Authors: Non–Fiction

This page lists non–fiction books (other than autobiographies) and their authors.

Band of Brothers (1992 WWII history – filmed for TV in 2001, produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks)		Stephen E. Ambrose
The Fatal Englishman: Three Short Lives ("multiple biography", 1996)		Martin Amis
Hell – Belmarsh (2002), Purgatory – Wayland (2003), Heaven – North Sea Camp (2004): prison diaries		Jeffrey Archer
Ecclesiastical History of the English People (c. 735)		(Venerable) Bede
All the President's Men (1974 – the story of their investigation into Watergate)		Carl Bernstein
		Bob Woodward
The Devil's Dictionary (satire, first published in 1906 as The Cynic's Word Book; retitled in 1911)		Ambrose Bierce
In Search of Perfection (cookbook, 2006)		Heston Blumenthal
The Life of Doctor Samuel Johnson (1791)		James Boswell
The Art of Captaincy (1985 – England cricket captain 1977–81)		Mike Brearley
The Great Escape (1950), The Dam Busters (1951) – WWII history; Reach for the Sky: the Story of Douglas Bader (1954)		Paul Brickhill
Testament of Friendship (1940 – partly autobiographical, but essentially a biography of Winifred Holtby)		Vera Brittain
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (1970)		Dee Brown
The Lost Continent: Travels in Small–Town America (1989), Mother Tongue: English and How it Got That Way (1990), Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe (1991), Notes from a Small Island (1995), A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail (1998), Down Under (2000), A Short History of Nearly Everything (2003), The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid (memoir, 2006), The Body: a Guide for Occupants (2019)		Bill Bryson
The Small Woman (1957 – biography of missionary Gladys Aylward)		Alan Burgess
Sex and the City (newspaper column, and 1997 anthology in book form – essays, based on the lifestyle of herself and her friends)		Candace Bushnell
Institutes of the Christian Religion (seminal work of Protestant theology – published in Latin 1536, French 1541)		John Calvin
In Cold Blood (1960 – 'non–fiction novel' about a murder in Kansas)		Truman Capote
The French Revolution: A History (1837)		Thomas Carlyle
How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936 – best–selling selp–help book)		Dale Carnegie
Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China (1991 – biographies of her great–grandmother, grandmother and mother)		Jung Chang
In Patagonia (1977 – a classic of the travel genre)		Bruce Chatwin
The Second World War (6 volumes in hardback, 1948–53, 12 paperback volumes – an official history was also published by HMSO); A History of the English Speaking Peoples (4 volumes, 1956–8)		Winston Churchill
Rural Rides – a series of extracts from his newspaper The Political Register, first published in book form in 1830		William Cobbett
The Joy of Sex (1972)		Dr. Alex Comfort
The Hip and Thigh Diet (1988 – later versions include The Complete Hip and Thigh Diet, 1989)		Rosemary Conley
Superwoman (1975)		Shirley Conran
De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the revolutions of the celestial spheres – 1543)		Nicolaus Copernicus
Mediterranean Food (1950); French Country Cooking (1951); numerous other cook books in the 1950s; credited with popularising French and Italian regional cooking in Britain		Elizabeth David
On the Origin of Species (1859); The Voyage of the Beagle (first published 1839 as Journal and Remarks)		Charles Darwin
The Selfish Gene (1976), The Blind Watchmaker (1986), Climbing Mount Improbable (1996), The God Delusion (2006)		Richard Dawkins
The Second Sex (1949)		Simone de Beauvoir
The Shortest Way with the Dissenters (satirical pamphlet, 1702)		Daniel Defoe
Prince Charles (biography, 1996); also interviewed him on TV		Jonathan Dimbleby
Euclid and His Modern Rivals (1879), The Game of Logic (1887)		Charles Dodgson
The Condition of the Working Classes in England (1845); also collaborated with Karl Marx in the Communist Manifesto (1848)		Friedrich Engels
The F Plan Diet (1983)		Audrey Eyton
Boston Cooking–School Cook Book (1896) – the best–selling cookbook of its time		Fannie Farmer
A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) – often known simply by his surname		H. W. Fowler
The History of the Actes and Monuments of the Church (1563) – better known as the Book of Martyrs		John Foxe
Mary Queen of Scots (1969), Cromwell: our Chief of Men (1973), The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1992 – see also Alison Weir), The Gunpowder Plot: Terror and Faith in 1605 (1996), Must You Go? My Life with Harold Pinter (2010)		Lady Antonia Fraser
The Golden Bough (classic comparative study of mythology and religion, 1890)		Sir James George Frazer
The Interpretation of Dreams (1900)		Sigmund Freud
Capitalism and Freedom (1962), There's No Such Thing as a Free Lunch (1975 – he didn't actually coin the phrase, which probably dates to the 1930s)		Milton Friedman
The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within (2005)		Stephen Fry
Don't Panic: The Official Hitch–Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion (also, in later editions, subtitled Douglas Adams and the Hitch–Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy) (1988)		Neil Gaiman
A Life of Charlotte Bronte (1857)		Mrs. Gaskell
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776–89)		Edward Gibbon
Plain Words (1948; latest revision, by his great–granddaughter, 2014)		Sir Ernest Gowers
Anatomy: Descriptive and surgical (1858 – 40th edition 2008)		Henry Gray
Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus (1993)		John Gray
The Female Eunuch (1970), The Whole Woman (1999)		Germaine Greer
Seasons of My Life: The Story of a Solitary Daleswoman (1989), Daughter of the Dales (1990), An Innocent Abroad (1992) – all written in collaboration with Barry Cockroft		Hannah Hauxwell
A Brief History of Time (1988), Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays (1993), The Universe in a Nutshell (2001), On The Shoulders of Giants (2002)		Stephen Hawking
Death in the Afternoon (1932 – a treatise on bullfighting)		Ernest Hemingway
The Cabinet Maker and Upholsterer's Guide (1788)		George Hepplewhite
The Expert guides – over 20 books, starting with Be Your Own Gardening Expert (1958 ) – "the best selling gardening books in history"; later titles include The Rose Expert, The Vegetable & Herb Expert, The Tree & Shrub Expert		Dr. D. G. Hessayon
The Kon–Tiki Expedition: By Raft Across the South Seas (1948), Aku–Aku: The Secret of Easter Island (1958), The Ra Expeditions (1971), Fatu–Hiva: Back to Nature (1974)		Thor Heyerdal
Leviathan, or The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil (1651)		Thomas Hobbes
The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady (nature notes from 1906, published in facsimile form in 1977)		Edith Holden
Fever Pitch (1992)		Nick Hornby
The Fatal Shore (1986 – a study of Australia's early history and the British penal colonies)		Robert Hughes
A Lot of Hard Yakka (William Hill Sports Book of the Year 1997) – former county cricketer		Simon Hughes
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (Scottish philosopher – published posthumously in 1779)		David Hume
The State We're in: Why Britain Is in Crisis and How to Overcome It (1995), The State to Come (1997), The World We're In (2002) – Observer editor 1996–2000		Will Hutton
Critique of Pure Reason (1787 – no article in title)		Immanuel Kant
Profiles in Courage (profiles of 8 acts of political bravery by US senators, written 1954 while recovering from back surgery)		John F. Kennedy
Ten Rillington Place (1961: the story of the conviction and execution of Timothy Evans for the murders committed by John Christie)		Ludovic Kennedy
The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936)		John Maynard Keynes
Sexual Behavior in the American Male (1948); ditto Female (1953)		Alfred Kinsey
The Great Tradition (celebrated history of English literature, 1948)		F. R. Leavis
The Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1926) – military memoirs		T. E. Lawrence
The Prince (1532 – political treatise – dedicated to Lorenzo di Piero de' Medici, grandson of Lorenzo the Magnificent)		Niccolo Machiavelli
Essays on the Principle of Population (1798 – revised 1803)		Thomas Malthus
Ross: Story of a Shared Life (1976)		Norris McWhirter
On Liberty (1859), Utilitarianism (1863)		John Stuart Mill
The American Way of Death (1963 – an exposé of abuses in the US funeral home industry)		Jessica Mitford
The White Nile (1960), The Blue Nile (1962) – about the search for the sources		Alan Moorehead
The Naked Ape (1967), The Human Zoo (1969)		Desmond Morris
Diana: Her True Story (1992), Monica's Story (1999 – Monica Lewinsky), Posh and Becks (2000), Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography (2008 – severely criticised for its critique of Scientology), Angelina Jolie: An Unauthorised Biography (2010 – possibly even more severely criticised – hardback edition just entitled Angelina)		Andrew Morton
Unsafe at Any Speed (1965) – a critique of the safety record of the US motor industry, particularly the Chevrolet Corvair		Ralph Nader
The Last Grain Race (1956), A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush (1958), Slowly Down the Ganges (1966), Love and War in the Apennines (1971), A Small Place in Italy (1994)		Eric Newby
Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical principles of natural philosophy – 1687) – see also Whitehead		Isaac Newton
Beyond Good and Evil (1886); On the Genealogy of Morality: A Polemic (1887) (German philosopher)		Friedrich Nietsche
Centuries (several volumes, 1555 – 8)		Nostradamus
Down and Out in Paris and London (1933), The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), Homage to Catalonia (1938)		George Orwell
Shooting an Elephant (1936) and Inside the Whale (1940) are essays that give their titles to collections by
Common Sense (1776), The Rights of Man (1791), The Age of Reason (1793)		Thomas Paine
Princess in Love (1994 – assisted by James Hewitt, claiming to describe his affair with her)		Anna Pasternak
Who Runs Britain? (2008), How Can We Fix This? (2012), WTF (2017) – TV journalist		Robert Peston
Capital in the Twenty–First Century (2013 best–seller)		Thomas Picketty
The Republic (c. 380 BC)		Plato
Gamesmanship (1947), Lifemanship (1950), One–Upmanship (1952)		Stephen Potter
Judo: History, Theory, Practice (2004) – the most famous of three co–authors		Vladimir Putin
Ten Days that Shook the World (1919 – about the Russian Revolution)		John Reed
Modern Painters (9 vols, 1843–60); The Stones of Venice (3 vols, 1851–3)		John Ruskin
The Longest Day: 6 June 1944 D–Day (1959), The Last Battle (1966), A Bridge Too Far (1974)		Cornelius Ryan
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (1985, case studies of the author's neurological patients – inspired a Michael Nyman opera of the same title, and gave the title to the second album by Scottish Indie band Travis)		Oliver Sacks
L'Etre et le Neant (Being and Nothingness) – (1943) – an exposition of existentialism, aiming to demonstrate that free will exists		Jean–Paul Sartre
1066 and all that (first published in book form 1930)		W. C. Sellar
		R. J. Yeatman
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960)		William Shirer
Touching the Void (1989 – a harrowing tale of survival following a climbing accident in the Andes, filmed in 2003 under the same title)		Joe Simpson
The Wealth of Nations (1776)		Adam Smith
How to Cheat at Cooking (1971 – her first book)		Delia Smith
Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time (1995) – about John Harrison's perfection of the marine chronometer; Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love (2000)		Dava Sobel
The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care (1946)		Dr. Benjamin Spock
Sea of Cortez: A Leisurely Journal of Travel and Research (1941), A Russian Journal (1948), Once There Was a War (1958), Travels with Charley: In Search of America (1962)		John Steinbeck
Billy (biography of her husband Billy Connolly, 2001)		Pamela Stephenson
Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes (1879)		Robert Louis Stevenson
Married Love (1918 – a sex manual)		Marie Stopes
A Modest Proposal (1729 – full title "A modest proposal for preventing the children of poor people from being a burthen to their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the publick")		Jonathan Swift
Madonna: An Intimate Biography (2001)		J. Randy Taraborelli
The Great Railway Bazaar (1975), The Old Patagonian Express (1979), The Kingdom by the Sea (1983), The Happy Isles of Oceania (1992), Riding the Iron Rooster (1988), Dark Star Safari (2002) – travel books		Paul Theroux
Chariots of the Gods (1968), Gods from Outer Space (1970) (etc.)		Erich von Däniken
The Compleat Angler (1653)		Izaak Walton
The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA (1968)		James D. Watson
The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1991)		Alison Weir
Natural History and Antiquities of Selbourne (1788)		Gilbert White
Principia Mathematica (3 volumes, 1910–13)		Alfred North Whitehead
		Bertrand Russell
De Profundis (written in Reading Gaol; published posthumously in 1905. Title originally referred to Psalm 103 – and was also used by Tennyson, et al)		Oscar Wilde
Philosophical Investigations (published two years after his death in 1951; described as "the most important book of 20th–century philosophy")		Ludwig Wittgenstein
The Beauty Myth (1991), Promiscuities (1997), Misconceptions (2001), The End of America (2007) – former political advisor to Al Gore and Bill Clinton: books about modern sexuality		Naomi Wolf
The Electric Kool–Aid Acid Test (1968 – an account of Ken Kesey and his "Merry Pranksters", and their experiences with psychedelic drugs); The Right Stuff (1979 – about post–war USAF test pilots and the Mercury space programme)		Tom Wolfe
A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792)		Mary Wollstonecraft
A Room of One's Own (1929) – an extended essay, based on two lectures, described by Penguin Books as "[her] most powerful feminist writing, justifying the need for women to possess intellectual freedom and financial independence"		Virginia Woolf
Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer (banned in the UK in 1985, published in Australia in 1987 after the British government lost a highly–publicised court case)		Peter Wright
J'accuse (pamphlet – open letter to the French government concerning the Dreyfus affair, 1898)		Emile Zola

© Haydn Thompson 2017–24