Thinkers, scientists, and prize winners worth reading

Sourced explainer · English

Start with the primary texts, not summaries. Prizes are a useful starting list, and a fallible one.

Thinkers worth reading

Plato, The Republic: what justice is, and whether a good life depends on it.
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics: how habits and character shape a good life.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations: a Roman emperor's private notes on anger, loss, and duty.
Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: a short, demanding case for acting only on principles you could apply to everyone.

Background on each: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Counterpoint: This canon is narrow. It leaves out many traditions, including African, Indigenous, Chinese, Indian, and Islamic philosophy. Build your own list from those traditions too.

Scientists who won the Nobel Prize

Henri Becquerel, Pierre Curie, and Marie Curie shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for their joint research on radiation.
Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna shared the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing a method for genome editing.
Charles M. Rice, Harvey J. Alter, and Michael Houghton shared the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering hepatitis C.

Source: nobelprize.org.

Nobel Peace Prize winners, 2010 to 2026

Winners as listed in the official Nobel Prize data
Year	Winner or winners
2010	Liu Xiaobo
2011	Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee, Tawakkol Karman
2012	European Union
2013	Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons
2014	Kailash Satyarthi, Malala Yousafzai
2015	National Dialogue Quartet (Tunisia)
2016	Juan Manuel Santos
2017	International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
2018	Denis Mukwege, Nadia Murad
2019	Abiy Ahmed Ali
2020	World Food Programme
2021	Maria Ressa, Dmitry Muratov
2022	Ales Bialiatski, Memorial, Center for Civil Liberties
2023	Narges Mohammadi
2024	Nihon Hidankyo
2025	Maria Corina Machado
2026	Navi Pillay

Source: Nobel Prize official data. The 2026 announcement was made on 9 October 2026.

Counterpoint: Committee choices are debated. The 2009 award to Barack Obama and the 1973 award to Henry Kissinger drew public disagreement. The prize reflects a five-person committee's judgment, not a complete ranking of peace work.

Pulitzer Prize winners, 2024 and 2025

2025

Fiction: James by Percival Everett (Doubleday).
General Nonfiction: To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause by Benjamin Nathans (Princeton University Press).
Biography: Every Living Thing by Jason Roberts (Random House).
History: Combee by Edda L. Fields-Black (Oxford University Press).
Poetry: New and Selected Poems by Marie Howe (W. W. Norton).
Memoir or Autobiography: Feeding Ghosts by Tessa Hulls (MCD).
Drama: Purpose by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins.

Source: pulitzer.org, 2025 prize winners.

2024

Fiction: Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips (Knopf).
General Nonfiction: A Day in the Life of Abed Salama by Nathan Thrall (Metropolitan Books).
Biography: King: A Life by Jonathan Eig (Farrar, Straus and Giroux).
History: No Right to an Honest Living by Jacqueline Jones (Basic Books).
Poetry: Tripas by Brandon Som (Georgia Review Books).
Drama: Primary Trust by Eboni Booth.

Source: pulitzer.org, 2024 prize winners.

Next step

Pick one book from each list and read the first chapter.