📚 Reference

Books with reference on their catalogue record, first published between 1858 and 2020, ordered by how many editions are in print.

Below are the 30 works carrying the subject reference in the Open Library catalogue with the most editions in print, out of the 82,786 works the catalogue holds under that subject. Author and first year are as the record states them; a missing year means the record does not carry one, not that the book is undated. Novels set in the subject are left out, because a list of historical fiction is not a list of history. Where one author dominates the reprint counts, no more than two of their titles appear.

Cover	Title	Author	First published	Editions
	The Elements of Style	William Strunk, Jr.	1920	288
	Anatomy	Henry Gray F.R.S.	1858	109
	The World Almanac for Kids	Judith S. Levey	1995	89
	The Origins of Totalitarianism	Hannah Arendt	1951	64
	Mythology	Edith Hamilton	1940	59
	Simple Sabotage Field Manual	United States. Office of Strategic Services.	1944	35
	Word Power Made Easy	Norman Lewis	1949	31
	Les 12 Travaux d'Astérix	René Goscinny	1976	28
	Corbin on contracts	Arthur Linton Corbin	1950	21
	Εὐθύφρων / Κρίτων / Μένων / Φαίδων / Ἀπολογία Σωκράτους	Πλάτων	1981	19
	Bird by Bird	Anne Lamott	1994	16
	Historical Southern Families	John Bennett Boddie	1957	12
	1100 words you need to know	Murray Bromberg	1971	12
	Principles of horticulture	C. R. Adams	1984	12
	ACCOUNTING FOR NON-ACCOUNTANTS	Wayne A. Label	2006	12
	What Would Audrey Do?	Pamela Keogh	2008	10
	Philosophy for Everyone	Matthew Chrisman	2013	9
	Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat	Samin Nosrat	2017	9
	Keeping a nature journal	Clare Walker Leslie	2000	8
	The Areas of My Expertise	John Hodgman	2005	8
	99% Invisible City	Roman Mars	2020	8
	Everywoman	Derek Llewellyn-Jones	1971	7
	100 Ways to Improve Your Writing	Gary Provost	1985	7
	The complete book of incense, oils & brews	Scott Cunningham	1986	7
	Does the center hold?	Donald Palmer	1991	7
	The philosophy book	Will Buckingham	2011	7
	Several short sentences about writing	Verlyn Klinkenborg	2012	7
	Guitarmaking, tradition and technology	William R. Cumpiano	1985	6
	The Right to Write	Julia Cameron	1998	6
	Black's law dictionary	Henry Campbell Black	1933	4

List built from Open Library (CC0 metadata) · retrieved 24 Oct 2026 UTC · capped at 30 works per subject.

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Want the ideas behind these books explained rather than listed? Try Study for short explainers, Academy for deeper tracks, and the periodic table or the night sky when the book is about matter or stars.