The 100 Best Non Fiction Books of All Time

Following the very popular 100 Best Novels in English, the Observer newspaper commissioned the internationally renowned writer and journalist, Robert McCrum to compile a list of classic nonfiction books, those which he considered to be worthy of the accolade “The 100 Best of All Time”. His definition of ‘nonfiction’ included not only prose works but also poetry and drama.

The result is a remarkable selection of books that were published as early as 1611 (The King James Bible) up to 2014 (Elizabeth Kolbert: The Sixth Extinction).

Each entry has a beautifully written commentary placing the work in its literary and historical context.The book moves seamlessly from genre to genre: memoir, history, poetry, politics, biography, environmentalism, religion, drama – these are just some of the many subjects that are covered.What emerges is an outstanding guide to the English-speaking world’s most extraordinary literary achievements: books that have influenced and changed lives and in some cases even changed history.

Author

ROBERT McCRUM is a writer and editor whose most recent book, Every Third Thought was published most successfully in 2017.

From 1980 to 1996, he was editor-in-chief of Faber & Faber, where he published Kazuo Ishiguro, Milan Kundera, Peter Carey, Paul Auster, Marilynne Robinson, Lorrie Moore, Nicola Barker, Adam Mars-Jones, Rohinton Mistry, Adam Phillips and Hanif Kureishi. At the same time, he wrote seven novels and co-authored the BBC TV series,The Story of English, for which he was awarded an Emmy in 1986. He also compiled the 100 Best Novels in English (2015).

He was appointed literary editor of the Observer in 1996, and published P.G.Wodehouse: A Life in 2004. His account of his stroke, My Year Off (1998), is now in its third edition as a Picador Classic.

Robert McCrum is a former Associate Editor of the Observer.