School in a Book: Classic Nonfiction

When I was in school, nonfiction was textbooks. And the encyclopedia and the dictionary, too. What nobody told me is that there’s another kind of nonfiction out there. There’s the kind that’s actually fun to read.

Modern nonfiction is some of the most entertaining, well-written stuff you can find. (After all, if you want to make money writing about neuroscience, for example, you’d better make it relevant, understandable, and full of fascinating anecdotes, right?) It’s stimulating and informative, but that’s not all it is: it’s a road map for becoming a better person. Nonfiction can widen your perspective, give you wisdom, make you stronger . . . maybe even make you a happier person. Nonfiction helps us come up with new goals and ideas about what our lives can encompass–then takes our hands and helps us draw the circles.

It’s such a great time to be a reader, isn’t it?

Of course, the lists below also feature numerous difficult-to-read works, particularly the advanced compilation. Confession: I haven’t read all of these. Instead, somewhere along the way (mostly in philosophy and history classes) I learned about the significance of the texts–the historical context, the main takeaways and the way the text changed people’s thinking. Feel free to do the same.

ESSENTIAL RESOURCES: CLASSIC NONFICTION

Introductory Classic Nonfiction and Mythology

• The story of Paul Bunyan (American myth)
• The story of John Henry (American myth)
• The story of Daniel Boone (American myth)
• The story of George Washington and the cherry tree (American myth)
• The story of the Trojan horse (Homer)
• The story of the Sirens of Titan (Homer)
• The story of Horatius at the Bridge (Homer)
• The story of Androcles and the Lion (Greek myth)
• The story of Jason and the Golden Fleece (Homer)
• The story of Perseus and Medusa (Homer)
• The story of Medusa and Athena (Greek myth)
• The story of Cupid and Psyche (Greek myth)
• The story of The Sword of Damocles (Greek myth)
• The story of Pandora’s Box (Greek myth)
• The story of Oedipus and the Sphinx (Greek myth)
• The story of Demeter and Persephone (Greek myth)
• The story of Daedalus and Icarus (Greek myth)
• The story of Theseus and the Minotaur (Greek myth)
• The story of Arachne the Weaver (Greek myth)
• The story of Swift-footed Atlanta (Greek myth)
• The story of Atlas (Greek myth)
• The story of Odysseus and the Cyclops (Greek myth)
• The story of Romulus and Remus (Roman myth)
• The story of The Twelve Labors of Hercules (Roman myth)
• The story of creation (The Old Testament)
• The story of Adam and Eve (The Old Testament)
• The story of Noah’s ark (The Old Testament)
• The story of the tower of Babel (The Old Testament)
• The story of Abraham’s call (The Old Testament)
• The story of the test of Abraham’s faith (The Old Testament)
• The story of Isaac and Rebecca (The Old Testament)
• The story of Jacob and Esau (The Old Testament)
• The story of Joseph’s coat of many colors (The Old Testament)
• The story of Moses’ birth (The Old Testament)
• The story of Moses and the burning bush (The Old Testament)
• The story of the Israelites’ flight from Egypt and the parting of the Red Sea (The Old Testament)
• The story of the manna from heaven (The Old Testament)
• The story of the Ten Commandments (The Old Testament)
• The story of the walls of Jericho (The Old Testament)
• The story of Gideon’s fleece (The Old Testament)
• The story of Samson’s downfall (The Old Testament)
• The story of Esther (The Old Testament)
• The story of Ruth and Naomi (The Old Testament)
• The story of David and Goliath (The Old Testament)
• The story of David and Jonathan (The Old Testament)
• The story of King Solomon’s temple (The Old Testament)
• The story of King Solomon’s decision (The Old Testament)
• The story of Elijah and the still, small voice (The Old Testament)
• The story of Elijah and the chariot of fire (The Old Testament)
• The story of Daniel in the fiery furnace and in the lion’s den (The Old Testament)
• The story of Daniel and the handwriting on the wall (The Old Testament)
• The story of Jonah and the whale (The Old Testament)
• The story of Lucifer (The Old Testament)
• The story of Job (The Old Testament)
• The story of the first Christmas (The New Testament)
• The story of the choosing of the twelve disciples (The New Testament)
• The story of the water into wine miracle (The New Testament)
• The story of the walking on water miracle (The New Testament)
• The story of the calming the storm miracle (The New Testament)
• The story of the feeding of the five thousand miracle (The New Testament)
• The story of the raising Lazarus from the dead miracle (The New Testament)
• The story of the Sermon on the Mount (The New Testament)
• The story of the woman at the well (The New Testament)
• The parable of the sower of seeds (The New Testament)
• The parable of the good Samaritan (The New Testament)
• The parable of the prodigal son (The New Testament)
• The parable of the last supper (The New Testament)
• The story of Easter (The New Testament)
• The story of Thomas’ doubt (The New Testament)
• The story of the conversion of Paul (The New Testament)
• The story of Loki and the Gifts for the Gods (Norse myth)
• The story of how Thor won his hammer (Norse myth)
• The story of Odin (Norse myth)

Intermediate Classic Nonfiction

• The Holy Bible
• The writings of Buddha (500s–300s BCE)
• The Analects, Confucius (500s BCE)
• Tao Te Ching, Lao Tze (500s BCE)
• The Art of War, Sun Tzu (500s BCE)
• The Quran (600s)
• The Magna Carta (1200s)
• The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli (1500s)
• The Declaration of Independence (1700s)
• The Constitution of the United States (1700s)
• The Bill of Rights (1700s)
• The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Olaudah Equiano (1700s)
• Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, Thomas de Quincey (1800s)
• The Gettysburg Address (1800s)
• Narrative of Sojourner Truth, Sojourner Truth (1800s)
• Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe (1800s)
• Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs (1800s)
• Walden, Henry David Thoreau (1800s)
• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Frederick Douglass (1800s)
• The Souls of Black Folks, W. E. B. DuBois (1900s)
• Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, James Weldon Johnson (1900s)
• The “I Have a Dream” speech, Martin Luther King, Jr. (1900s)
• The Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank (1900s)
• The Story of My Life, Helen Keller (1900s)
• Roots, Alex Haley (1900s)
• Autobiography of Malcom X, Malcom X (1900s)
• Black Boy, Richard Wright (1900s)
• Black Like Me, John Howard Griffin (1900s)
• The Hiding Place, Corrie Ten Boom (1900s)

Advanced Classic Nonfiction

• The Histories, Herodotus (400s BCE)
• The Republic, Plato (400s BCE)
• History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides (400s BCE)
• Rhetoric, Aristotle (300s BCE)
• Apology, Plato (300s BCE)
• Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle (300s BCE)
• On the Nature of Things, Lucretius (60s BCE)
• De Republica, Cicero (50s BCE)
• The Early History of Rome, Livy (20s BCE)
• Wars of the Jews, Josephus (70s CE)
• Annals, Tacitus (100s CE)
• The Twelve Caesars, Suetonius (100s CE)
• Anabasis of Alexander, Arrian (100s CE)
• Meditations, Marcus Aurelius (100s CE)
• Lives of Noble Greeks and Romans, Plutarch (100s CE)
• Enchiridion, Epictetus (100s CE)
• The Confessions, Saint Augustine (300s)
• The City of God, St. Augustine (400s)
• The Consolation of Philosophy, Boethius (500s)
• The Ecclesiastical History, Adam Bede (700s)
• The Letters of Abelard and Heloise, Peter and Heolise Abelard (1100s)
• Summa Theologiae, Thomas Aquinas (1200s)
• The Imitation of Christ, Thomas a Kempis (1400s)
• In Praise of Folly, Erasmus (1500s)
• The Education of a Christian Prince, Erasmus (1500s)
• The Freedom of a Christian, Martin Luther (1500s)
• Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin (1500s)
• History of the Reformation, John Knox (1500s)
• The Life of Saint Teresa of Avila, Teresa of Avila (1500s)
• The Interior Castle, St. Teresa of Avila (1500s)
• Dark Night of the Soul, St. John of the Cross (1500s)
• The Defense of Poesy, Sir Philip Sidney (1500s)
• Novum Organum, Frances Bacon (1600s)
• The Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes (1600s)
• Meditations on First Philosophy, Rene Descartes (1600s)
• Discourse on Method, Rene Descartes (1600s)
• Essay Concerning Human Understanding, John Locke (1600s)
• The Second Treatise of Government, John Locke (1600s)
• An Essay on Criticism, Alexander Pope (1700s)
• An Essay on Man, Alexander Pope (1700s)
• The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Franklin (1700s)
• The Rights of Man, Thomas Paine (1700s)
• Common Sense, Thomas Paine (1700s)
• On Liberty, John Stuart Mill (1800s)
• The Social Contract, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1700s)
• The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith (1700s)
• A Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant (1700s)
• On American Taxation, Edmund Burke (1700s)
• Life of Johnson, James Boswell (1700s)
• The Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton (1700s)
• On the Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection, Charles Darwin (1800s)
• The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx (1800s)
• The Education of Henry Adams, Henry Adams (1800s)
• Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Frederich Nietzsche (1800s)
• Beyond Good and Evil, Frederich Nietzsche (1800s)
• Civilization and Its Discontents, Sigmund Freud (1900s)
• The Ego and the Id, Sigmund Freud (1900s)
• The Interpretation of Dreams, Sigmund Freud (1900s)
• Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler (1900s)

Additional Recommended Nonfiction

• The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Samuel Pepys (1600s)
• Wonders of the Invisible World, Cotton Mather (1600s)
• The Journal of John Woolman, John Woolman (1700s)
• Notes on Nursing, Florence Nightingale (1800s)
• Memoir, Correspondence and Misc., Thomas Jefferson (1800s)
• An Autobiography, Annie Besant (1800s)
• The Memoirs of Victor Hugo, Victor Hugo (1800s)
• Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville (1800s)
• A Child’s History of England, Charles Dickens (1800s)
• For Self-Examination, Soren Kierkegaard (1800s)
• The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child, parts one through four, Susan Wise Bauer
• The Well-Trained Mind, Susan Wise Bauer
• The Well-Educated Mind, Susan Wise Bauer
• What Your Kindergartener Needs to Know, E.D. Hirsch
• What Your First Grader Needs to Know, E.D. Hirsch
• What Your Second Grader Needs to Know, E.D. HirscWhat Your Kindergartener Needs to Know, E.D. Hirsch
• What Your Third Grader Needs to Know, E.D. Hirsch
• What Your Fourth Grader Needs to Know, E.D. Hirsch
• What Your Fifth Grader Needs to Know, E.D. Hirsch
• What Your Sixth Grader Needs to Know, E.D. Hirsch
• The Elements of Style, William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White
• A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking
• The Meaning of It All, Richard Feynman
• Alexander of Macedon, Peter Green
• Treblinka, Jean-Francois Steiner
• The War Magician, David Fisher
• Inside the Third Reich, Albert Speer
• The Particle at the Edge of the Universe, Sean Carroll
• The Fabric of the Cosmos, Brian Greene
• Endurance, Scott Kelly
• Genome, Matt Ridley
• The Art of Learning, Josh Waitzkin
• Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why, Laurence Gonzales
• The Underachiever’s Manifesto, Ray Bennett
• Being Mortal, Arul Gawande
• Flourish, Martin Seligman
• Flow, Mihaly Csikszentmivaly
• The Inner Game of Work, W. Timothy Gallway
• Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Malcom Gladwell
• Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcom Gladwell
• Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Robert Cialdini
• What Would Google Do?, Jeff Jarvis
• The Long Tail, Chris Anderson
• Freakonomics, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
• Discover Your Inner Economist, Tyler Cowen
• Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman
• Switch, Chip Heath and Dan Heath
• Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath
• The Gift of Fear, Gavin de Becker
• On Writing, Steven King
• Save the Cat!, Blake Snyder
• The War of Art, Steven Pressfield
• Plot and Structure, James Scott Bell
• How Children Fail, John Holt
• The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, John Gottman
• Love Sense, Sue Johnson
• Parenting with Love and Logic, Foster Cline
• If I Have to Tell You One More Time, Amy McCready
• The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment, Eckhart Tolle
• A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle
• The Conversations with God series, Neale Donald Walsch
• Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe, Robert Lanza and Bob Berman
• Fringe-ology: How I Tried to Explain Away the Unexplainable–and Couldn’t, Steve Volk
• Dying to Be Me, Anita Moorjani
• A Severe Mercy, Sheldon Vanauken
• Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs, Chuck Klostermann
• When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi
• Educated, Tara Westover
• Go Ask Alice, Anonymous
• A Stolen Life, Jaycee Dugard
• A House in the Sky, Amanda Lindhout
• Into the Wild, John Krakauer
• In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
• Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?, Seth Godin
• Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable, Seth Godin

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