Niche Non-Fiction
3. 
The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York
by:
Deborah Blum
4.01 avg rating — 36,513 ratings 4. 
The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World
by:
Steven Johnson
3.89 avg rating — 55,256 ratings 5. 
Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time
by:
Dava Sobel
3.99 avg rating — 75,019 ratings 6. 
Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History
by:
Erik Larson
4.05 avg rating — 70,013 ratings 
10. 
The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness
by:
Sy Montgomery
3.94 avg rating — 57,035 ratings 
12. 
The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World
by:
Andrea Wulf
4.32 avg rating — 28,485 ratings 13. 
The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus
by:
Richard Preston
4.16 avg rating — 119,581 ratings 
15. 
Unmentionable: The Victorian Lady's Guide to Sex, Marriage, and Manners
by:
Therese Oneill
3.82 avg rating — 9,083 ratings 16. 
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory
by:
Caitlin Doughty
4.22 avg rating — 104,614 ratings 17. 
Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities
by:
Amy Stewart
3.82 avg rating — 10,910 ratings 18. 
The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World
by:
Steve Brusatte
4.21 avg rating — 38,318 ratings 18. 
The Poison Squad: One Chemist's Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
by:
Deborah Blum
3.93 avg rating — 4,797 ratings 
21. 
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
by:
Jared Diamond
4.04 avg rating — 445,025 ratings 21. 
Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures
by:
Merlin Sheldrake
4.33 avg rating — 47,219 ratings 23. 
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants 4.52 avg rating — 158,427 ratings
24. 
Wild Ones: A Sometimes Dismaying, Weirdly Reassuring Story About Looking at People Looking at Animals in America
by:
Jon Mooallem
4.05 avg rating — 2,616 ratings 25. 
The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine who Outwitted America's Enemies
by:
Jason Fagone
4.09 avg rating — 23,146 ratings 
27. 
Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World
by:
Mark Kurlansky
3.92 avg rating — 24,360 ratings 28. 
Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World
by:
Dan Koeppel
3.81 avg rating — 5,278 ratings 
30. 
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America
by:
Erik Larson
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 739,758 ratings 
33. 
Get Well Soon: History's Worst Plagues and the Heroes Who Fought Them
by:
Jennifer Wright
4.23 avg rating — 13,611 ratings 34. 
35. 
A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail
by:
Bill Bryson
4.07 avg rating — 436,105 ratings 36. 
Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking
by:
Samin Nosrat
4.40 avg rating — 87,431 ratings 37. 
The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars
by:
Dava Sobel
3.59 avg rating — 3,470 ratings 38. 
The Treeline: The Last Forest and the Future of Life on Earth
by:
Ben Rawlence
4.24 avg rating — 1,718 ratings 38. 
Depression Hates a Moving Target: How Running With My Dog Brought Me Back From the Brink
by:
Nita Sweeney
3.72 avg rating — 1,921 ratings 
42. 
Mauve: How One Man Invented a Colour That Changed the World
by:
Simon Garfield
3.67 avg rating — 1,876 ratings 
45. 
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary
by:
Simon Winchester
3.84 avg rating — 120,601 ratings 45. 
Dear Fahrenheit 451: Love and Heartbreak in the Stacks
by:
Annie Spence
3.76 avg rating — 11,057 ratings 47. 
Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle 3.97 avg rating — 5,898 ratings
48. 
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
by:
Susan Cain
4.08 avg rating — 465,705 ratings 48. 
The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time
by:
Jonathan Weiner
4.17 avg rating — 9,807 ratings 
51. 
The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate: Discoveries from a Secret World
by:
Peter Wohlleben
4.07 avg rating — 84,758 ratings 51. 
The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements
by:
Sam Kean
3.93 avg rating — 54,823 ratings 51. 
Unnatural Causes: The Life and Many Deaths of Britain's Top Forensic Pathologist
by:
Richard Shepherd
4.32 avg rating — 46,084 ratings 
55. 
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
by:
Jack Weatherford
4.06 avg rating — 81,000 ratings 55. 
A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II
by:
Sonia Purnell
4.15 avg rating — 58,202 ratings 57. 
The Drunken Botanist: The Plants That Create the World's Great Drinks
by:
Amy Stewart
4.02 avg rating — 10,451 ratings 58. 
Shortest Way Home: One Mayor's Challenge and a Model for America's Future
by:
Pete Buttigieg
4.21 avg rating — 16,407 ratings 
60. 
The Welsh Gypsies: Children of Abram Wood
by:
A.O.H. Jarman
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 6 ratings 61. 
Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages
by:
Guy Deutscher
3.91 avg rating — 7,176 ratings 62. 
The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes—and Why
by:
Amanda Ripley
4.19 avg rating — 9,188 ratings 
67. 
Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith and Love
by:
Dava Sobel
3.75 avg rating — 30,045 ratings 68. 
The Intimate Bond: How Animals Shaped Human History
by:
Brian M. Fagan
3.52 avg rating — 251 ratings 
70. 
The Cruelest Miles: The Heroic Story of Dogs and Men in a Race Against an Epidemic
by:
Gay Salisbury
4.19 avg rating — 3,530 ratings 
72. 
Here's Looking at Euclid: A Surprising Excursion Through the Astonishing World of Math
by:
Alex Bellos
4.11 avg rating — 5,583 ratings 73. 
74. 
She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity
by:
Carl Zimmer
4.16 avg rating — 7,098 ratings 75. 
Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters
by:
Kate Brown
4.13 avg rating — 1,369 ratings 76. 
The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter
by:
David Sax
3.77 avg rating — 2,699 ratings 77. 
The Man Who Made Vermeers: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Han van Meegeren
by:
Jonathan Lopez
3.77 avg rating — 8,542 ratings 77. 
Washington's Spies: The Story of America's First Spy Ring
by:
Alexander Rose
3.82 avg rating — 6,004 ratings 
81. 
The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo
by:
Tom Reiss
4.02 avg rating — 21,030 ratings 
81. 
The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams, and the Making of Modern China
by:
Julia Lovell
3.89 avg rating — 1,544 ratings 84. 
The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger
by:
Marc Levinson
3.86 avg rating — 6,742 ratings 
86. 
The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America
by:
Timothy Egan
4.14 avg rating — 17,867 ratings 87. 
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness 4.52 avg rating — 115,042 ratings
89. 
Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs
by:
Johann Hari
4.50 avg rating — 21,098 ratings 
90. 
The Woman Who Would Be King: Hatshepsut's Rise to Power in Ancient Egypt
by:
Kara Cooney
3.65 avg rating — 7,513 ratings 92. 
The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women
by:
Kate Moore
4.16 avg rating — 176,369 ratings 92. 
The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival
by:
John Vaillant
4.07 avg rating — 18,585 ratings 94. 
The Dead Duke, His Secret Wife, and the Missing Corpse: An Extraordinary Edwardian Case of Deception and Intrigue 3.31 avg rating — 1,665 ratings
95. 
Quakeland: On the Road to America's Next Devastating Earthquake
by:
Kathryn Miles
3.90 avg rating — 788 ratings 
95. 
Bowery Mission: Grit and Grace on Manhattan’s Oldest Street
by:
Jason Storbakken
4.25 avg rating — 36 ratings 95. 
95. 
The Science of Love and Attraction: The long-hidden neurobiological secrets to improve your social and romantic life 3.57 avg rating — 14 ratings
