Books from various genres that help shape and contour how to conceive reality in the 21st Century.
1

by
4.20 avg rating — 5,551,966 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
2

by
4.02 avg rating — 4,626,227 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
3

by
4.04 avg rating — 461,872 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
4

by
3.98 avg rating — 2,099,083 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
5

by
4.37 avg rating — 895,395 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
6

by
4.33 avg rating — 1,280,967 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
7

by
4.19 avg rating — 873,922 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
8

by
4.17 avg rating — 596,529 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
9

by
4.01 avg rating — 901,550 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
10

by
4.16 avg rating — 194,061 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
11

by
4.09 avg rating — 268,339 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
12

by
4.08 avg rating — 887,601 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
13

by
4.29 avg rating — 1,102,283 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
14

by
4.22 avg rating — 426,337 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
15

by
3.84 avg rating — 387,094 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
16

by
4.01 avg rating — 122,712 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
17

by
3.70 avg rating — 3,231,998 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
18

by
3.93 avg rating — 39,219 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
19

by
3.66 avg rating — 195,932 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
20

by
4.18 avg rating — 290,119 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
21

by
4.14 avg rating — 1,914,332 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
22

by
4.19 avg rating — 66,958 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
23

by
4.37 avg rating — 12,076 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
24

by
4.03 avg rating — 1,434,897 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
25

by
3.97 avg rating — 2,881,348 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
26

by
3.94 avg rating — 402,834 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
27

by
4.95 avg rating — 40 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
28

by
4.45 avg rating — 321,421 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
29

by
4.21 avg rating — 27,323 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
30

by
4.05 avg rating — 28,118 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
31

by
3.91 avg rating — 1,927,827 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
32

by
3.83 avg rating — 86,764 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
33

by
4.13 avg rating — 218,509 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
34

by
4.39 avg rating — 394,383 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
35

by
3.77 avg rating — 205,479 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
36

by
4.03 avg rating — 30,214 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
37

by
4.37 avg rating — 462,330 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
38

by
4.16 avg rating — 29,754 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
39

by
4.29 avg rating — 81,050 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
40

by
4.12 avg rating — 131,787 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
41

by
4.29 avg rating — 52,860 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
42

by
4.19 avg rating — 210,943 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
43

by
3.94 avg rating — 75,017 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
44

by
4.30 avg rating — 54,582 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
45

by
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 134,632 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
46

by
3.90 avg rating — 284,667 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
47

by
4.21 avg rating — 65,875 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
48

by
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 776,745 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
49

by
3.75 avg rating — 206,656 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
50

by
3.81 avg rating — 78,353 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
51

by
4.21 avg rating — 179,053 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
52

by
3.99 avg rating — 21,157 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
53

by
4.10 avg rating — 75,442 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
54

by
4.14 avg rating — 30,154 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
55

by
4.17 avg rating — 369,180 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
56

by
4.16 avg rating — 828,393 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
57

by
4.08 avg rating — 103,022 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
58

by
4.10 avg rating — 58,312 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
59

by
4.09 avg rating — 41,953 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
60

by
3.84 avg rating — 18,209 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
61

by
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 16,883 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
62

by
4.41 avg rating — 9,635 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
63

by
4.16 avg rating — 27,860 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
64

by
4.32 avg rating — 57,886 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
65

by
4.19 avg rating — 5,861 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
66

by
4.03 avg rating — 23,748 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
67

by
4.01 avg rating — 859,140 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
68

by
4.05 avg rating — 96,022 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
69

by
4.30 avg rating — 39,679 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
70

by
3.86 avg rating — 36,268 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
71

by
4.09 avg rating — 64,245 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
72

by
4.01 avg rating — 131,428 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
73

by
4.72 avg rating — 8,943 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
74

by
4.16 avg rating — 21,772 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
75

by
3.84 avg rating — 81,900 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
76

by
3.74 avg rating — 8,687 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
77

by
4.19 avg rating — 7,476 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
78

by
4.07 avg rating — 119,813 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
79

by
3.69 avg rating — 102,625 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
80

by
3.94 avg rating — 19,950 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
81

by
4.09 avg rating — 25,402 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
82

by
4.03 avg rating — 7,363 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
83

by
3.90 avg rating — 270,952 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
84

by
3.96 avg rating — 113,270 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
85

by
3.96 avg rating — 624,916 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
86

by
4.17 avg rating — 2,468 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
87

by
4.03 avg rating — 6,666 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
88

by
4.13 avg rating — 7,209 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
89

by
4.22 avg rating — 1,162,109 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
90

by
4.52 avg rating — 118,396 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
91

by
4.12 avg rating — 41,666 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
92

by
3.61 avg rating — 3,537 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
93

by
4.05 avg rating — 1,743 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
94

by
4.07 avg rating — 478,272 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
95

by
3.71 avg rating — 13,947 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
96

by
3.89 avg rating — 32,932 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
97

by
4.06 avg rating — 2,263 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
98

by
4.18 avg rating — 47,892 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
98

by
3.97 avg rating — 285,119 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
100

by
3.88 avg rating — 7,150 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
1,312 books · 1,435 voters · list created August 14th, 2010 by Charles (votes) .
2093 likes · 
Lists are re-scored approximately every 5 minutes.


Charles 26235 books
3652 friends
Tara 730 books
61 friends
Tyler Knowlton 436 books
108 friends
Jenny 321 books
68 friends
Janet 183 books
61 friends
Jacob 2029 books
41 friends
Joe 581 books
259 friends
Steve 323 books
215 friends

More voters…


Comments Showing 1-19 of 19 (19 new)

dateUp arrow    newest »

message 1: by Charles (new)

Charles Thanks to everybody who has added on to this!

~Charles


message 2: by Leo (new)

Leo Walsh Excellent. I've read all of the top twenty five save the exact Chomsky titles (though I've read plenty of his work, and his key points tend to be stable), "Green Illusions," and "Hot Flat and Crowded" -- though I confess that I started the book, but never finished. Not sure why...


message 3: by Lacewing (new)

Lacewing Great list! Thank you, Charles, for starting it and everyone else for building it up. I'm tempted to put every one of 'em on my to-read list, except for the mere half dozen or so I've read.


message 4: by Charles (new)

Charles Leo wrote: "Excellent. I've read all of the top twenty five save the exact Chomsky titles (though I've read plenty of his work, and his key points tend to be stable), "Green Illusions," and "Hot Flat and Crowd..."

So what would it look like for these top titles to actually shape the thinking of leaders?


message 5: by Charles (new)

Charles Lacewing wrote: "Great list! Thank you, Charles, for starting it and everyone else for building it up. I'm tempted to put every one of 'em on my to-read list, except for the mere half dozen or so I've read."

You are welcome! How are you coming on the reading?


message 6: by Aurora (new)

Aurora Maybe add Nassim Taleb's Black Swan as a complement to the Structure of Scientific Revolutions?


message 7: by Maria (new)

Maria Fantastic list. I've added a few of these to my To Read list.


message 8: by Alisha (new)

Alisha Awesome list!! Thanks for creating it. Definitely reading some of these for my 2016 reading challenge :)


message 9: by Vincent (new)

Vincent Noel Too much Pinker, but this is a f*ing good list


message 10: by Sid (new)

Sid S Great list! I think I'll contribute a few books to this list too.


message 11: by capintraista (new)

capintraista Gotta say, this is the best list I've ever seen on the goodreads. Thank you


message 12: by Parker (new)

Parker commenting so I can remember where this list is


message 13: by Doodle (new)

Doodle Fascinating List. Thank you


message 14: by Alex (new)

Alex Great list!


message 15: by Anish (new)

Anish Sinha Such a great list!


message 16: by Valerie (new)

Valerie Brett This is like, ALL white men


message 17: by Yinzadi (last edited Jul 18, 2018 06:39AM) (new)

Yinzadi Valerie wrote: "This is like, ALL white men"

If for some reason you don't want to read European authors, just in the top 100: Jared Diamond, Naomi Klein, Viktor Frankl, Howard Zinn, Daniel Kahneman, Noam Chomsky, Steven Pinker, Sigmund Freud, Christopher Hitchens, Saul Alinsky, Yuval Noah Harari, Franz Kafka, Douglas Hofstadter, Carl Sagan, Thomas Kuhn, Jared Diamond, M. Scott Peck, Dan Ariely, David Graeber, Charles Murray, William Deresiewicz, Steven Levitt, Thomas Friedman, Jonathan Haidt, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Jonathan Safran Foer are Jewish (plus the Bible, obviously), Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Daron Acemoğlu, and Edward Said are also Near Eastern but not Jewish, Malcolm Gladwell, Paulo Freire, and Gustavo Gutierrez are Hispanic, Mohandas Gandhi is Indian, and Martin Luther King, Jr. is African.

It seems like much more of a Judeocentric than a Eurocentric list to me, but I agree that it's totally androcentric.


message 18: by inside an airport (last edited Nov 19, 2018 05:50AM) (new)

inside an airport It is still mostly white men.
and one Nazi person (Martin Heidegger)

The list is so race-blind that I am guessing the author probably thought Gandhi and Martin Luther King ,Jr are also white.


back to top



Related News

If you’re looking for a new book with lots of positive early buzz—and you’re kind of in a hurry—then today’s collection is for...

Anyone can add books to this list.