id,title,author,subject,description
1,The Great Gatsby,F. Scott Fitzgerald,Fiction,A story about wealth and the American dream in the 1920s
2,A Brief History of Time,Stephen Hawking,Science,An introduction to cosmology and the nature of the universe
3,To Kill a Mockingbird,Harper Lee,Fiction,A lawyer defends a Black man accused of a crime in the American South
4,The Selfish Gene,Richard Dawkins,Science,An exploration of evolution from the perspective of genes
5,Sapiens,Yuval Noah Harari,History,A sweeping history of humankind from prehistoric times to the present
6,Cosmos,Carl Sagan,Science,A journey through the universe exploring astronomy and the nature of space
7,The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,Rebecca Skloot,Science,The story of a Black woman whose cancer cells were taken without consent and used for medical research
8,Just Mercy,Bryan Stevenson,Law,A lawyer fights for wrongly condemned prisoners on death row in America
9,The Origin of Species,Charles Darwin,Science,The foundational text of evolutionary biology explaining natural selection
10,Guns Germs and Steel,Jared Diamond,History,An explanation of why some civilizations came to dominate others throughout history
11,The Color of Law,Richard Rothstein,History,How the American government segregated the country through housing policies
12,Hidden Figures,Margot Lee Shetterly,History,The story of Black female mathematicians who worked at NASA during the space race
13,The Martian,Andy Weir,Fiction,An astronaut is stranded alone on Mars and must use science to survive
14,Astrophysics for People in a Hurry,Neil deGrasse Tyson,Science,A quick guide to the biggest ideas in astrophysics and the cosmos
15,The New Jim Crow,Michelle Alexander,Law,How mass incarceration functions as a system of racial control in America
16,A Short History of Nearly Everything,Bill Bryson,Science,A journey through the history of science and how humans came to understand the world
17,The Warmth of Other Suns,Isabel Wilkerson,History,The story of the Great Migration of Black Americans from the South to the North
18,Contact,Carl Sagan,Fiction,A scientist receives a mysterious signal from deep space and must decide how humanity should respond
19,The Sixth Extinction,Elizabeth Kolbert,Science,An investigation into how human activity is causing a mass extinction of species on Earth
20,Between the World and Me,Ta-Nehisi Coates,History,A father's letter to his son about the history and reality of being Black in America
21,The Innovators,Walter Isaacson,Technology,The story of the pioneers who created the computer and the internet
22,Educated,Tara Westover,Memoir,A woman who grew up in a survivalist family teaches herself enough to escape and earn a Cambridge PhD
23,Thinking Fast and Slow,Daniel Kahneman,Psychology,How two systems of thinking shape our judgments and decisions
24,The Gene,Siddhartha Mukherjee,Science,An intimate history of the gene and how it shapes human life and identity
25,Dune,Frank Herbert,Fiction,A young nobleman navigates politics religion and ecology on a desert planet
26,1984,George Orwell,Fiction,A man living under a totalitarian surveillance state begins to question the regime
27,Brave New World,Aldous Huxley,Fiction,A future society controls its citizens through pleasure and conditioning rather than fear
28,The Handmaid's Tale,Margaret Atwood,Fiction,A woman lives as a reproductive slave in a theocratic authoritarian state
29,Invisible Man,Ralph Ellison,Fiction,A Black man navigates racism and invisibility in mid-twentieth century America
30,Beloved,Toni Morrison,Fiction,A formerly enslaved woman is haunted by the ghost of her dead daughter in post-Civil War America
31,The Power of Now,Eckhart Tolle,Philosophy,A guide to spiritual enlightenment through presence and mindfulness
32,Man's Search for Meaning,Viktor Frankl,Philosophy,A psychiatrist survives the Holocaust and finds meaning through suffering
33,The Republic,Plato,Philosophy,Socrates explores justice the ideal state and the nature of the soul
34,Meditations,Marcus Aurelius,Philosophy,Personal writings of a Roman emperor on Stoic philosophy and self-improvement
35,The Tao Te Ching,Lao Tzu,Philosophy,Ancient Chinese wisdom on living in harmony with the natural order
36,Superintelligence,Nick Bostrom,Technology,An examination of what happens when machine intelligence surpasses human intelligence
37,The Age of Surveillance Capitalism,Shoshana Zuboff,Technology,How tech companies harvest human experience as raw material for profit
38,Weapons of Math Destruction,Cathy O'Neil,Technology,How big data algorithms increase inequality and threaten democracy
39,Atlas of AI,Kate Crawford,Technology,A material and political investigation into the true costs of artificial intelligence
40,The Alignment Problem,Brian Christian,Technology,Why it is so hard to make AI systems do what we actually want them to do
41,Life 3.0,Max Tegmark,Technology,What artificial intelligence means for the future of life and human civilization
42,Human Compatible,Stuart Russell,Technology,How to build AI systems that are provably beneficial to humanity
43,The Coming Wave,Mustafa Suleyman,Technology,How AI and synthetic biology will reshape civilization in the coming decade
44,Prediction Machines,Ajay Agrawal,Technology,How cheap prediction from AI will transform business and the economy
45,The Shallows,Nicholas Carr,Technology,How the internet is physically changing the structure of the human brain
46,The Information,James Gleick,Technology,A history of information from African drums to the internet age
47,Code,Charles Petzold,Technology,A step by step explanation of how computers work from first principles
48,The Pragmatic Programmer,David Thomas,Technology,Essential wisdom for software developers on writing better code
49,Algorithms to Live By,Brian Christian,Technology,How computer algorithms can be applied to everyday human decision making
50,The Master Algorithm,Pedro Domingos,Technology,The quest for the ultimate learning machine that can derive all knowledge from data
51,Race After Technology,Ruha Benjamin,Technology,How seemingly neutral technologies encode and reproduce racial inequality
52,Automating Inequality,Virginia Eubanks,Technology,How high-tech tools profile police and punish the poor in America
53,Data Feminism,Catherine D'Ignazio,Technology,How feminist thinking can transform the way we collect analyze and use data
54,The Filter Bubble,Eli Pariser,Technology,How personalized internet algorithms are isolating us from new ideas and information
55,Technically Wrong,Sara Wachter-Boettcher,Technology,How the tech industry's lack of diversity creates products that exclude and harm people
56,The Catalog of Everything,Angela Carter,Library Science,A fictional exploration of classification systems and the hidden order of knowledge
57,Everything Is Miscellaneous,David Weinberger,Library Science,How the digital age is destroying old systems of categorization and creating new ones
58,The Library Book,Susan Orlean,Library Science,An investigation into the 1986 Los Angeles Public Library fire and a love letter to libraries
59,This Is What a Librarian Looks Like,Kyle Cassidy,Library Science,Portraits and stories of librarians across America and the communities they serve
60,The Atlas of New Librarianship,R. David Lankes,Library Science,A manifesto for a new kind of librarianship centered on knowledge creation and community
61,Metadata,Jeffrey Pomerantz,Library Science,A clear introduction to metadata and why it matters in the digital age
62,The Discipline of Organizing,Robert Glushko,Library Science,A unified framework for understanding how information gets organized across many domains
63,Introduction to Information Retrieval,Christopher Manning,Library Science,A comprehensive textbook on how search engines and information retrieval systems work
64,The Indexer's Guide,Hans Wellisch,Library Science,A practical handbook on creating indexes for books and documents
65,Archives and the Digital Library,William Graves III,Library Science,How digital technology is transforming archival practice and access to historical collections
66,The Demon-Haunted World,Carl Sagan,Science,A defense of scientific thinking and skepticism against superstition and pseudoscience
67,The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,Thomas Kuhn,Science,How science advances through paradigm shifts rather than gradual accumulation of facts
68,The Double Helix,James Watson,Science,A personal account of the discovery of the structure of DNA
69,The Elegant Universe,Brian Greene,Science,An introduction to string theory and the quest for a unified theory of everything
70,The Emperor of All Maladies,Siddhartha Mukherjee,Science,A biography of cancer tracing its history from ancient times to modern treatment
71,Being Mortal,Atul Gawande,Science,How modern medicine fails dying patients and what a better approach to death looks like
72,The Body,Bill Bryson,Science,A tour of the human body exploring how it works and what can go wrong
73,Entangled Life,Merlin Sheldrake,Science,How fungi make worlds communicate and shape life on Earth
74,The Hidden Life of Trees,Peter Wohlleben,Science,How trees communicate form communities and support each other through underground networks
75,Other Minds,Peter Godfrey-Smith,Science,A philosopher dives with octopuses to explore the origins of consciousness and mind
76,The Wretched of the Earth,Frantz Fanon,Social Justice,A psychiatric and political analysis of colonialism and the violence of decolonization
77,Pedagogy of the Oppressed,Paulo Freire,Social Justice,A foundational text on education as a tool for liberation rather than oppression
78,The Autobiography of Malcolm X,Malcolm X,Social Justice,The life story of one of America's most influential and controversial civil rights leaders
79,I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,Maya Angelou,Memoir,A poet's account of her childhood trauma resilience and coming of age in the American South
80,The House on Mango Street,Sandra Cisneros,Fiction,A young Latina girl grows up in a Chicago neighborhood and dreams of a better life
81,Their Eyes Were Watching God,Zora Neale Hurston,Fiction,A Black woman in the rural South searches for love identity and independence
82,Things Fall Apart,Chinua Achebe,Fiction,The story of an Igbo community in Nigeria confronting the arrival of European colonialism
83,One Hundred Years of Solitude,Gabriel Garcia Marquez,Fiction,Seven generations of the Buendia family in the mythical town of Macondo in Latin America
84,The Alchemist,Paulo Coelho,Fiction,A shepherd boy travels from Spain to Egypt in search of treasure and discovers his destiny
85,Crime and Punishment,Fyodor Dostoevsky,Fiction,A student murders a pawnbroker and wrestles with guilt conscience and redemption
86,The Brothers Karamazov,Fyodor Dostoevsky,Fiction,Three brothers struggle with faith doubt morality and the murder of their father
87,War and Peace,Leo Tolstoy,Fiction,Russian aristocratic families navigate love loss and the Napoleonic invasion of Russia
88,Middlemarch,George Eliot,Fiction,The lives and ambitions of people in a provincial English town in the early nineteenth century
89,Jane Eyre,Charlotte Bronte,Fiction,An orphaned governess falls in love with her brooding employer while maintaining her moral independence
90,Pride and Prejudice,Jane Austen,Fiction,A witty young woman navigates marriage society and her own prejudices in Regency England
91,How to Be an Antiracist,Ibram X. Kendi,Social Justice,A framework for understanding and actively opposing racism in all its forms
92,White Fragility,Robin DiAngelo,Social Justice,Why white people have such difficulty discussing racism and what to do about it
93,Caste,Isabel Wilkerson,Social Justice,An examination of the unspoken caste system that has shaped America for centuries
94,The 1619 Project,Nikole Hannah-Jones,History,A reframing of American history placing the consequences of slavery at the center of the national narrative
95,Stamped from the Beginning,Ibram X. Kendi,History,A definitive history of racist ideas in America from the colonial era to the present
96,The Half Has Never Been Told,Edward Baptist,History,How slavery built the modern American economy through systematic torture and exploitation
97,Four Hundred Souls,Ibram X. Kendi,History,A chorus of voices telling the four-hundred-year history of African Americans
98,The Sum of Us,Heather McGhee,Social Justice,How racism costs everyone in America and what we can gain by building a more equitable society
99,Poverty by America,Matthew Desmond,Social Justice,Why poverty persists in the richest country on earth and what we could do to end it
100,Evicted,Matthew Desmond,Social Justice,How eviction drives poverty and inequality in American cities through the stories of eight families
101,The Uninhabitable Earth,David Wallace-Wells,Science,A vivid portrait of the catastrophic effects of climate change if emissions are not reduced
102,A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety,Sarah Jaquette Ray,Science,How to stay grounded and take action in the face of the climate crisis
103,The New Climate Economy,Global Commission,Science,How bold climate action can deliver economic growth and a better world
104,Braiding Sweetgrass,Robin Wall Kimmerer,Science,A botanist weaves together indigenous wisdom and scientific knowledge about plants and the natural world
105,Silent Spring,Rachel Carson,Science,The book that launched the modern environmental movement by exposing the dangers of pesticides
106,The Overstory,Richard Powers,Fiction,Nine Americans whose lives are intertwined with trees come together to save the world's forests
107,Flight Behavior,Barbara Kingsolver,Fiction,A woman discovers millions of monarch butterflies wintering in her Tennessee farm in a sign of climate disruption
108,The Ministry for the Future,Kim Stanley Robinson,Fiction,A near-future novel about the global effort to address climate change through politics economics and direct action
109,Parable of the Sower,Octavia Butler,Fiction,A young Black woman survives a climate-ravaged America and builds a new community based on her own philosophy
110,Station Eleven,Emily St. John Mandel,Fiction,A flu pandemic collapses civilization and a traveling theater company keeps art alive in the aftermath
111,The Road,Cormac McCarthy,Fiction,A father and son travel through a post-apocalyptic America struggling to survive and maintain their humanity
112,Never Let Me Go,Kazuo Ishiguro,Fiction,Students at an English boarding school slowly discover the horrifying purpose for which they were created
113,The Remains of the Day,Kazuo Ishiguro,Fiction,An English butler reflects on a life of service and the opportunities for love and dignity he sacrificed
114,Pachinko,Min Jin Lee,Fiction,Four generations of a Korean family navigate discrimination identity and survival in Japan
115,The Kite Runner,Khaled Hosseini,Fiction,A man returns to Afghanistan to make amends for a childhood betrayal of his closest friend
116,A Thousand Splendid Suns,Khaled Hosseini,Fiction,Two Afghan women from different generations find strength in friendship under Taliban rule
117,The God of Small Things,Arundhati Roy,Fiction,Twins in Kerala India are shaped by the love laws that determine who should be loved and how
118,Americanah,Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie,Fiction,A young Nigerian woman navigates race identity and love in America and back home in Lagos
119,Half of a Yellow Sun,Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie,Fiction,The Nigerian Civil War and the Biafran struggle for independence seen through three characters' lives
120,Purple Hibiscus,Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie,Fiction,A teenage girl in Nigeria navigates a devout and abusive father and discovers the power of freedom
121,The Anatomy of Fascism,Robert Paxton,History,A comparative analysis of fascist movements and regimes across Europe in the twentieth century
122,How Democracies Die,Steven Levitsky,History,How elected leaders dismantle democratic institutions from within using the tools of democracy itself
123,Tyranny of the Minority,Steven Levitsky,History,How America's political institutions have been captured by a minority and what can be done about it
124,The Origins of Totalitarianism,Hannah Arendt,History,A landmark analysis of Nazism and Stalinism and the conditions that give rise to totalitarian regimes
125,On Tyranny,Timothy Snyder,History,Twenty lessons from the twentieth century on how to resist authoritarian rule
126,The Federalist Papers,Alexander Hamilton,History,The foundational arguments for the ratification of the United States Constitution
127,Democracy in America,Alexis de Tocqueville,History,A French observer's analysis of American democracy and its strengths and dangers
128,The Prince,Niccolo Machiavelli,Philosophy,A frank guide to acquiring and maintaining political power for rulers
129,Leviathan,Thomas Hobbes,Philosophy,An argument for a strong sovereign state as the only solution to the chaos of human nature
130,The Social Contract,Jean-Jacques Rousseau,Philosophy,The argument that legitimate political authority comes from a contract among the people
131,The Uninhabitable Office,Anne Helen Petersen,Social Justice,How modern work culture has broken millennials and what the future of work could look like
132,Bullshit Jobs,David Graeber,Social Justice,Why so many modern jobs feel pointless and what this means for society
133,Nickel and Dimed,Barbara Ehrenreich,Social Justice,An undercover investigation into the reality of low-wage work in America
134,Strangers in Their Own Land,Arlie Hochschild,Social Justice,A sociologist spends five years with Louisiana Tea Party supporters to understand their worldview
135,Hillbilly Elegy,J.D. Vance,Memoir,A memoir of growing up in the Rust Belt and the struggles of the white working class in America
136,Educated,Tara Westover,Memoir,A woman escapes her survivalist family and earns a Cambridge PhD through self-education
137,The Glass Castle,Jeannette Walls,Memoir,A journalist recounts her chaotic nomadic childhood with eccentric and neglectful parents
138,When Breath Becomes Air,Paul Kalanithi,Memoir,A neurosurgeon faces terminal cancer and searches for what makes a life worth living
139,The Year of Magical Thinking,Joan Didion,Memoir,A writer processes the sudden death of her husband and the grief that follows
140,Crying in H Mart,Michelle Zauner,Memoir,A musician grieves the death of her Korean mother and reconnects with her cultural identity through food
141,Know My Name,Chanel Miller,Memoir,The survivor of a sexual assault speaks in her own words about identity healing and justice
142,The Sixth Man,Andre Iguodala,Memoir,An NBA champion reflects on race identity leadership and life beyond basketball
143,Born a Crime,Trevor Noah,Memoir,The comedian's account of growing up mixed-race in apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa
144,Long Walk to Freedom,Nelson Mandela,Memoir,The autobiography of South Africa's first Black president and his twenty-seven years in prison
145,I Am Malala,Malala Yousafzai,Memoir,The story of a Pakistani girl who defied the Taliban to fight for girls' education and was shot for it
146,The Lean Startup,Eric Ries,Business,How startups can use continuous innovation and rapid experimentation to build successful businesses
147,Zero to One,Peter Thiel,Business,Notes on how to build companies that create new things rather than copying what already exists
148,Thinking in Systems,Donella Meadows,Business,A primer on systems thinking and how to understand the complex interconnected world we live in
149,The Fifth Discipline,Peter Senge,Business,How organizations can become learning organizations capable of adapting and thriving
150,Good to Great,Jim Collins,Business,Why some companies make the leap to greatness and others don't based on a five-year research study
151,The Phoenix Project,Gene Kim,Technology,A novel about IT DevOps and how a struggling technology department saves its company
152,Clean Code,Robert Martin,Technology,A handbook of agile software craftsmanship and best practices for writing readable maintainable code
153,Designing Data-Intensive Applications,Martin Kleppmann,Technology,The principles behind reliable scalable and maintainable data systems
154,The Art of Invisibility,Kevin Mitnick,Technology,The world's most famous hacker teaches how to be safe in the age of Big Brother and big data
155,Broad Band,Claire L. Evans,Technology,The untold story of the women who made the internet
156,The Dream Machine,M. Mitchell Waldrop,Technology,The biography of J.C.R. Licklider the visionary who dreamed up the personal computer and the internet
157,Hackers,Steven Levy,Technology,A history of the hacker ethic and the people who created the personal computer revolution
158,The Innovator's Dilemma,Clayton Christensen,Business,Why great companies fail when faced with disruptive technologies and how to survive disruption
159,Platform Revolution,Geoffrey Parker,Technology,How networked markets are transforming the economy and how to make them work for you
160,The Second Machine Age,Erik Brynjolfsson,Technology,Work progress and prosperity in a time of brilliant technologies and automation
161,Invisible Women,Caroline Criado Perez,Social Justice,How a world built for men by default leaves women out of data science medicine and public life
162,Superior,Angela Saini,Science,The return of race science and why it keeps coming back despite being repeatedly debunked
163,Inferior,Angela Saini,Science,How science got women wrong and the new research that is rewriting the story
164,The Code Breaker,Walter Isaacson,Science,The story of Jennifer Doudna and the discovery of CRISPR gene editing technology
165,The Premonition,Michael Lewis,Science,A small group of doctors and scientists fight to prepare America for a pandemic it refuses to see coming
166,The Undoing Project,Michael Lewis,Science,The friendship between two psychologists whose work on human judgment changed the world
167,Flash Boys,Michael Lewis,Business,How high-frequency traders rigged the American stock market and one man's effort to stop them
168,The Big Short,Michael Lewis,Business,How a handful of outsiders predicted and profited from the 2008 financial crisis
169,Moneyball,Michael Lewis,Business,How the Oakland Athletics used data analytics to compete against wealthier baseball teams
170,The Chaos Machine,Max Fisher,Technology,How social media algorithms are rewiring human behavior and tearing societies apart
171,Mindf*ck,Christopher Wylie,Technology,A Cambridge Analytica whistleblower exposes how personal data was weaponized to influence elections
172,The Cult of We,Eliot Brown,Business,The rise and spectacular fall of WeWork and its charismatic and delusional founder Adam Neumann
173,Bad Blood,John Carreyrou,Business,The secret lies behind the rise and fall of Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes
174,No Filter,Sarah Frier,Technology,The inside story of Instagram and how it transformed business culture and fame
175,Move Fast and Break Things,Jonathan Taplin,Technology,How Facebook Google and Amazon have cornered culture and undermined democracy
176,The Coddling of the American Mind,Greg Lukianoff,Psychology,How good intentions and bad ideas are setting up a generation for failure
177,Behave,Robert Sapolsky,Psychology,The biology of humans at our best and worst from neurons to culture
178,The Body Keeps the Score,Bessel van der Kolk,Psychology,How trauma reshapes the body and brain and what can help survivors recover
179,Lost Connections,Johann Hari,Psychology,Why depression and anxiety are really caused by disconnection and how to reconnect
180,The Noonday Demon,Andrew Solomon,Psychology,An atlas of depression exploring the illness its treatments and its meaning
181,Maybe You Should Talk to Someone,Lori Gottlieb,Psychology,A therapist goes to therapy herself and explores the stories we tell about our lives
182,How Emotions Are Made,Lisa Feldman Barrett,Psychology,The secret life of the brain and why emotions are constructed rather than hardwired
183,Emotional Intelligence,Daniel Goleman,Psychology,Why emotional intelligence matters more than IQ for success in life and work
184,The Willpower Instinct,Kelly McGonigal,Psychology,What science tells us about self-control and how to improve it
185,Quiet,Susan Cain,Psychology,The power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking
186,The Comfort Book,Matt Haig,Philosophy,A collection of notes lists and stories written during difficult times as reminders that life is worth living
187,Four Thousand Weeks,Oliver Burkeman,Philosophy,Time management for mortals who know they will never get everything done
188,How to Live,Sarah Bakewell,Philosophy,Montaigne's essays and the twenty questions he tried to answer about how to live well
189,The Order of Time,Carlo Rovelli,Science,A physicist explores the nature of time and why it feels different from how physics describes it
190,Seven Brief Lessons on Physics,Carlo Rovelli,Science,A short and beautiful introduction to the most important ideas in modern physics
191,The Feynman Lectures on Physics,Richard Feynman,Science,The legendary introduction to physics delivered by one of the greatest physicists of the twentieth century
192,Longitude,Dava Sobel,History,The story of the clockmaker who solved the greatest scientific problem of the eighteenth century
193,The Disappearing Spoon,Sam Kean,Science,Tales of madness love and the history of the world from the periodic table of elements
194,The Immortality Key,Brian Muraresku,History,A classicist investigates the role of psychedelic rituals in the origins of Western civilization
195,The Dawn of Everything,David Graeber,History,A new history of humanity that challenges everything we thought we knew about the origins of civilization
196,Entanglements,Kim TallBear,Library Science,How indigenous data sovereignty and community-based research can reshape knowledge production
197,The Pleasure of Finding Things Out,Richard Feynman,Science,A collection of short works by Feynman on science curiosity and the joy of discovery
198,When We Cease to Understand the World,Benjamin Labatut,Fiction,Fictionalized accounts of scientists whose discoveries pushed them to the edge of madness
199,The Midnight Library,Matt Haig,Fiction,A woman discovers a library between life and death where each book represents a life she could have lived
200,Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow,Gabrielle Zevin,Fiction,Two friends build a video game empire over decades navigating creativity love and the meaning of success