Here are the Biggest Nonfiction Bestsellers of the Last 100 Years

1930

The best-selling nonfiction of the year:

1. Axel Munthe, The Story of San Michele
2. Gaston B. Means and May Dixon Thacker, The Strange Death of President Harding
3. André Maurois, Byron
4. James Truslow Adams, The Adams Family
5. Will James, Lone Cowboy
6. Emil Ludwig, Lincoln
7. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy
8. H. G. Wells, The Outline of History
9. Ernest Dimnet, The Art of Thinking
10. Charles and Mary Beard, The Rise of American Civilization

Also published that year:

Dion Fortune, Psychic Self-Defense
James Jeans, The Mysterious Universe

1931

The best-selling nonfiction of the year:

1. Grand Duchess Marie, Education of a Princess
2. Axel Munthe, The Story of San Michele
3. Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen, Washington Merry-Go-Round
4. Alexander Abingdon and Dr. Seuss, Boners: Being a Collection of Schoolboy Wisdom or Knowledge
5. Ely Culbertson, Culbertson’s Summary
6. Ely Culbertson, Contract Bridge Blue Book
7. Edna St. Vincent Millay, Fatal Interview
8. James Truslow Adams, The Epic of America
9. Stuart Chase, Mexico
10. Mikhail Ilin, New Russia’s Primer

Also published that year:

Margaret Sanger, My Fight for Birth Control

1932

The best-selling nonfiction of the year:

1. James Truslow Adams, The Epic of America
2. Frederick Lewis Allen, Only Yesterday
3. Vash Young, A Fortune to Share
4. Ely Culbertson, Culbertson’s Summary
5. Hendrik Willem Van Loon, Van Loon’s Geography
6. Ernest Dimnet, What We Live By
7. James Truslow Adams, The March of Democracy
8. Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen, Washington Merry-Go-Round
9. Clarence Darrow, The Story of My Life
10. Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen, More Merry-Go-Round

Also published that year:

T. S. Eliot, Selected Essays, 1917–1932
J. B. S. Haldane, The Causes of Evolution

1933

The best-selling nonfiction of the year:

1. Walter B. Pitkin, Life Begins at Forty
2. Stefan Zweig, Marie Antoinette
3. R. H. Bruce Lockhart, British Agent
4. Arthur Kallet and F. J. Schlink, 100,000 Guinea Pigs
5. Nora Waln, The House of Exile
6. Hendrik Willem Van Loon, Van Loon’s Geography
7. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Looking Forward
8. Ely Culbertson, Contract Bridge Blue Book of 1933
9. Halliday Sutherland, The Arches of the Years
10. James Truslow Adams, The March of Democracy, vol. 2

Also published that year:

George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London
Gertrude Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas

1934

The best-selling nonfiction of the year:

1. Alexander Woollcott, While Rome Burns
2. Walter B. Pitkin, Life Begins at Forty
3. Romola Nijinsky, Nijinsky
4. Arthur Kallet and F. J. Schlink, 100,000 Guinea Pigs
5. Louis Adamic, The Native’s Return
6. Carl Carmer, Stars Fell on Alabama
7. Peter Fleming, Brazilian Adventure
8. Ike Hoover, Forty-Two Years in the White House
9. Edmund Jacobson, You Must Relax
10. Charles Dickens, The Life of Our Lord

Also published that year:

Ruth Benedict, Patterns of Culture
Emma Goldman, Living My Life
Aldous Huxley, Beyond the Mexique Bay

1935

The best-selling nonfiction of the year:

1. Anne Morrow Lindbergh, North to the Orient
2. Alexander Woollcott, While Rome Burns
3. Clarence Day, Life with Father
4. Vincent Sheean, Personal History
5. T. E. Lawrence, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom
6. Francis Hackett, Francis the First
7. Stefan Zweig, Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles
8. Hans Zinsser, Rats, Lice and History
9. Douglas Southall Freeman, R. E. Lee
10. M. C. Phillips, Skin Deep

Also published that year:

Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa

1936

The best-selling nonfiction of the year:

1. Alexis Carrel, Man the Unknown
2. Dorothea Brande, Wake Up and Live!
3. Negley Farson, The Way of a Transgressor
4. Patience, Richard, and Johnny Abbe, Around the World in Eleven Years
5. Anne Morrow Lindbergh, North to the Orient
6. Victor Heiser, An American Doctor’s Odyssey
7. John Gunther, Inside Europe
8. Marjorie Hillis, Live Alone and Like It
9. Clarence Day, Life with Father
10. Walter Duranty, I Write As I Please

Also published that year:

John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money
Irma S. Rombauer, The Joy of Cooking (first commercial publication)

1937

The best-selling nonfiction of the year:

1. Dale Carnegie, How To Win Friends and Influence People
2. Victor Heiser, An American Doctor’s Odyssey
3. Henry C. Link, The Return to Religion
4. Hendrik Willem Van Loon, The Arts
5. Marjorie Hillis, Orchids on Your Budget
6. Noel Coward, Present Indicative
7. Lancelot Hogben, Mathematics for the Million
8. Clarence Day, Life with Mother
9. Emil Ludwig, The Nile
10. Van Wyck Brooks, The Flowering of New England

Also published that year:

Isak Dinesen, Out of Africa

1938

The best-selling nonfiction of the year:

1. Lin Yutang, The Importance of Living
2. Margaret Halsey, With Malice Toward Some
3. Eve Curie, Madame Curie
4. Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Listen! The Wind
5. Arthur E. Hertzler, The Horse and Buggy Doctor
6. Dale Carnegie, How To Win Friends and Influence People
7. Carl Van Doren, Benjamin Franklin
8. Ogden Nash, I’m a Stranger Here Myself
9. Richard E. Byrd, Alone
10. Margaret Armstrong, Fanny Kemble

Also published that year:

George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia

1939

The best-selling nonfiction of the year:

1. Pierre Van Paassen, Days of Our Years
2. Nora Waln, Reaching for the Stars
3. John Gunther, Inside Asia
4. William Lyon Phelps, Autobiography with Letters
5. Bellamy Partridge, Country Lawyer
6. Antoine de St. Exupéry, Wind, Sand, and Stars
7. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf
8. Edna Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure
9. Vincent Sheehan, Not Peace but a Sword
10. Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Listen! The Wind