ll make it easier by listing my ten favorite nonfiction books, but honestly, if you asked me again next week it would probably be a different list. (With the exception of #1, which would show up every time.) That said, here’s this week’s list:

  1. The Power Broker, by Robert Caro
  2. The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair
    [Embarrassing update: this is, of course, a work of fiction. I sort of forgot that.]
  3. Fear and Loathing: on the Campaign Trail ’72, by Hunter S. Thompson
  4. Guns, Germs, and Steel, by Jared Diamond
  5. Before the Storm, by Rick Perlstein
  6. Postwar, by Tony Judt
  7. Against the Gods, by Peter Bernstein
  8. Plagues and Peoples, by William McNeill
  9. In Search of Schrödinger’s Cat, by John Gribbin
  10. How the Mind Works, by Steven Pinker

So many books left out! Even though I did the more traditional list of ten. Sigh.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate