This list includes works of non-fiction that are generally intended for non-specialists, but which do not oversimplify or talk down to their readership and it prefers books predicated on logic and scientific observation over ones that seek to stimulate a reader's emotional faculty through the use of artful sentence structures and well-placed yet ultimately distracting and superfluous sentimental details. In short, this list includes The Selfish Gene but excludes Blink. It mentions Timothy Gowers' Very Short Introduction to Mathematics and Ernest Becker's Denial of Death but omits How the Irish Saved Civilisation. The list does not discriminate against any particular genre, as this would only needlessly confuse publishing agendas with authorial intent. It does, however, seek to offer a suggestive index to works of non-fiction that can assist readers in finding new and engaging reading materials and therefore prefers works that have been written in a spirit of intelligent and insightful curiosity about the world in which we live. On occasion, honouring such an incentive means admitting that many books are at present written for different reasons and that such books deserve perhaps less attention than they are at certain instances allotted by the popular press as well as by the marketing divisions of contemporary internet stores and mass-market publishing houses. Books which carry popularising titles are accepted, as forthrightly absurd and grandiloquent titles and subheadings many works of non-fiction do possess at present, titles such as "The Reason Why The World is the Way It Is" and "A Short History of The World", are not ones which authors personally selected or would have preferred to select if given this option.