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

by
4.20 avg rating — 5,427,874 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
2

by
4.02 avg rating — 4,523,346 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
3

by
4.04 avg rating — 456,019 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
4

by
3.99 avg rating — 2,068,938 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
5

by
4.37 avg rating — 871,237 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
6

by
4.33 avg rating — 1,253,422 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
7

by
4.17 avg rating — 585,515 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
8

by
4.19 avg rating — 863,698 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
9

by
4.01 avg rating — 895,875 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
10

by
4.16 avg rating — 192,325 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
11

by
4.09 avg rating — 265,486 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
12

by
4.08 avg rating — 873,290 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
13

by
4.29 avg rating — 1,073,266 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
14

by
4.22 avg rating — 421,408 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
15

by
3.84 avg rating — 381,860 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
16

by
4.01 avg rating — 121,822 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
17

by
3.70 avg rating — 3,188,157 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
18

by
3.93 avg rating — 39,003 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
19

by
3.65 avg rating — 195,393 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
20

by
4.18 avg rating — 286,617 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
21

by
4.19 avg rating — 65,730 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
22

by
4.13 avg rating — 1,866,010 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
23

by
4.38 avg rating — 12,032 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
24

by
4.03 avg rating — 1,389,810 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
25

by
4.98 avg rating — 43 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
26

by
3.97 avg rating — 2,819,990 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
27

by
3.94 avg rating — 392,997 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
28

by
4.45 avg rating — 316,996 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
29

by
4.05 avg rating — 27,765 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
30

by
4.21 avg rating — 26,746 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
31

by
4.13 avg rating — 214,429 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
32

by
3.91 avg rating — 1,874,162 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
33

by
3.83 avg rating — 85,842 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
34

by
4.39 avg rating — 384,357 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
35

by
3.77 avg rating — 203,892 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
36

by
4.37 avg rating — 456,175 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
37

by
4.16 avg rating — 29,553 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
38

by
4.29 avg rating — 80,153 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
39

by
4.12 avg rating — 130,953 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
40

by
4.03 avg rating — 29,855 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
41

by
4.19 avg rating — 210,191 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
42

by
4.29 avg rating — 52,462 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
43

by
3.94 avg rating — 74,590 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
44

by
4.30 avg rating — 53,555 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
45

by
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 134,261 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
46

by
3.90 avg rating — 282,864 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
47

by
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 767,616 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
48

by
3.75 avg rating — 206,498 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
49

by
4.22 avg rating — 65,238 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
50

by
3.81 avg rating — 77,341 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
51

by
4.21 avg rating — 176,323 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
52

by
3.99 avg rating — 21,053 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
53

by
4.10 avg rating — 74,835 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
54

by
4.13 avg rating — 29,559 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
55

by
4.17 avg rating — 364,865 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
56

by
4.16 avg rating — 818,947 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
57

by
4.10 avg rating — 57,465 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
58

by
4.08 avg rating — 102,402 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
58

by
4.09 avg rating — 41,698 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
60

by
3.84 avg rating — 17,979 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
61

by
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 16,537 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
62

by
4.16 avg rating — 27,665 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
63

by
4.33 avg rating — 56,023 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
64

by
4.19 avg rating — 5,794 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
65

by
4.41 avg rating — 9,575 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
66

by
4.03 avg rating — 23,350 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
67

by
4.01 avg rating — 853,794 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
68

by
4.05 avg rating — 94,990 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
69

by
4.30 avg rating — 39,060 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
70

by
3.86 avg rating — 36,115 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
71

by
4.09 avg rating — 62,562 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
72

by
4.01 avg rating — 130,286 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
73

by
4.72 avg rating — 8,702 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
74

by
4.16 avg rating — 21,521 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
75

by
3.84 avg rating — 80,961 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
76

by
3.74 avg rating — 8,602 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
77

by
4.19 avg rating — 7,372 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
78

by
4.07 avg rating — 119,396 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
79

by
3.69 avg rating — 102,499 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
80

by
3.94 avg rating — 19,622 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
81

by
4.09 avg rating — 25,286 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
82

by
4.03 avg rating — 7,319 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
83

by
3.91 avg rating — 266,439 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
84

by
3.96 avg rating — 112,521 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
85

by
3.96 avg rating — 621,294 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
86

by
4.17 avg rating — 2,429 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
87

by
4.03 avg rating — 6,576 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
88

by
4.13 avg rating — 7,174 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
89

by
4.22 avg rating — 1,144,006 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
90

by
4.52 avg rating — 117,037 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
91

by
4.12 avg rating — 40,575 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
92

by
4.04 avg rating — 1,744 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
93

by
4.08 avg rating — 474,014 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
94

by
3.71 avg rating — 13,938 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
95

by
3.89 avg rating — 32,747 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
96

by
4.06 avg rating — 2,220 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
97

by
4.18 avg rating — 47,179 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
97

by
3.97 avg rating — 281,483 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
99

by
3.88 avg rating — 7,078 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
100

by
3.60 avg rating — 3,500 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
1,280 books · 1,421 voters · list created August 14th, 2010 by Charles (votes) .
2085 likes · 
Lists are re-scored approximately every 5 minutes.


Charles 26133 books
3653 friends
Tara 726 books
61 friends
Tyler Knowlton 433 books
108 friends
Jenny 321 books
68 friends
Janet 174 books
61 friends
Jacob 2006 books
41 friends
Joe 578 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 hami (last edited Nov 19, 2018 05:50AM) (new)

hami 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

  The 17th Annual Goodreads Choice Awards are now in the books! With a new record of more than 7.5 million votes cast, the 2025...

Anyone can add books to this list.