r/askscience · 2020

Most-mentioned books in r/askscience during 2020

This page ranks books by exact tracked mentions in r/askscience within the published source unit for 2020. Counts come from the reconciled subreddit-by-month matrix; a source unit may be a bounded sample.

11

Books ranked

22

Tracked mentions in 2020

Sort by upvotes = sum of comment scores on recognized mentions

Cover of On the Origin of Species

On the Origin of Species

Charles Darwin

A naturalist explains how species arise without a designer, backed by decades of finch beaks, barnacles, and pigeon breeders.

Cover of The Double Helix

The Double Helix

James D. Watson

James Watson tells the story of discovering DNA's structure in 1953, and treats Rosalind Franklin badly enough on the page that the argument has outlasted the science.

Cover of The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer

The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer

Siddhartha Mukherjee

Siddhartha Mukherjee traces cancer from ancient Egyptian scrolls calling it untreatable to his own oncology ward, and calls the four-thousand-year fight a biography, not a history.

Cover of What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions

What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions

Randall Munroe

A cartoonist answers a stranger's question about dropping an entire thunderstorm as one giant raindrop, then keeps doing that for 300 pages.

Cover of Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body

Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body

Neil Shubin

A paleontologist traces the five-fingered human hand back through Tiktaalik to the fins of a 375-million-year-old fish.

Cover of A Brief History of Time

A Brief History of Time

Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking explains black holes, time, and the universe's beginning without a single equation, for readers who never took physics.

Cover of A Short History of Nearly Everything

A Short History of Nearly Everything

Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson asks how anyone actually knows a mass extinction wasn't caused by an asteroid, and answers it one solved mystery at a time.

Cover of Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst

Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst

Robert M. Sapolsky

A neuroscientist traces one punch backward through hormones, childhood, evolution, and culture to explain why anyone throws it at all.

Cover of Cosmos

Cosmos

Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan's 1980 tour of 15 billion years of cosmic history, written for anyone who once looked up and wanted a real answer.

Cover of Immune: A Journey into the Mysterious System That Keeps You Alive

Immune: A Journey into the Mysterious System That Keeps You Alive

Philipp Dettmer

Philipp Dettmer, the voice behind Kurzgesagt, explains why your body sets off a full-scale war every time you catch a cold.

Cover of The Elegant Universe

The Elegant Universe

Brian Greene

Brian Greene walks you from Newton to superstrings using astronauts, blinking lights, and rubber-sheet gravity — no physics degree required.