On The Origin of Species
1859 · 972 pages
More creatures are born than can survive, they differ, and the useful differences carry forward. Darwin builds that one plain idea into an explanation of every living thing on earth.
★ 9.2
The Books canon
Sourced and shelved.
Every book chosen by hand and annotated for why it matters.
Browse all 1,178 books or filter by subject, era, place, and author.
Browse all 1,178 books or filter by subject, era, place, and author.
The War of the Worlds
1897 · 138 pages
Cylinders fall on Horsell Common outside Woking, and the Martians rise out of them with heat-rays and walking machines. Wells turned the British Empire's own conquests around and pointed them at Surrey.
★ 6.6
The Selfish Gene
1976 · 496 pages
Genes, not organisms, are what selection acts on, and bodies are the machines genes build to carry themselves forward. Dawkins turned that inversion into how biologists think, and gave us the word meme.
★ 6.2