• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

BobbyVoicu.com

Curious about stuff

  • Home
  • About Me
  • Blog / Archive
You are here: Home / Quality of Life / Short non-fiction books to read

Short non-fiction books to read

April 26, 2021 By Bobby Voicu

Some books are long, some books are short. And, if they’re non-fiction books, the shorter, the better. At least for me.

I’ve never thought of books in terms of pages, but it kinda makes sense.

Fergus McCullough started to make a list of the best non-fiction books with less than 250 pages.

  • Allen, Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction (170)
  • Bayles, Art & Fear: Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking (122)
  • Caplan, Open Borders (248)
  • Carse, Finite and Infinite Games (162)
  • Collier, The Bottom Billion (244)
  • Cowen, Stubborn Attachments (161); The Great Stagnation (60)
  • De Solla Price, Science Since Babylon (240)
  • Gibbons, Partition: How and Why Ireland Was Divided (220; h/t Tyler Cowen)
  • Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (72)
  • Jünger, The Forest Passage (120)
  • Karatani, Isonomia and the Origins of Philosophy (176)
  • Knight, Chinese Literature: A Very Short Introduction (158)
  • Krugman, The Age of Diminished Expectations (244); Pop Internationalism (240)
  • Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching (128)
  • Machiavelli, The Prince (144)
  • Schmitt, The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy (184)
  • Smil, Oil (219); Energy (210)
  • Thiel, Zero to One (210)
  • Ward-Perkins, The Fall of Rome: And the End of Civilization (239)
  • Weil, Gravity and Grace (183)
  • Wilde, The Critic as Artist (124)

The original article is not online anymore, so I got the full list from archive.org.

Of all these books, the only one I’ve read is Thiel’s Zero to One, so it’s a good list to start with.

Oh, and apparently there’s a reason why some books are bigger than they should: having a bigger spine allows them to stand out in a bookshop. Or that was the thing in 2006.

via Tyler Cowen

◀Portugal by Car: Cascade Poço da Broca da Barriosa
Feeling like in a movie▶

Filed Under: Book Reviews, Quality of Life, The CEO Library

>>> If you want to continue the conversation, email me at me at bobbyvoicu dot com

Bobby Voicu

Bobby Voicu writes here from time to time.

Footer

About

I write about things that raise my curiosity. And I’m quite curious about all kinds of things.

For a full “About Me”, go here.

Recent Posts

  • My Bluesky ID: @bobbyvoicu.com
  • Batman is Here, on the Quest – XR Industry News of the Week – Oct. 24
  • XR Industry News of the Week – Oct. 10
  • XR Industry News of the Week – Oct. 4
  • XR News of the Week – September 14th, 2024

Friends

  • Sami the Westie
  • XR Gamer Digest

The CEO Library Collections

  • Best Leadership Books
  • Best Productivity Books
  • Women Entrepreneur Books

Copyright © 2025 · Privacy Policy · Disclaimer

We use cookies to enhance your experience. By clicking "Ok" or by continuing to use the site, you agree to this use of cookies and data.