A History of the World in Six Glasses

Tom Standage

Salt: A World History

Mark Kurlansky

The Design of Everyday Things

Donald A. Norman

The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer

Siddhartha Mukherjee

The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket

Benjamin Lorr

A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum: Murder in Ancient Rome

Emma Southon

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

Mary Roach

The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary

Simon Winchester

The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements

Sam Kean

Super Mario: How Nintendo Conquered America

Jeff Ryan

The Devil in the White City

Erik Larson

At Home: A Short History of Private Life

Bill Bryson

The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World

Michael Pollan

When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Us Win World War II

Molly Guptill Manning