40 best essays of all time

40 Best Essays of All Time (Including Links & Writing Tips)

I had little money (buying forty collections of essays was out of the question) so I’ve found them online instead. I’ve hacked through piles of them, and finally, I’ve found the great ones. Now I want to share the whole list with you (with the addition of my notes about writing). Each item on the list has a direct link to the essay, so please click away and indulge yourself. Also, next to each essay, there’s an image of the book that contains the original work.

About this essay list:

40 best essays of all time (with links and writing tips), 1. david sedaris – laugh, kookaburra, writing tips from the essay:, 2. charles d’ambrosio – documents.

Do you think your life punches you in the face all too often? After reading this essay, you will change your mind. Reading about loss and hardships often makes us sad at first, but then enables us to feel grateful for our lives . D’Ambrosio shares his documents (poems, letters) that had a major impact on his life, and brilliantly shows how not to let go of the past.

3. E. B. White – Once more to the lake

4. zadie smith – fail better.

Aspiring writers feel tremendous pressure to perform. The daily quota of words often turns out to be nothing more than gibberish. What then? Also, should the writer please the reader or should she be fully independent? What does it mean to be a writer, anyway? This essay is an attempt to answer these questions, but its contents are not only meant for scribblers. Within it, you’ll find some great notes about literary criticism, how we treat art , and the responsibility of the reader.

5. Virginia Woolf – Death of the Moth

6. meghan daum – my misspent youth, 7. roger ebert – go gentle into that good night.

Probably the greatest film critic of all time, Roger Ebert, tells us not to rage against the dying of the light. This essay is full of courage, erudition, and humanism. From it, we learn about what it means to be dying (Hitchens’ “Mortality” is another great work on that theme). But there’s so much more. It’s a great celebration of life too. It’s about not giving up, and sticking to your principles until the very end. It brings to mind the famous scene from Dead Poets Society where John Keating (Robin Williams) tells his students: “Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary”.

8. George Orwell – Shooting an Elephant

9. george orwell – a hanging, 10. christopher hitchens – assassins of the mind, 11. christopher hitchens – the new commandments, 12. phillip lopate – against joie de vivre, 13. philip larkin – the pleasure principle, 14. sigmund freud – thoughts for the times on war and death, 15. zadie smith – some notes on attunement.

“You are privy to a great becoming, but you recognize nothing” – Francis Dolarhyde. This one is about the elusiveness of change occurring within you. For Zadie, it was hard to attune to the vibes of Joni Mitchell – especially her Blue album. But eventually, she grew up to appreciate her genius, and all the other things changed as well. This top essay is all about the relationship between humans, and art. We shouldn’t like art because we’re supposed to. We should like it because it has an instantaneous, emotional effect on us. Although, according to Stansfield (Gary Oldman) in Léon, liking Beethoven is rather mandatory.

16. Annie Dillard – Total Eclipse

17. édouard levé – when i look at a strawberry, i think of a tongue, 18. gloria e. anzaldúa – how to tame a wild tongue, 19. kurt vonnegut – dispatch from a man without a country, 20. mary ruefle – on fear.

Most psychologists and gurus agree that fear is the greatest enemy of success or any creative activity. It’s programmed into our minds to keep us away from imaginary harm. Mary Ruefle takes on this basic human emotion with flair. She explores fear from so many angles (especially in the world of poetry-writing) that at the end of this personal essay, you will look at it, dissect it, untangle it, and hopefully be able to say “f**k you” the next time your brain is trying to stop you.

21. Susan Sontag – Against Interpretation

22. nora ephron – a few words about breasts, 23. carl sagan – does truth matter – science, pseudoscience, and civilization, 24. paul graham – how to do what you love, 25. john jeremiah sullivan – mister lytle, 26. joan didion – on self respect, 27. susan sontag – notes on camp, 28. ralph waldo emerson – self-reliance, 29. david foster wallace – consider the lobster, 30. david foster wallace – the nature of the fun.

The famous novelist and author of the most powerful commencement speech ever done is going to tell you about the joys and sorrows of writing a work of fiction. It’s like taking care of a mutant child that constantly oozes smelly liquids. But you love that child and you want others to love it too. It’s a very humorous account of what it means to be an author. If you ever plan to write a novel, you should read that one. And the story about the Chinese farmer is just priceless.

31. Margaret Atwood – Attitude

32. jo ann beard – the fourth state of matter, 33. terence mckenna – tryptamine hallucinogens and consciousness, 34. eudora welty – the little store, 35. john mcphee – the search for marvin gardens.

The Search for Marvin Gardens contains many layers of meaning. It’s a story about a Monopoly championship, but also, it’s the author’s search for the lost streets visible on the board of the famous board game. It also presents a historical perspective on the rise and fall of civilizations, and on Atlantic City, which once was a lively place, and then, slowly declined, the streets filled with dirt and broken windows.

36. Maxine Hong Kingston – No Name Woman

37. joan didion – on keeping a notebook, 38. joan didion – goodbye to all that, 39. george orwell – reflections on gandhi, 40. george orwell – politics and the english language, other essays you may find interesting, oliver sacks – on libraries, noam chomsky – the responsibility of intellectuals, sam harris – the riddle of the gun.

Sam Harris, now a famous philosopher and neuroscientist, takes on the problem of gun control in the United States. His thoughts are clear of prejudice. After reading this, you’ll appreciate the value of logical discourse overheated, irrational debate that more often than not has real implications on policy.

Tim Ferriss – Some Practical Thoughts on Suicide

Edward said – reflections on exile, richard feynman – it’s as simple as one, two, three…, rabindranath tagore – the religion of the forest, richard dawkins – letter to his 10-year-old daughter.

Every father should be able to articulate his philosophy of life to his children. With this letter that’s similar to what you find in the Paris Review essays , the famed atheist and defender of reason, Richard Dawkins, does exactly that. It’s beautifully written and stresses the importance of looking at evidence when we’re trying to make sense of the world.

Albert Camus – The Minotaur (or, The Stop In Oran)

Koty neelis – 21 incredible life lessons from anthony bourdain, lucius annaeus seneca – on the shortness of life, bertrand russell – in praise of idleness, james baldwin – stranger in the village.

It’s an essay on the author’s experiences as an African-American in a Swiss village, exploring race, identity, and alienation while highlighting the complexities of racial dynamics and the quest for belonging.

Bonus – More writing tips from two great books

The sense of style – by steven pinker, on writing well – by william zinsser, now immerse yourself in the world of essays, rafal reyzer.

Hey there, welcome to my blog! I'm a full-time entrepreneur building two companies, a digital marketer, and a content creator with 10+ years of experience. I started RafalReyzer.com to provide you with great tools and strategies you can use to become a proficient digital marketer and achieve freedom through online creativity. My site is a one-stop shop for digital marketers, and content enthusiasts who want to be independent, earn more money, and create beautiful things. Explore my journey here , and don't miss out on my AI Marketing Mastery online course.

The 25 Greatest Essay Collections of All Time

Today marks the release of Aleksandar Hemon’s excellent book of personal essays, The Book of My Lives , which we loved, and which we’re convinced deserves a place in the literary canon. To that end, we were inspired to put together our list of the greatest essay collections of all time, from the classic to the contemporary, from the personal to the critical. In making our choices, we’ve steered away from posthumous omnibuses (Michel de Montaigne’s Complete Essays , the collected Orwell, etc.) and multi-author compilations, and given what might be undue weight to our favorite writers (as one does). After the jump, our picks for the 25 greatest essay collections of all time. Feel free to disagree with us, praise our intellect, or create an entirely new list in the comments.

The Book of My Lives , Aleksandar Hemon

Hemon’s memoir in essays is in turns wryly hilarious, intellectually searching, and deeply troubling. It’s the life story of a fascinating, quietly brilliant man, and it reads as such. For fans of chess and ill-advised theme parties and growing up more than once.

Slouching Towards Bethlehem , Joan Didion

Well, obviously. Didion’s extraordinary book of essays, expertly surveying both her native California in the 1960s and her own internal landscape with clear eyes and one eyebrow raised ever so slightly. This collection, her first, helped establish the idea of journalism as art, and continues to put wind in the sails of many writers after her, hoping to move in that Didion direction.

Pulphead , John Jeremiah Sullivan

This was one of those books that this writer deemed required reading for all immediate family and friends. Sullivan’s sharply observed essays take us from Christian rock festivals to underground caves to his own home, and introduce us to 19-century geniuses, imagined professors and Axl Rose. Smart, curious, and humane, this is everything an essay collection should be.

The Boys of My Youth , Jo Ann Beard

Another memoir-in-essays, or perhaps just a collection of personal narratives, Jo Ann Beard’s award-winning volume is a masterpiece. Not only does it include the luminous, emotionally destructive “The Fourth State of the Matter,” which we’ve already implored you to read , but also the incredible “Bulldozing the Baby,” which takes on a smaller tragedy: a three-year-old Beard’s separation from her doll Hal. “The gorgeous thing about Hal,” she tells us, “was that not only was he my friend, he was also my slave. I made the majority of our decisions, including the bathtub one, which in retrospect was the beginning of the end.”

Consider the Lobster , David Foster Wallace

This one’s another “duh” moment, at least if you’re a fan of the literary essay. One of the most brilliant essayists of all time, Wallace pushes the boundaries (of the form, of our patience, of his own brain) and comes back with a classic collection of writing on everything from John Updike to, well, lobsters. You’ll laugh out loud right before you rethink your whole life. And then repeat.

Notes of a Native Son , James Baldwin

Baldwin’s most influential work is a witty, passionate portrait of black life and social change in America in the 1940s and early 1950s. His essays, like so many of the greats’, are both incisive social critiques and rigorous investigations into the self, told with a perfect tension between humor and righteous fury.

Naked , David Sedaris

His essays often read more like short stories than they do social criticism (though there’s a healthy, if perhaps implied, dose of that slippery subject), but no one makes us laugh harder or longer. A genius of the form.

Against Interpretation , Susan Sontag

This collection, Sontag’s first, is a dazzling feat of intellectualism. Her essays dissect not only art but the way we think about art, imploring us to “reveal the sensuous surface of art without mucking about in it.” It also contains the brilliant “Notes on ‘Camp,'” one of our all-time favorites.

The Common Reader , Virginia Woolf

Woolf is a literary giant for a reason — she was as incisive and brilliant a critic as she was a novelist. These witty essays, written for the common reader (“He is worse educated, and nature has not gifted him so generously. He reads for his own pleasure rather than to impart knowledge or correct the opinions of others. Above all, he is guided by an instinct to create for himself, out of whatever odds and ends he can come by, some kind of whole- a portrait of a man, a sketch of an age, a theory of the art of writing”), are as illuminating and engrossing as they were when they were written.

Teaching a Stone to Talk , Annie Dillard

This is Dillard’s only book of essays, but boy is it a blazingly good one. The slender volume, filled with examinations of nature both human and not, is deft of thought and tongue, and well worth anyone’s time. As the Chicago Sun-Times ‘s Edward Abbey gushed, “This little book is haloed and informed throughout by Dillard’s distinctive passion and intensity, a sort of intellectual radiance that reminds me both Thoreau and Emily Dickinson.”

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man , Henry Louis Gates Jr.

In this eloquent volume of essays, all but one of which were originally published in the New Yorker , Gates argues against the notion of the singularly representable “black man,” preferring to represent him in a myriad of diverse profiles, from James Baldwin to Colin Powell. Humane, incisive, and satisfyingly journalistic, Gates cobbles together the ultimate portrait of the 20th-century African-American male by refusing to cobble it together, and raises important questions about race and identity even as he entertains.

Otherwise Known As the Human Condition , Geoff Dyer

This book of essays, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award in the year of its publication, covers 25 years of the uncategorizable, inimitable Geoff Dyer’s work — casually erudite and yet liable to fascinate anyone wandering in the door, witty and breathing and full of truth. As Sam Lipsyte said, “You read Dyer for his caustic wit, of course, his exquisite and perceptive crankiness, and his deep and exciting intellectual connections, but from these enthralling rants and cultural investigations there finally emerges another Dyer, a generous seeker of human feeling and experience, a man perhaps closer than he thinks to what he believes his hero Camus achieved: ‘a heart free of bitterness.'”

Art and Ardor , Cynthia Ozick

Look, Cynthia Ozick is a genius. One of David Foster Wallace’s favorite writers, and one of ours, Ozick has no less than seven essay collections to her name, and we could have chosen any one of them, each sharper and more perfectly self-conscious than the last. This one, however, includes her stunner “A Drugstore in Winter,” which was chosen by Joyce Carol Oates for The Best American Essays of the Century , so we’ll go with it.

No More Nice Girls , Ellen Willis

The venerable Ellen Willis was the first pop music critic for The New Yorker , and a rollicking anti-authoritarian, feminist, all-around bad-ass woman who had a hell of a way with words. This collection examines the women’s movement, the plight of the aging radical, race relations, cultural politics, drugs, and Picasso. Among other things.

The War Against Cliché , Martin Amis

As you know if you’ve ever heard him talk , Martin Amis is not only a notorious grouch but a sharp critical mind, particularly when it comes to literature. That quality is on full display in this collection, which spans nearly 30 years and twice as many subjects, from Vladimir Nabokov (his hero) to chess to writing about sex. Love him or hate him, there’s no denying that he’s a brilliant old grump.

Cultural Amnesia: Necessary Memories From History and the Arts , Clive James

James’s collection is a strange beast, not like any other essay collection on this list but its own breed. An encyclopedia of modern culture, the book collects 110 new biographical essays, which provide more than enough room for James to flex his formidable intellect and curiosity, as he wanders off on tangents, anecdotes, and cultural criticism. It’s not the only who’s who you need, but it’s a who’s who you need.

I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman , Nora Ephron

Oh Nora, we miss you. Again, we could have picked any of her collections here — candid, hilarious, and willing to give it to you straight, she’s like a best friend and mentor in one, only much more interesting than any of either you’ve ever had.

Arguably , Christopher Hitchens

No matter what you think of his politics (or his rhetorical strategies), there’s no denying that Christopher Hitchens was one of the most brilliant minds — and one of the most brilliant debaters — of the century. In this collection, packed with cultural commentary, literary journalism, and political writing, he is at his liveliest, his funniest, his exactingly wittiest. He’s also just as caustic as ever.

The Solace of Open Spaces , Gretel Ehrlich

Gretel Ehrlich is a poet, and in this collection, you’ll know it. In 1976, she moved to Wyoming and became a cowherd, and nearly a decade later, she published this lovely, funny set of essays about rural life in the American West.”Keenly observed the world is transformed,” she writes. “The landscape is engorged with detail, every movement on it chillingly sharp. The air between people is charged. Days unfold, bathed in their own music. Nights become hallucinatory; dreams, prescient.”

The Braindead Megaphone , George Saunders

Saunders may be the man of the moment, but he’s been at work for a long while, and not only on his celebrated short stories. His single collection of essays applies the same humor and deliciously slant view to the real world — which manages to display nearly as much absurdity as one of his trademark stories.

Against Joie de Vivre , Phillip Lopate

“Over the years,” the title essay begins, “I have developed a distaste for the spectacle of joie de vivre , the knack of knowing how to live.” Lopate goes on to dissect, in pleasantly sardonic terms, the modern dinner party. Smart and thought-provoking throughout (and not as crotchety as all that), this collection is conversational but weighty, something to be discussed at length with friends at your next — oh well, you know.

Sex and the River Styx , Edward Hoagland

Edward Hoagland, who John Updike deemed “the best essayist of my generation,” has a long and storied career and a fat bibliography, so we hesitate to choose such a recent installment in the writer’s canon. Then again, Garrison Keillor thinks it’s his best yet , so perhaps we’re not far off. Hoagland is a great nature writer (name checked by many as the modern Thoreau) but in truth, he’s just as fascinated by humanity, musing that “human nature is interstitial with nature, and not to be shunned by a naturalist.” Elegant and thoughtful, Hoagland may warn us that he’s heading towards the River Styx, but we’ll hang on to him a while longer.

Changing My Mind , Zadie Smith

Smith may be best known for her novels (and she should be), but to our eyes she is also emerging as an excellent essayist in her own right, passionate and thoughtful. Plus, any essay collection that talks about Barack Obama via Pygmalion is a winner in our book.

My Misspent Youth , Meghan Daum

Like so many other writers on this list, Daum dives head first into the culture and comes up with meat in her mouth. Her voice is fresh and her narratives daring, honest and endlessly entertaining.

The White Album , Joan Didion

Yes, Joan Didion is on this list twice, because Joan Didion is the master of the modern essay, tearing at our assumptions and building our world in brisk, clever strokes. Deal.

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The Ten Best American Essays Since 1950, According to Robert Atwan

in Books , Literature | November 15th, 2012 3 Comments

“Essays can be lots of things, maybe too many things,” writes Atwan in his fore­ward to the 2012 install­ment in the Best Amer­i­can series, “but at the core of the genre is an unmis­tak­able recep­tiv­i­ty to the ever-shift­ing process­es of our minds and moods. If there is any essen­tial char­ac­ter­is­tic we can attribute to the essay, it may be this: that the truest exam­ples of the form enact that ever-shift­ing process, and in that enact­ment we can find the basis for the essay’s qual­i­fi­ca­tion to be regard­ed seri­ous­ly as imag­i­na­tive lit­er­a­ture and the essay­ist’s claim to be tak­en seri­ous­ly as a cre­ative writer.”

In 2001 Atwan and Joyce Car­ol Oates took on the daunt­ing task of trac­ing that ever-shift­ing process through the pre­vi­ous 100 years for  The Best Amer­i­can Essays of the Cen­tu­ry . Recent­ly Atwan returned with a more focused selec­tion for  Pub­lish­ers Week­ly :  “The Top 10 Essays Since 1950.”  To pare it all down to such a small num­ber, Atwan decid­ed to reserve the “New Jour­nal­ism” cat­e­go­ry, with its many mem­o­rable works by Tom Wolfe, Gay Talese, Michael Herr and oth­ers, for some future list. He also made a point of select­ing the best essays , as opposed to exam­ples from the best essay­ists. “A list of the top ten essay­ists since 1950 would fea­ture some dif­fer­ent writ­ers.”

We were inter­est­ed to see that six of the ten best essays are avail­able for free read­ing online. Here is Atwan’s list, along with links to those essays that are on the Web:

• James Bald­win, “Notes of a Native Son,” 1955 (Read it here .)
• Nor­man Mail­er, “The White Negro,” 1957 (Read it here .)
• Susan Son­tag, “Notes on ‘Camp,’ ” 1964 (Read it here .)
• John McPhee, “The Search for Mar­vin Gar­dens,” 1972 (Read it here with a sub­scrip­tion.)
• Joan Did­ion, “The White Album,” 1979
• Annie Dil­lard, “Total Eclipse,” 1982
• Phillip Lopate, “Against Joie de Vivre,” 1986 (Read it here .)
• Edward Hoagland, “Heav­en and Nature,” 1988
• Jo Ann Beard, “The Fourth State of Mat­ter,” 1996 (Read it here .)
• David Fos­ter Wal­lace, “Con­sid­er the Lob­ster,” 2004 (Read it here  in a ver­sion dif­fer­ent from the one pub­lished in his 2005 book of the same name.)

“To my mind,” writes Atwan in his arti­cle, “the best essays are deeply per­son­al (that does­n’t nec­es­sar­i­ly mean auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal) and deeply engaged with issues and ideas. And the best essays show that the name of the genre is also a verb, so they demon­strate a mind in process–reflecting, try­ing-out, essay­ing.”

To read more of Atwan’s com­men­tary, see his  arti­cle in Pub­lish­ers Week­ly .

The pho­to above of Susan Son­tag was tak­en by Peter Hujar in 1966.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

30 Free Essays & Sto­ries by David Fos­ter Wal­lace on the Web

by Mike Springer | Permalink | Comments (3) |

Related posts:

Comments (3), 3 comments so far.

Check out Michael Ven­tu­ra’s HEAR THAT LONG SNAKE MOAN: The VooDoo Ori­gins of Rock n’ Roll

Wow I think there’s oth­er greater ones out there. Just need to find them.

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The 75+ Best Essayists Of All Time, Ranked

Vote up the absolute greatest essayists.

Michel de Montaigne

George Orwell

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Francis Bacon

James Baldwin

Samuel Johnson

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The Top 10 Essays Since 1950

Robert Atwan, the founder of The Best American Essays series, picks the 10 best essays of the postwar period. Links to the essays are provided when available.

Fortunately, when I worked with Joyce Carol Oates on The Best American Essays of the Century (that’s the last century, by the way), we weren’t restricted to ten selections. So to make my list of the top ten essays since 1950 less impossible, I decided to exclude all the great examples of New Journalism--Tom Wolfe, Gay Talese, Michael Herr, and many others can be reserved for another list. I also decided to include only American writers, so such outstanding English-language essayists as Chris Arthur and Tim Robinson are missing, though they have appeared in The Best American Essays series. And I selected essays , not essayists . A list of the top ten essayists since 1950 would feature some different writers.

To my mind, the best essays are deeply personal (that doesn’t necessarily mean autobiographical) and deeply engaged with issues and ideas. And the best essays show that the name of the genre is also a verb, so they demonstrate a mind in process--reflecting, trying-out, essaying.

James Baldwin, "Notes of a Native Son" (originally appeared in Harper’s , 1955)

“I had never thought of myself as an essayist,” wrote James Baldwin, who was finishing his novel Giovanni’s Room while he worked on what would become one of the great American essays. Against a violent historical background, Baldwin recalls his deeply troubled relationship with his father and explores his growing awareness of himself as a black American. Some today may question the relevance of the essay in our brave new “post-racial” world, though Baldwin considered the essay still relevant in 1984 and, had he lived to see it, the election of Barak Obama may not have changed his mind. However you view the racial politics, the prose is undeniably hypnotic, beautifully modulated and yet full of urgency. Langston Hughes nailed it when he described Baldwin’s “illuminating intensity.” The essay was collected in Notes of a Native Son courageously (at the time) published by Beacon Press in 1955.

Norman Mailer, "The White Negro" (originally appeared in Dissent , 1957)

An essay that packed an enormous wallop at the time may make some of us cringe today with its hyperbolic dialectics and hyperventilated metaphysics. But Mailer’s attempt to define the “hipster”–in what reads in part like a prose version of Ginsberg’s “Howl”–is suddenly relevant again, as new essays keep appearing with a similar definitional purpose, though no one would mistake Mailer’s hipster (“a philosophical psychopath”) for the ones we now find in Mailer’s old Brooklyn neighborhoods. Odd, how terms can bounce back into life with an entirely different set of connotations. What might Mailer call the new hipsters? Squares?

Read the essay here .

Susan Sontag, "Notes on 'Camp'" (originally appeared in Partisan Review , 1964)

Like Mailer’s “White Negro,” Sontag’s groundbreaking essay was an ambitious attempt to define a modern sensibility, in this case “camp,” a word that was then almost exclusively associated with the gay world. I was familiar with it as an undergraduate, hearing it used often by a set of friends, department store window decorators in Manhattan. Before I heard Sontag—thirty-one, glamorous, dressed entirely in black-- read the essay on publication at a Partisan Review gathering, I had simply interpreted “campy” as an exaggerated style or over-the-top behavior. But after Sontag unpacked the concept, with the help of Oscar Wilde, I began to see the cultural world in a different light. “The whole point of camp,” she writes, “is to dethrone the serious.” Her essay, collected in Against Interpretation (1966), is not in itself an example of camp.

John McPhee, "The Search for Marvin Gardens" (originally appeared in The New Yorker , 1972)

“Go. I roll the dice—a six and a two. Through the air I move my token, the flatiron, to Vermont Avenue, where dog packs range.” And so we move, in this brilliantly conceived essay, from a series of Monopoly games to a decaying Atlantic City, the once renowned resort town that inspired America’s most popular board game. As the games progress and as properties are rapidly snapped up, McPhee juxtaposes the well-known sites on the board—Atlantic Avenue, Park Place—with actual visits to their crumbling locations. He goes to jail, not just in the game but in fact, portraying what life has now become in a city that in better days was a Boardwalk Empire. At essay’s end, he finds the elusive Marvin Gardens. The essay was collected in Pieces of the Frame (1975).

Read the essay here (subscription required).

Joan Didion, "The White Album" (originally appeared in New West , 1979)

Huey Newton, Eldridge Cleaver, and the Black Panthers, a recording session with Jim Morrison and the Doors, the San Francisco State riots, the Manson murders—all of these, and much more, figure prominently in Didion’s brilliant mosaic distillation (or phantasmagoric album) of California life in the late 1960s. Yet despite a cast of characters larger than most Hollywood epics, “The White Album” is a highly personal essay, right down to Didion’s report of her psychiatric tests as an outpatient in a Santa Monica hospital in the summer of 1968. “We tell ourselves stories in order to live,” the essay famously begins, and as it progresses nervously through cuts and flashes of reportage, with transcripts, interviews, and testimonies, we realize that all of our stories are questionable, “the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images.” Portions of the essay appeared in installments in 1968-69 but it wasn’t until 1979 that Didion published the complete essay in New West magazine; it then became the lead essay of her book, The White Album (1979).

Annie Dillard, "Total Eclipse" (originally appeared in Antaeus , 1982)

In her introduction to The Best American Essays 1988 , Annie Dillard claims that “The essay can do everything a poem can do, and everything a short story can do—everything but fake it.” Her essay “Total Eclipse” easily makes her case for the imaginative power of a genre that is still undervalued as a branch of imaginative literature. “Total Eclipse” has it all—the climactic intensity of short fiction, the interwoven imagery of poetry, and the meditative dynamics of the personal essay: “This was the universe about which we have read so much and never before felt: the universe as a clockwork of loose spheres flung at stupefying, unauthorized speeds.” The essay, which first appeared in Antaeus in 1982 was collected in Teaching a Stone to Talk (1982), a slim volume that ranks among the best essay collections of the past fifty years.

Phillip Lopate, "Against Joie de Vivre" (originally appeared in Ploughshares , 1986)

This is an essay that made me glad I’d started The Best American Essays the year before. I’d been looking for essays that grew out of a vibrant Montaignean spirit—personal essays that were witty, conversational, reflective, confessional, and yet always about something worth discussing. And here was exactly what I’d been looking for. I might have found such writing several decades earlier but in the 80s it was relatively rare; Lopate had found a creative way to insert the old familiar essay into the contemporary world: “Over the years,” Lopate begins, “I have developed a distaste for the spectacle of joie de vivre , the knack of knowing how to live.” He goes on to dissect in comic yet astute detail the rituals of the modern dinner party. The essay was selected by Gay Talese for The Best American Essays 1987 and collected in Against Joie de Vivre in 1989 .

Edward Hoagland, "Heaven and Nature" (originally appeared in Harper’s, 1988)

“The best essayist of my generation,” is how John Updike described Edward Hoagland, who must be one of the most prolific essayists of our time as well. “Essays,” Hoagland wrote, “are how we speak to one another in print—caroming thoughts not merely in order to convey a certain packet of information, but with a special edge or bounce of personal character in a kind of public letter.” I could easily have selected many other Hoagland essays for this list (such as “The Courage of Turtles”), but I’m especially fond of “Heaven and Nature,” which shows Hoagland at his best, balancing the public and private, the well-crafted general observation with the clinching vivid example. The essay, selected by Geoffrey Wolff for The Best American Essays 1989 and collected in Heart’s Desire (1988), is an unforgettable meditation not so much on suicide as on how we remarkably manage to stay alive.

Jo Ann Beard, "The Fourth State of Matter" (originally appeared in The New Yorker , 1996)

A question for nonfiction writing students: When writing a true story based on actual events, how does the narrator create dramatic tension when most readers can be expected to know what happens in the end? To see how skillfully this can be done turn to Jo Ann Beard’s astonishing personal story about a graduate student’s murderous rampage on the University of Iowa campus in 1991. “Plasma is the fourth state of matter,” writes Beard, who worked in the U of I’s physics department at the time of the incident, “You’ve got your solid, your liquid, your gas, and there’s your plasma. In outer space there’s the plasmasphere and the plasmapause.” Besides plasma, in this emotion-packed essay you will find entangled in all the tension a lovable, dying collie, invasive squirrels, an estranged husband, the seriously disturbed gunman, and his victims, one of them among the author’s dearest friends. Selected by Ian Frazier for The Best American Essays 1997 , the essay was collected in Beard’s award-winning volume, The Boys of My Youth (1998).

David Foster Wallace, "Consider the Lobster" (originally appeared in Gourmet , 2004)

They may at first look like magazine articles—those factually-driven, expansive pieces on the Illinois State Fair, a luxury cruise ship, the adult video awards, or John McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign—but once you uncover the disguise and get inside them you are in the midst of essayistic genius. One of David Foster Wallace’s shortest and most essayistic is his “coverage” of the annual Maine Lobster Festival, “Consider the Lobster.” The Festival becomes much more than an occasion to observe “the World’s Largest Lobster Cooker” in action as Wallace poses an uncomfortable question to readers of the upscale food magazine: “Is it all right to boil a sentient creature alive just for our gustatory pleasure?” Don’t gloss over the footnotes. Susan Orlean selected the essay for The Best American Essays 2004 and Wallace collected it in Consider the Lobster and Other Essays (2005).

Read the essay here . (Note: the electronic version from Gourmet magazine’s archives differs from the essay that appears in The Best American Essays and in his book, Consider the Lobster. )

I wish I could include twenty more essays but these ten in themselves comprise a wonderful and wide-ranging mini-anthology, one that showcases some of the most outstanding literary voices of our time. Readers who’d like to see more of the best essays since 1950 should take a look at The Best American Essays of the Century (2000).

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Essay Papers Writing Online

The ultimate guide to finding the best essays for your academic success.

Essays are a powerful form of expression that can captivate readers with their profound insights, emotional resonance, and thought-provoking ideas. Whether you’re a literature enthusiast, a writing aficionado, or simply someone looking for inspiration, delving into some of the best essays ever written can be a transformative experience.

From the timeless wisdom of Ralph Waldo Emerson to the sharp wit of Joan Didion, the world of essays is filled with gems that offer a window into the human experience. These top 10 essays have stood the test of time and continue to resonate with readers across generations, sparking conversations and inspiring new perspectives on life, love, society, and the world at large.

Join us on a journey through the literary landscape as we explore the beauty and brilliance of the best essays ever penned by some of the most celebrated writers in history. Each essay is a unique masterpiece that merits your attention and reflection, offering a glimpse into the minds of the authors and the complexities of the human condition. So sit back, relax, and prepare to embark on an enlightening voyage through the world of the best essays you need to read right now.

Must-Read Essays You Can’t Miss

If you’re looking for thought-provoking essays that will challenge your perspectives and ignite your imagination, look no further. Here are some must-read essays that will stay with you long after you’ve finished reading:

• “Self-Reliance” by Ralph Waldo Emerson : Emerson’s essay on individualism and self-reliance is a timeless classic that encourages readers to trust their own instincts and beliefs.
• “The Souls of Black Folk” by W.E.B. Du Bois : Du Bois’ seminal work explores the experiences of African Americans in post-Civil War America and the concept of double consciousness.
• “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell : In this essay, Orwell reflects on the moral dilemma he faced while serving as a colonial police officer in Burma.
• “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience” by Henry David Thoreau : Thoreau’s essay advocates for the importance of individual conscience and peaceful resistance to unjust laws.
• “The Myth of Sisyphus” by Albert Camus : Camus’ philosophical essay delves into the concept of existential absurdity and the search for meaning in an indifferent universe.

These essays offer profound insights into the human experience and are essential reading for anyone interested in philosophy, social justice, and personal growth.

Thought-Provoking Essays Worth Your Time

• The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus
• Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
• The Death of the Moth by Virginia Woolf
• The Uncanny by Sigmund Freud
• On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau
• The Death of the Author by Roland Barthes
• The Will to Believe by William James
• Politics and the English Language by George Orwell
• The Subjection of Women by John Stuart Mill
• The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois

Insightful Essays for Intellectual Growth

Intellectual growth is a lifelong journey, and reading insightful essays can significantly contribute to this process. The following essays offer thought-provoking perspectives and valuable insights that can inspire critical thinking and expand one’s intellectual horizons.

1. “Self-Reliance” by Ralph Waldo Emerson : This classic essay explores the importance of individualism and self-reliance in society.

2. “On Liberty” by John Stuart Mill : Mill’s essay delves into the principles of liberty and the limits of government intervention in individual freedom.

3. “The Souls of Black Folk” by W.E.B. Du Bois : Du Bois’ collection of essays examines race relations and the struggle for equality in America.

4. “A Room of One’s Own” by Virginia Woolf : Woolf’s essay discusses the challenges faced by women in the literary world and the importance of creative independence.

5. “Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman : While not a traditional essay, Kahneman’s book explores the cognitive processes that influence decision-making and offers valuable insights into human behavior.

6. “Politics and the English Language” by George Orwell : Orwell’s essay examines the relationship between politics and language, highlighting the impact of language on thought and communication.

7. “The Myth of Sisyphus” by Albert Camus : Camus’ philosophical essay explores the concept of the absurd and the search for meaning in a seemingly indifferent universe.

8. “The Fire Next Time” by James Baldwin : Baldwin’s essays confront issues of racial discrimination and social injustice in America, offering powerful reflections on the African American experience.

9. “Women Who Run with the Wolves” by Clarissa Pinkola Estés : Estés’ collection of essays explores the archetype of the wild woman and the journey of self-discovery and empowerment.

10. “The Interpretation of Dreams” by Sigmund Freud : Freud’s seminal work on dream analysis and the unconscious mind revolutionized the field of psychology and continues to influence modern thought.

Mind-Blowing Essays That Will Change Your Perspective

Are you ready to have your mind expanded and your perspective shifted? These essays are guaranteed to challenge your thinking and open your eyes to new ideas.

1. “Self-Reliance” by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson’s essay challenges readers to trust in themselves and follow their own path, rather than conforming to societal expectations.

2. “A Room of One’s Own” by Virginia Woolf

Woolf’s feminist essay explores the importance of independence and autonomy for women in a male-dominated society.

3. “Civil Disobedience” by Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau’s essay advocates for nonviolent resistance to unjust laws and government actions, inspiring generations of activists.

4. “The Opposite of Loneliness” by Marina Keegan

Keegan’s poignant essay reflects on the fleeting nature of life and the importance of cherishing every moment.

5. “The Death of the Moth” by Virginia Woolf

In this essay, Woolf contemplates the transience of life and the beauty that can be found in even the smallest moments.

6. “Consider the Lobster” by David Foster Wallace

Wallace’s essay explores the ethics of eating lobster and prompts readers to question their own consumption habits.

7. “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell

Orwell’s essay grapples with the moral complexities of imperialism and the power dynamics inherent in colonial rule.

8. “The Fourth State of Matter” by Jo Ann Beard

This moving essay explores themes of loss, grief, and resilience in the aftermath of a tragic event.

9. “The Myth of Sisyphus” by Albert Camus

Camus’ philosophical essay contemplates the absurdity of human existence and the search for meaning in an indifferent universe.

10. “The Solitude of Self” by Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Stanton’s essay celebrates the power of individual autonomy and self-reliance, particularly for women in a patriarchal society.

These essays are sure to challenge your beliefs, spark new insights, and leave you pondering the mysteries of life. Prepare to be amazed and inspired by the transformative power of these mind-blowing works.

Engaging Essays That Capture Your Imagination

When it comes to literature and intellectual discourse, some essays have the unique ability to captivate readers and spark their imagination. These captivating essays explore a wide array of topics, from personal reflections to societal critiques, and everything in between. Here are a few remarkable essays that are sure to inspire and engage:

1. “Self-Reliance” by Ralph Waldo Emerson – An empowering essay that encourages readers to trust their own instincts and beliefs.

2. “A Room of One’s Own” by Virginia Woolf – A feminist essay that delves into the importance of women having independence and creative spaces.

3. “Consider the Lobster” by David Foster Wallace – A thought-provoking essay that questions the morality of eating animals.

4. “Slouching Towards Bethlehem” by Joan Didion – A collection of essays that provide a poignant snapshot of American society in the 1960s.

5. “The Souls of Black Folk” by W.E.B. Du Bois – An insightful essay that examines the African American experience in post-Civil War America.

6. “On Photography” by Susan Sontag – A groundbreaking essay that explores the cultural implications of photography.

7. “In Praise of Shadows” by Jun’ichirō Tanizaki – An evocative essay that celebrates the beauty of imperfection and darkness.

8. “The Empathy Exams” by Leslie Jamison – A compelling essay collection that delves into the complexities of human emotions and connections.

9. “Nature” by Ralph Waldo Emerson – An enlightening essay that celebrates the beauty and power of the natural world.

10. “Slavery by Another Name” by Douglas A. Blackmon – An eye-opening essay that uncovers the hidden history of forced labor after the Civil War.

These engaging essays offer unique perspectives and insights that will leave readers pondering long after they’ve finished reading.

Inspirational Essays to Motivate and Inspire You

1. The Power of Belief: Unlocking Your Potential

Discover how belief in yourself and your abilities can lead to incredible achievements.

2. Embracing Failure: Lessons in Resilience

Learn how failure can be a stepping stone to success and how resilience can help you bounce back stronger.

3. The Path to Inner Peace: Embracing Mindfulness

Explore the benefits of mindfulness and how it can lead to a more peaceful and fulfilling life.

4. Overcoming Adversity: Finding Strength in Challenges

Find inspiration in stories of individuals who have overcome tremendous adversity and emerged stronger.

5. The Beauty of Imperfection: Embracing Your Flaws

Discover the beauty in imperfection and how embracing your flaws can lead to self-acceptance and happiness.

Entertaining Essays That Will Keep You Hooked from Start to Finish

• The Joy of Eating by M.F.K. Fisher
• On Keeping a Notebook by Joan Didion
• Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace
• Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell
• Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
• How to Be an Other Woman by Lorrie Moore
• The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
• Against Interpretation by Susan Sontag
• The Braindead Megaphone by George Saunders
• This Is Water by David Foster Wallace

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84 Best Essay Writing Books of All Time

We've researched and ranked the best essay writing books in the world, based on recommendations from world experts, sales data, and millions of reader ratings. Learn more

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Milan Kundera | 5.00

Evan Spiegel [Evan Spiegel said this was his favorite book.] (Source)

Iulia Ghita I like Milan Kundera’s books with his philosophical digressions that sometimes remind me of my own dilemmas, with The Unbearable Lightness of Being as my favourite. I find Kundera’s stories awfully sad, but yet so real, so close to human nature. I admit, I’m not a fan of happy endings, I prefer thought provoking endings. (Source)

Carlos Eire The title, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, comes from the main character’s obsession with the fact that all we have is the now, nothing else except the ever-moving now. (Source)

See more recommendations for this book...

The Writing Strategies Book

Your Everything Guide to Developing Skilled Writers

Jennifer Serravallo | 4.99

So You Want to Talk About Race

Ijeoma Oluo | 4.99

Mike Monteiro LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS BOOK! https://t.co/x3jxCD3q7g (Source)

Sarah Parcak @PJR23 @IjeomaOluo Amazing book! (Source)

Imani Gandy Corn I’m not really kidding. Ijeoma’s book is great for white people—because seriously, get a clue—but it’s also great for Black people who are sick and tired of trying to talk about race with clueless white people and end up frustrated and wanting to stab everything in sight. (Source)

The Hate U Give

Angie Thomas | 4.98

Bianca Belair For #BlackHistoryMonth  I will be sharing some of my favorite books by Black Authors 7th Book: The Hate U Give By: Angie Thomas @angiecthomas The movie was really great, but it just hits different when you read the book! https://t.co/rxMH5Uu6JN (Source)

How to Read Literature Like a Professor

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In this practical and amusing guide to literature, Thomas C. Foster shows how easy and gratifying it is to unlock those hidden truths, and to discover a world where a road leads to a quest; a shared meal may...

In this practical and amusing guide to literature, Thomas C. Foster shows how easy and gratifying it is to unlock those hidden truths, and to discover a world where a road leads to a quest; a shared meal may signify a communion; and rain, whether cleansing or destructive, is never just rain. Ranging from major themes to literary models, narrative devices, and form, How to Read Literature Like a Professor is the perfect companion for making your reading experience more enriching, satisfying, and fun.

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James Meek It has different layers. The set-up is that Kublai Khan has conquered this vast empire; an empire so large that he, sitting at the centre of it, cannot know all the many parts of it. He can’t visit them, he can’t see them, and if he goes to one part all the other parts have changed. So he sits there at the centre of his empire and Marco Polo travels around and visits the various cities and comes... (Source)

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Longreads Best of 2020: Essays

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All through December, we’re featuring Longreads’ Best of 2020. This year, our editors picked and featured hundreds of beautifully written and poignant essays published on the web. Because of the wide range of writing across many topics and themes, it was a challenge to sift through them all over the past several weeks to compile a definitive Best of Essays list. As I shortlisted stories, I realized there could be many different versions of this list, but, in the end, these eight reads really spoke to me.

If you like these, you can  sign up to receive our weekly email every Friday .

Mississippi: A Poem, in Days (Kiese Makeba Laymon, Vanity Fair )

Kiese Makeba Laymon was on a book tour when the pandemic hit in the U.S. In this stunner of a piece that unfolds over 14 days, the author writes on fear, racism, death, and home amid a moment of awakening. We follow along on the journey, from event to event in Ohio and West Virginia, with Laymon’s observations and thoughts interspersed with daily COVID-19 death counts and the latest words or orders from Donald Trump and Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves. It’s a powerful meditation, one that will stop you in your tracks.

We are awakened, I want to believe. 75 miles from the armed confederate statue in Oxford, Emmett Till’s childish body was destroyed. 70 miles from that armed confederate statue, Fannie Lou Hamer was nearly beaten to death. 160 miles from that armed confederate statue, Medgar Evers was murdered as he enters his home. 80 miles from that armed confederate statue, Martin Luther King was murdered in Memphis. It took way too much Black death to get here. I am wandering around the spiritual consequences of materially progressing at the expense of Black death. I want to be courageous. I wonder, though, when courage becomes contagious—when courage is credentialized, subsidized, and incentivized—if it is still courage at all. Today, as I prepare to push send, and I lather my hands in sanitizer, it feels a bit too much like cowardice. Maybe I’ll wait to send tomorrow. Maybe I won’t send at all. The Lafayette County Board of Supervisors, a group of white men, unanimously vote to keep the armed confederate monument in the middle of Oxford, the town where I live, teach, and write. Humiliation, agony, and death, are what I feel. It could all be so much worse, is what the worst of white folks want us to recite.

Molly (Blake Butler, The Volta )

December’s special issue of The Volta is dedicated to the late poet Molly Brodak, and Brodak’s husband, Blake Butler, writes an incredibly moving essay to remember and honor her. In “Molly,” he weaves an intimate portrait of his late wife — and the details, textures, and expanse of their relationship –with so much love and care. Grab a tissue before sitting down to read it.

Making her laugh made me feel alive, like I’d really accomplished something. She wanted to laugh, I think, despite a widening parcel in her telling her that laughter in a world like ours was for fools. When I think the sound of it now, it reminds me of a bird trapped in a ballroom, looking for anywhere to land.

But there was always something still there underneath that, shredding its pasture—parts of her so dark and displaced I cannot find them anywhere touching the rest of how she was. The story, like all stories, holds no true shape. And that’s exactly what it wants—the pain—it wants more blank to feed the pain with, to fill the space up. It wants us all.

Then, in her poem, “Horse and Cart,” one of the last she ever wrote: “I can’t even imagine a horse / anymore. / That we sat on their spines / and yanked their mouths around.” The gears of her mind, as she grew tired, wore down even these good times, seeking further ways to break them up, send her away.

I Cry for the Mountains: A Legacy Lost (Dave Daley, Chico Enterprise-Record )

California experienced another unprecedented wildfire season this year; a number of fire complexes burned throughout the state, including the massive North Complex Fire that started in August and burned in Northern California’s Plumas and Butte counties. Rancher Dave Daley offers a devastating account of the destruction of his family’s cattle range in Plumas National Forest, and a passionate plea to legislators and regulators to ultimately listen to the land and the locals when it comes to forest management. Daley originally posted this account on Facebook; his followers recommended that the Chico Enterprise-Record  reprint it for a wider audience.

I cry for the forest, the trees and streams, and the horrible deaths suffered by the wildlife and our cattle. The suffering was unimaginable. When you find groups of cows and their baby calves tumbled in a ravine trying to escape, burned almost beyond recognition or a fawn and small calf side by side as if hoping to protect one another, you try not to wretch. You only pray death was swift. Worse, in searing memory, cows with their hooves, udder and even legs burned off still alive who had to be euthanized. A doe lying in the ashes with three fawns, not all hers I bet. And you are glad they can stand and move, even with a limp, because you really cannot imagine any more death today.

For those of you on the right blaming the left and California, these are National Forest lands that are “managed” by the feds. They have failed miserably over the past 50 years. Smokey the Bear was the cruelest joke ever played on the western landscape, a decades long campaign to prevent forest fires has resulted in mega-fires of a scope we’ve never seen. Thanks, Smokey.

I get frustrated with experts and consultants who drive by and “know just what to do.” For 35 years I have attended conferences, given presentations and listened. What I have learned is solutions are local and specific. What happens in one watershed in Plumas or Butte County may be entirely different in the Lassen National Forest just next door. But experts of all kinds are glad to tell you how to do it. “Let’s prescribe graze, use virtual fences, change your timing, change your genetics.” Prescribe graze the forest and canyons? Yea. Right. They don’t know what they don’t know but they will take the honorarium anyway and have a great dinner on your dime. The locals and land rarely benefit.

How My Mother and I Became Chinese Propaganda (Jiayang Fa n , The New Yorker )

Jiayang Fan pens a masterful piece of personal history, on her mother and their relationship, identity, family, propaganda and social media, and chronic illness (her mother has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS) . Fan recounts her struggle to help her mother get hospital care during New York’s COVID-19 crisis, all while going viral and facing threats on social media, calling her a criminal and a traitor to China. She tells a complicated and very personal story, one of loyalty and love, with strength and eloquence.

My mother has always knelt at the altar of  mianzi , an aspiration of which A.L.S. makes a spectacular mockery. You may think it’s embarrassing to slur your speech and limp, but wait until you are being spoon-fed and pushed around in a wheelchair—all of which will seem trivial once you can no longer wash or wipe yourself. The progress of the disease is a forced march toward the vanishing point of  mianzi . When my mother was first given her diagnosis, she became obsessed with the idea of why—why her, why now, and, above all, why an illness that would subject her to the kind of public humiliation she feared more than death itself. When she could still operate her first-generation iPad, my mother gave me a contact list of everyone she was still in touch with in China, and told me that, except for her siblings, no one must know of her affliction. Such self-imposed isolation seemed like madness to me, but she preferred to cut friends out of her life rather than admit to the indignity of her compromised state. Her body’s insurrection, my mother believes, is her punishment for her prideful strivings in America.

At the beginning of the pandemic, I had read that a virus is neither dead nor alive, and replicates only in the shelter of a host organism. I began to think of “Jiayang Fan” as viral not in a social-media sense but in a biological one; the calamitous state of the world and certain random mutations in the story had made it unexpectedly contagious. My original posts had served their purpose; now they were serving the purposes of others. I had unwittingly bred a potent piece of propaganda.

The Promise That Tested My Parents Until the End (Christopher Solomon, GQ )

Don’t you ever put me in one of those places,  she said. Don’t put  me  in one of those places,  my father replied.

Christopher Solomon’s parents made a pledge to one another. But what did that actually look like over time, especially when his father became sick? What does unconditional love and devotion look like in our own lives? Solomon writes an honest and heartbreaking essay on love, aging, and marriage — in sickness and in health.

In time what was imperceptible in him became noticeable, and then what was noticeable became something worse. The landscape of my father changed, the coastline eroded. There was less of him, until the old map of my father no longer fit the man before us. It has been 20 years now since he was diagnosed, and sometimes it is hard to remember a time that he was not sick. His speech became a gargle of consonants. The dementia took most of his mind. His body curled in on itself—shrinking, reducing, as if he were becoming an infant again. Despite this, for years he still played the piano, every day, and nearly as well as ever—the mysteryland of the brain permitting this freedom even as body, and mind, crumbled around him. My mother would sing along from the kitchen, as she always had. And then one day, after I arrive home, my mother sounds more concerned than usual.  He has stopped playing the piano,  she says. This seems to worry her more than anything else.

Finally, exhausted, she relents. She drives to visit a nearby nursing home. Afterward she cries in the parking lot. She cries for what she sees there. She cries at the prospect of breaking the Promise. She cries because even though almost nothing remains of her husband—even though he is the cause of her sleepless nights and her tendinitis and her bruises and her anger—in 55 years she rarely has been apart from him. She loves even the scrap of him that remains. He is half of the story they share, of the red VW Beetle and the sunstruck Italian patios and the singalongs and the three towheaded children. As long as he is here, their story, however unlikely, is not yet over. She cries because the end of him is the end of a possibility. And I think, not for the first time, how little I still know about love.

Kamala Harris, Mass Incarceration and Me (Reginald Dwayne Betts, The New York Times Magazine )

“The prosecutor’s job, unlike the defense attorney’s or judge’s, is to do justice. What does that mean when you are asked by some to dole out retribution measured in years served, but blamed by others for the damage incarceration can do?” In this nuanced reported essay about mass incarceration in the U.S., Reginald Dwayne Betts reveals “our contradictory impulses” around crime, punishment, and the justice system. And he knows these impulses well, as both a felon and a son to a woman who was raped by a Black man.

But I know that on the other end of our prison sentences was always someone weeping. During the middle of Harris’s presidential campaign, a friend referred me to a woman with a story about Senator Harris that she felt I needed to hear. Years ago, this woman’s sister had been missing for days, and the police had done little. Happenstance gave this woman an audience with then-Attorney General Harris. A coordinated multicity search followed. The sister had been murdered; her body was found in a ravine. The woman told me that “Kamala understands the politics of victimization as well as anyone who has been in the system, which is that this kind of case — a 50-year-old Black woman gone missing or found dead — ordinarily does not get any resources put toward it.” They caught the man who murdered her sister, and he was sentenced to 131 years. I think about the man who assaulted my mother, a serial rapist, because his case makes me struggle with questions of violence and vengeance and justice. And I stop thinking about it. I am inconsistent. I want my friends out, but I know there is no one who can convince me that this man shouldn’t spend the rest of his life in prison.

Safe at Home in Los Angeles (Lynell George, High Country News )

Lynell George’s beautiful read exemplifies what I love about writing on place and home. A native of Los Angeles, George builds and shapes a complex L.A. in her piece: a “city of contradictions,” an elusive, ever-shifting place “built on either impermanence or illusion.” It’s a sensory and richly textured portrait of a vast place, looking at Los Angeles through a sort of kaleidoscope lens of gentrification, nature, and the pandemic lockdown.

Los Angeles has long been a contested domain — both as territory (from the Indigenous Tongva onward) and as emblem. Boosters, speculators and swindlers have had their way not just with the land but with the very image of Los Angeles. The city grew, like an opportunistic vine. It couldn’t just  be . It had to be bigger than life, better than perfect. Even within my lifetime, popular culture has conjured a vision of Los Angeles that is sleight-of-hand, a trick of light, brutally at odds with the lived experience. Los Angeles, by its sprawling nature, absolutely resists oversimplification. This, despite its frustrations, irritants and absurdities, is precisely why I remain here.

Those stories of place, the Los Angeles of my childhood and adolescence and young adulthood — the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, ’90s — couldn’t be told until we began to tell them. Until we steadied and raised our voices. Until we made our way through gatekeepers, and most significantly until we were of age and of mind to turn our attention to a shifting definition of the West (or  El Norte ), one that included stories of migration and immigration, of protest, of underemployment, of struggle, and of love and resilience despite disappointment, and in the ways in which we tend to the physical environment, to conserve against drought or be mindful of energy use and emissions. We must tend to the region’s various topographies in narrative. It’s imperative. Or they will be lost. As a chronicler, my responsibility is to try and tell an honest story. True to its roots. Even now, even in this quiet moment in the city, we must remember its cacophony, its music.

My Mustache, My Self (Wesley Morris, The New York Times Magazine )

This essay from Wesley Morris on growing a mustache during the pandemic is about so much more than quarantine-grown facial hair — it’s a brilliant and vulnerable piece on masculinity and race, one in which Morris reflects on becoming himself and considers and celebrates his Blackness.

The mustache had certainly conjoined me to a past I was flattered to be associated with, however superficially. But there were implications. During the later stages of the movement, a mustached man opened himself up to charges of white appeasement and Uncle Tom-ism. Not because of the mustache, obviously, but because of the approach of the sort of person who would choose to wear one. Such a person might not have been considered radical enough, down enough, Black enough. The civil rights mustache was strategically tolerant. It didn’t advocate burning anything down. It ran for office — and sometimes it won. It was establishmentarian, compromising and eventually, come the infernos at the close of the 1960s, it fell out of fashion, in part because it felt out of step with the urgency of the moment.

The Black-power salute is not a casual gesture. It’s weaponry. You aim that arm and fire. I aimed mine in solidarity — with white people instead of at a system they personify. And that didn’t feel quite right. But how would I know? I had never done a Black-power salute. It always seemed like more Blackness than I’ve needed, maybe more than I had. I’m not Black-power Black. I’ve always been milder, more apprehensive than that. I was practically born with a mustache.

Cheri Lucas Rowlands

Cheri has been an editor at Longreads since 2014. She's currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area. More by Cheri Lucas Rowlands

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The decade’s best essay collections, from Zadie Smith to Jia Tolentino

Incisive and exacting, these collections make light work of untangling the last 10 years, writes annabel nugent.

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Between the climate crisis, Brexit and the launch of winter Love Island , it is easy to feel caught in an existential spiderweb, waiting for anxiety (or the onset of World War Three, whichever comes first) to consume you.

But some writers are making light work of untangling the last 10 years. Incisive and exacting, their essays tackle the big and the small – meme culture, Dostoyevsky, Bieber pandemonium, race politics, and the climate crisis are made comprehensible in their hands. These are the essay collections that make any resolution to “read more nonfiction” infinitely more enjoyable.

Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino (2019)

Jia Tolentino rebuffs critics’ claims that she’s the voice of a generation, but after reading Trick Mirror , any other title seems to fall short. The New Yorker staff writer is most astute when deciphering her home ground – the internet. Her best essays talk double-tapping automaton, monetisation and surveillance, and hardcore fans begging their favourite celebrities to kill them. For anyone simultaneously disillusioned and addicted to the perils of modern life, Tolentino’s words will strike a chord.

White Girls by Hilton Als (2013)

Hilton Als cut his teeth on theatre reviews (earning him a Pulitzer Prize in 2017), but the writer’s talents are anything but narrow. Race, class and sexuality coalesce in a collection of essays that opens up American culture for prying eyes. Als writes equally well on Eminem and porn as he does queerness and love. Flannery O’Connor, Michael Jackson and Truman Capote all feature in this politically astute, moving collection.

See What Can be Done by Lorrie Moore (2018)

The title borrows from a phrase that Moore’s editor at The New York Review would use when editing her fiction. See What Can be Done does not simply despair at the state of today, but mines that despair to find some way forward. The master of short stories writes expectedly well on fellow literary greats such as Margaret Atwood , Miranda July and Philip Roth . More surprising is her poetic wrestling with subjects like Barack Obama , HBO’s True Detective and the Republican primary debate. Each chapter offers up enormous wisdom far beyond its bite-sized proportions.

Pulphead by John Jeremiah Sullivan (2011)

John Jeremiah Sullivan takes a scalpel to pop culture and history in Pulphead . Incisive prose on everything from Christian Rock festivals in the Ozarks to Bunny Wailer with vigour and humanity. The son of a reporter and an English teacher, Sullivan writes prose with the qualities of storytelling and the grounding of in-depth research.

Absolutely on Music by Haruki Murakami (2011)

The Japanese author is known for surrealist fiction and running ultra-marathons, but here, he sits down instead with friend and former conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa. What ensues is an enthusiastic and unpretentious discussion on their shared love for classical music. Their metiers are in perfect sync – boring industry topics like mundane bureaucracies and performer personalities are transformed by Murakami’s deft hand. While the subject may be esoteric, its appeal is definitely not.‘

When I Was a Child I Read Books: Essays by Marilynne Robinson (2012)

The list of books by Marilynne Robinson is upsettingly short, but every brilliant word she writes makes up for the scarcity. Robinson’s prose takes on a more exacting frankness in her nonfiction than in her Gilead trilogy. Essays on society and theology sound like a drag, but in this collection they are anything but. The Christian core of her Pulitzer prize-winning fiction comes through more visibly in these essays, but similarly does not have the alienating effect you would expect.

Feel Free by Zadie Smith (2018)

Razor-sharp essays take a long, hard look at topics both large – think intelligent takes on Bieber fever – and very, very small, as in the author’s childhood bathroom. As the title suggests, each essay explores the concept of freedom in all its meanings, but most are concerned with the artistic kind and the act of taking it, whether it’s given to you or not. Smith’s writing is casual and discursive but never rambling. Feel Free champions art as a place where freedom allows for complex issues to be safely explored.

The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them by Elif Batuman (2010)

Elif Batuman makes Russian literature fun. An unapologetic nerd for Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, Batuman’s book is likely to be the best thing that’s happened to the genre in modern times. The Possessed is a biblio-memoir of sorts, tracking the author’s time spent studying Russian lit at Stanford. The New Yorker staff writer fires on all cylinders in a collection of essays more about reading as a way of life than the idiosyncrasies of The Idiot .

All About Love: New Visions by bell hooks (2010)

In this collection, bell hooks moves deftly between affection, respect, commitment, gender stereotypes, domination, ego and aggression. With the help of psychological and philosophical ideas, the author pins down the airiness of love in a ruthless dissection, moments of ecstasy offset by brooding on patriarchal thinking. This collection paves the way for a more universal understanding of love.

This Young Monster by Charlie Fox (2017)

The last decade has birthed monsters of the good, bad and ugly varieties. In his debut novel, art critic Charlie Fox writes on modern monstrosity. In nine essays, Fox pays tribute to the art world’s outsiders. His subjects are diverse, taking on the 19th century poet Rimbaud as impressively as he grapples with The Duffer Brothers’ Stranger Things . This Young Monster is a love letter to those who “rebel against a reality that’s too cruel or boring for them to inhabit”. Fox’s voice is equal parts critical and personal, and always playful.

This Changes Everything: Capitalism v the Climate by Naomi Klein (2014)

Naomi Klein takes no prisoners in this polemic book on climate change. Klein makes a damning argument against powerful right-wing think tanks, lobby groups and corporate elites that have dictated catastrophic environmental policies and contributed to widespread climate change denial. Klein’s writing is forthright in its condemnation of capitalism. This Changes Everything is an urgent read and one that couldn’t be more pertinent than it is today – or tomorrow, and all the days after that.

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Make Lists, Not War

The meta-lists website, best essays of all time – chronological.

A reader suggested I create a meta-list of the best essays of all time, so I did.  I found over 12 best essays lists and several essay anthologies and combined the essays into one meta-list.  The meta-list below includes every essay that was on at least two of the original source lists. They are organized chronologically, by date of publication. For the same list organized by rank, that is, with the essays on the most lists at the top, go HERE .

Note 1:  Some of the essays are actually chapters from books.  In such cases, I have identified the source book.

Note 2: Some of the essays are book-length, such as Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own .  One book listed as an essay by two listers – Fernando Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet – is also regularly categorized as a work of fiction.

11 th Century Sei Shonagon – Hateful Things (from The Pillow Book ) (1002) (on 2 lists)

14 th Century Yoshida Kenko – Essays in Idleness (1332) (on 2 lists)

16 th Century Michel de Montaigne – On Some Verses of Virgil (1580) (on 2 lists)

17 th Century Robert Burton – Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) (on 2 lists) John Milton – Areopagitica (1644) (on 2 lists)

18 th Century Jonathan Swift – A Modest Proposal  (1729) (on 3 lists)

19 th Century William Hazlitt – On Going a Journey (1822) (on 2 lists) Charles Lamb – The Superannuated Man (1823) (on 2 lists) William Hazlitt – On the Pleasure of Hating (1823) (on 4 lists) Ralph Waldo Emerson – Self-Reliance (1841) (on 4 lists) Henry David Thoreau – Civil Disobedience (1849) (on 2 lists) Henry David Thoreau – Where I Lived, and What I Lived For (from  Walden ) (1854) (on 2 lists)Henry David Thoreau – Economy (from  Walden ) (1854) (on 2 lists) Henry David Thoreau – Walking (1861) (on 2 lists) Robert Louis Stevenson – The Lantern-Bearers (1888) (on 2 lists)

20 th Century Zora Neale Hurston – How It Feels to Be Colored Me (1928) (on 2 lists) Virginia Woolf – A Room of One’s Own (1928) (on 4 lists) Virginia Woolf – Street Haunting: A London Adventure (1930) (on 3 lists) George Orwell – A Hanging (1931) (on 2 lists) Junichiro Tanizaki – In Praise of Shadows (1933) (on 2 lists) Fernando Pessoa – The Book of Disquiet (1935) (on 2 lists) George Orwell – Shooting an Elephant (1936) (on 6 lists) E.B. White – Once More to the Lake (1941) (on 6 lists) James Agee and Walker Evans – Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941) (on 2 lists) Virginia Woolf – The Death of a Moth (1942) (on 4 lists) Simone Weil – On Human Personality (1943) (on 2 lists) M.F.K. Fisher – The Flaw (1943) (on 2 lists) Vladimir Nabokov – Speak, Memory (1951, revised 1966) (on 2 lists) George Orwell – Such, Such Were the Joys (1952) (on 4 lists) Mary McCarthy – Artists in Uniform: A Story (1953) (on 2 lists) James Baldwin – Notes of a Native Son (1955) (on 11 lists) E.B. White – Goodbye to Forty-Eighth Street (1957) (on 2 lists) Martin Luther King, Jr. – Letter from Birmingham Jail (1963) (on 2 lists) Joseph Mitchell – Joe Gould’s Secret (1964) (on 2 lists) Susan Sontag – Against Interpretation (1966) (on 2 lists) Joan Didion – Goodbye To All That (1968) (on 6 lists) Joan Didion – On Keeping A Notebook (1968) (on 5 lists) Joan Didion – In Bed (1968) (on 4 lists) Edward Hoagland – The Courage of Turtles (1970) (on 2 lists) John McPhee – The Search for Marvin Gardens (1972) (on 3 lists) Annie Dillard – Seeing (from  Pilgrim at Tinker Creek ) (1974) (on 2 lists) Maxine Hong Kingston – No Name Woman (from The Woman Warrior ) (1976) (on 2 lists) Joan Didion – The White Album (1968-1978) (on 3 lists) Eudora Welty – The Little Store (1978) (on 3 lists) Annie Dillard – Total Eclipse (1982) (on 5 lists) Annie Dillard – Living Like Weasels (1982) (on 2 lists) Roland Barthes – Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography (1982) (on 2 lists) Gloria E. Anzaldúa – How to Tame a Wild Tongue (1987) (on 2 lists) Italo Calvino – Exactitude (1988) (on 2 lists) Phillip Lopate – Against Joie de Vivre (1989) (on 3 lists) Richard Rodriguez – Late Victorians (1990) (on 2 lists) Amy Tan – Mother Tongue (1991) (on 4 lists) Seymour Krim – To My Brothers & Sisters in the Failure Business (1991) (on 2 lists) David Wojnarowicz – Being Queer in America: A Journal of Disintegration (1991) (on 2 lists) Anne Carson – The Anthropology of Water (1995) (on 2 lists) Jo Ann Beard – The Fourth State of Matter (1996) (on 5 lists) David Foster Wallace – A Supposedly Fun Thing I Will Never Do Again (1996) (on 5 lists)

21 st Century Susan Sontag – Regarding the Pain of Others (2003) (on 2 lists) David Foster Wallace – Consider The Lobster (2005) (on 4 lists) Etel Adnan – In the Heart of the Heart of Another Country (2005) (on 2 lists) Paul LaFarge – Destroy All Monsters (2006) (on 2 lists) Brian Doyle – Joyas Voladoras (2012) (on 2 lists)

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The Most Anthologized Essays of the Last 25 Years

In which joan didion appears more than once.

Depending on who you are, the word “essay” may make you squirm. After all, here in America at least, our introduction to the essay often comes complete with five paragraphs and “repeat but rephrase” and other soul-killing rules. But in actuality, essays are nothing like the staid, formulaic, boring things they make you write in high school. They’re all over the place. They’re wild. Or at least they can be. After all, the word essay comes from the French verb essayer , which means “to try.” Essays are merely attempts, at expression, or at proof; they claim to be nothing more. I’ve always thought that was lovely.

For this list, I looked at 14 essay anthologies, plus the three volumes of Lee Gutkind’s The Best Creative Nonfiction and John D’Agata’s three-part survey of the form ( The Next American Essay, The Lost Origins of the Essay , and The Making of the American Essay ), for a total of 20 books published between 1991 and 2016. I ignored all themed anthologies, as well as any limited to a specific year or publication. This is the last survey of anthologies in a series—earlier this month, I looked at the most anthologized short stories and the most anthologized poems —and considering all three lists together affords the ability to compare the way the different forms are canonized and read in America.

Of the three, I was most surprised by the data here. The essay is perhaps the most ravenous of forms, but these anthologies included letters, speeches (notably, a fair number of presidential addresses), excerpts from longer, reported works of non-fiction, and a number of works that I consider stories (like Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl,” which most agree is a short story, and some argue is a poem, but is certainly not an essay) or even actual poetry (John D’Agata, I know you’re a rebel and all, but “ For I Will Consider My Cat Jeoffrey ,” while incredible, is not an essay). On the other hand, several essays that I consider top-notch classics didn’t make the cut (like Jo Ann Beard’s “The Fourth State of Matter,” and Gay Talese’s “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold,” which each appear only once in all the anthologies I surveyed). And Michel de Montaigne, who essentially coined the term, is only feebly represented. The better news is that five of the nine most anthologized essays are by writers of color, which is significantly better than either of the other lists do in that regard.

Below, I’ve separated my findings into four lists: the most anthologized essays (this should be self-explanatory), the most anthologized essayists (the authors with the most essays total across the anthologies), the most widely anthologized essayists (the authors with the most discrete essays across the anthologies), and the one hit wonders (those essays that were their authors only piece represented across the anthologies, albeit multiple times). At the end, there’s the full list, consisting of all duplicated essays and all essayists who had at least three pieces among the books I surveyed.

Most Anthologized Essays

Nine inclusions:

“Once More to the Lake,” E. B. White

Seven inclusions:

“Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King, Jr.

Six inclusions:

“How it Feels to be Colored Me,” Zora Neale Hurston “A Modest Proposal,” Jonathan Swift “Mother Tongue,” Amy Tan “The Death of the Moth,” Virginia Woolf

Five inclusions:

“Stranger in the Village,” James Baldwin “No Name Woman,” Maxine Hong Kingston “Shooting an Elephant,” George Orwell

Four inclusions:

“On Keeping a Notebook,” Joan Didion “The Search for Marvin Gardens,” John McPhee “The Way to Rainy Mountain,” N. Scott Momaday

Three inclusions:

“Graduation,” Maya Angelou “Notes of a Native Son,” James Baldwin “The Pain Scale,” Eula Biss “Seeing,” Annie Dillard “Learning to Read,” Frederick Douglass “Of the Coming of John,” W.E.B. Du Bois from Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America , Barbara Ehrenreich “On Dumpster Diving,” Lars Eighner “The Crack-up,” F. Scott Fitzgerald “Sex, Drugs, Disasters, and the Extinction of Dinosaurs,” Stephen Jay Gould “Illumination Rounds,” Michael Herr “Salvation,” Langston Hughes “The Declaration of Independence,” Thomas Jefferson “The Undertaking,” Thomas Lynch “Aria: a Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood,” Richard Rodriguez “Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions,” Elizabeth Cady Stanton “Black Men and Public Space,” Brent Staples “Civil Disobedience,” Henry David Thoreau “Consider the Lobster,” David Foster Wallace “Yeager,” Tom Wolfe

Two inclusions:

from Two or Three Things I Know for Sure , Dorothy Allison “How To Tame a Wild Tongue,” Gloria Anzaldúa “Graven Images,” Saul Bellow “Time and Distance Overcome,” Eula Biss “I Want a Wife,” Judy Brady “Why Don’t We Complain?,” William F. Buckley Jr. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?,” Nicolas Carr “The Dream,” Winston Churchill “Remarks to the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women Plenary Session,” Hillary Rodham Clinton “Silent Dancing,” Judith Ortiz Cofer “Music Is My Bag: Confessions of a Lapsed Oboist,” Meghan Daum “The White Album,” Joan Didion “On Going Home,” Joan Didion “On Morality,” Joan Didion “Total eclipse,” Annie Dillard “Living Like Weasels,” Annie Dillard from An American Childhood , Annie Dillard “Somehow Form a Family,” Tony Earley “Life with Daughters: Watching the Miss America Pageant,” Gerald Early “The Solace of Open Spaces,” Gretel Ehrlich “Ways We Lie,” Stephanie Ericsson “Young Hunger,” M.F.K. Fisher “When Doctors Make Mistakes,” Atul Gawande “He and I,” Natalia Ginzburg “Mirrorings,” Lucy Grealy “The Lost Childhood,” Graham Greene “Apotheosis of Martin Luther King,” Elizabeth Hardwick “On the Pleasure of Hating,” William Hazlitt “The Courage of Turtles,” Edward Hoagland “A Small Place,” Jamaica Kincaid “Dream Children: a Reverie,” Charles Lamb “Coming Home Again,” Chang-Rae Lee “On Being a Cripple,” Nancy Mairs “Of Some Verses on Virgil,” Michel de Montaigne “Two Ways to Belong in America,” Bharati Mukherjee “Eulogy for the Honorable Reverend Clementa Pinckney,” Barack Obama “Politics and the English Language,” George Orwell “The Allegory of the Cave,” Plato “Oranges and Sweet Sister Boy,” Judy Ruiz “Under the Influence,” Scott Russell Sanders “The Men We Carry in our Minds,” Scott Russell Sanders “Letter to President Pierce, 1855,” Chief Seattle “Language and Literature from a Pueblo Indian Perspective,” Leslie Marmon Silko “What Should a Billionaire Give—and What Should You?,” Peter Singer “A Century of Cinema,” Susan Sontag “Regarding the Pain of Others,” Susan Sontag “Decolonizing the Mind,” Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o “Walking,” Henry David Thoreau “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For,” Henry David Thoreau “Ain’t I a Woman?,” Sojourner Truth “Advice to Youth,” Mark Twain “In Search of our Mothers’ Gardens,” Alice Walker “Writing and Analyzing a Story,” Eudora Welty “The Clan of One-Breasted Women,” Terry Tempest Williams “A Preface to Persius,” Edmund Wilson “In Search of a Room of One’s Own,” Virginia Woolf

The Most Anthologized Essayists ( the authors with most essays published among the anthologies )

Sixteen essays: Joan Didion

Fourteen essays: Annie Dillard

Thirteen essays: Virginia Woolf

Eleven essays: James Baldwin George Orwell E. B. White

Nine essays: Richard Rodriguez Henry David Thoreau

Eight essays: Martin Luther King, Jr. Susan Sontag Jonathan Swift

Seven essays: Samuel Johnson Michel de Montaigne Mark Twain Eudora Welty

Six essays: Francis Bacon Barbara Ehrenreich Stephen Jay Gould Maxine Hong Kingston Zora Neale Hurston Charles Lamb John McPhee David Sedaris Amy Tan

Five essays: Maya Angelou Eula Biss M.F.K. Fisher Atul Gawande William Hazlitt Jamaica Kincaid Nancy Mairs H.L. Mencken N. Scott Momaday Adrienne Rich Lewis Thomas Alice Walker David Foster Wallace Tom Wolfe

The Most Widely Anthologized Essayists  ( authors with most discrete essays published among the anthologies )

Ten essays:

Joan Didion

Nine essays:

Annie Dillard

Seven essays:

Samuel Johnson Richard Rodriguez Virginia Woolf

Six essays:

Sir Francis Bacon Michel de Montaigne George Orwell David Sedaris Seneca Susan Sontag Mark Twain Eudora Welty

Five essays:

James Baldwin Charles Lamb H.L. Mencken Adrienne Rich Lewis Thomas Henry David Thoreau

Four essays:

Max Beerbohm G.K. Chesterton Barbara Ehrenreich M.F.K. Fisher Atul Gawande Stephen Jay Gould William Hazlitt Jamaica Kincaid Phillip Lopate Barry Lopez Nancy Mairs Cynthia Ozick Anna Quindlen Scott Russell Sanders Robert Louis Stevenson James Thurber Alice Walker

One Hit Wonders ( authors with a only single essay represented across the anthologies )

“How it Feels to be Colored Me,” Zora Neale Hurston “Mother Tongue,” Amy Tan

“On Dumpster Diving,” Lars Eighner “Illumination Rounds,” Michael Herr “The Declaration of Independence,” Thomas Jefferson “The Undertaking,” Thomas Lynch

from Two or Three Things I Know for Sure , Dorothy Allison “How To Tame a Wild Tongue,” Gloria Anzaldúa “Graven Images,” Saul Bellow “I Want a Wife,” Judy Brady “Why Don’t We Complain?,” William F. Buckley Jr. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?,” Nicolas Carr “Remarks to the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women Plenary Session,” Hillary Rodham Clinton “Music Is My Bag: Confessions of a Lapsed Oboist,” Meghan Daum “Somehow Form a Family,” Tony Earley “Ways We Lie,” Stephanie Ericsson “He and I,” Natalia Ginzburg “Mirrorings,” Lucy Grealy “The Lost Childhood,” Graham Greene “Apotheosis of Martin Luther King,” Elizabeth Hardwick “Coming Home Again,” Chang-Rae Lee “Two Ways to Belong in America,” Bharati Mukherjee “The Allegory of the Cave,” Plato “Oranges and Sweet Sister Boy,” Judy Ruiz “Letter to President Pierce, 1855,” Chief Seattle “Language and Literature from a Pueblo Indian Perspective,” Leslie Marmon Silko “Decolonizing the Mind,” Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o “Ain’t I a Woman?,” Sojourner Truth “The Clan of One-Breasted Women,” Terry Tempest Williams

The Full List ( all essays by writers with at least one duplication or three disparate essays anthologized )

“The Great American Desert,” Edward Abbey “The Cowboy and his Cow,” Edward Abbey “Havasu,” Edward Abbey

“Superman and Me,” Sherman Alexie “Indian Education,” Sherman Alexie “Captivity,” Sherman Alexie

from Two or Three Things I Know for Sure , Dorothy Allison (x 2)

“Graduation,” Maya Angelou (x 3) “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” Maya Angelou “Champion of the World,” Maya Angelou

“How To Tame a Wild Tongue,” Gloria Anzaldúa (x 2)

“Of Truth,” Sir Francis Bacon “Of Revenge,” Sir Francis Bacon “Of Boldness,” Sir Francis Bacon “Of Innovations,” Sir Francis Bacon “Of Masques and Triumphs,” Sir Francis Bacon “Antithesis of Things,” Sir Francis Bacon

“Stranger in the Village,” James Baldwin (x 5) “Notes of a Native Son,” James Baldwin (x 3) “Alas, Poor Richard,” James Baldwin “The Fight: Patterson vs. Liston,” James Baldwin “Equal in Paris,” James Baldwin

“Going Out for a Walk,” Max Beerbohm “Laughter,” Max Beerbohm “Something Defeasible,” Max Beerbohm “A Clergyman,” Max Beerbohm

“Graven Images,” Saul Bellow (x 2)

“What Reconciles Me,” John Berger “Photographs of Agony,” John Berger “Turner and the Barber’s Shop,” John Berger

“The Pain Scale,” Eula Biss (x 3) “Time and Distance Overcome,” Eula Biss (x 2)

“Blindness,” Jorge Luis Borges “Borges and I,” Jorge Luis Borges “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Teritus,” Jorge Luis Borges

“I Want a Wife,” Judy Brady (x 2)

“Why Don’t We Complain?,” William F. Buckley Jr. (x 2)

“Is Google Making Us Stupid?,” Nicholas Carr (x 2)

“The Glass Essay,” Anne Carson from Short Talks , Anne Carson “Kinds of Water,” Anne Carson

“Marginal world,” Rachel Carson “The Obligation to Endure,” Rachel Carson “A Fable for Tomorrow,” Rachel Carson

“A Piece of Chalk,” G.K. Chesterton “On Running After One’s Hat,” G.K. Chesterton “A Defense of Penny Dreadfuls,” G.K. Chesterton “On Sandals and Simplicity,” G.K. Chesterton

“The Dream,” Winston Churchill (x 2) from “We Shall Fight on the Beaches,” Winston Churchill from “This Was Their Finest Hour,” Winston Churchill

“Silent Dancing,” Judith Ortiz Cofer (x 2) “More Room,” Judith Ortiz Cofer “Myth of the Latin Woman: I just met a girl named Maria,” Judith Ortiz Cofer

“Another Country,” Edwidge Danticat “Uncle Moïse,” Edwidge Danticat “Westbury Court,” Edwidge Danticat

“Music Is My Bag: Confessions of a Lapsed Oboist,” Meghan Daum (x 2)

“On Keeping a Notebook,” Joan Didion (x 4) “The White Album,” Joan Didion (x 2) “On Going Home,” Joan Didion (x 2) “On Morality,” Joan Didion (x 2) “Goodbye to All That,” Joan Didion “In Bed,” Joan Didion “At the Dam,” Joan Didion “Georgia O’Keeffe,” Joan Didion from Salvador , Joan Didion “The Santa Ana,” Joan Didion

“Seeing,” Annie Dillard (x 3) “Total Eclipse,” Annie Dillard (x 2) “Living Like Weasels,” Annie Dillard (x 2) rom An American Childhood , Annie Dillard (x 2) “Sight into Insight,” Annie Dillard “On Foot in Virginia’s Roanoke Valley,” Annie Dillard from For the Time Being , Annie Dillard “The Chase,” Annie Dillard “The Stunt Pilot,” Annie Dillard

“Learning to Read,” Frederick Douglass (x 3) from “Fourth of July Oration,” Frederick Douglass

“Of the Coming of John,” W.E.B. Du Bois (x 3) “A Mild Suggestion,” W.E.B. Du Bois

“Somehow Form a Family,” Tony Earley (x 2)

“Life with Daughters: Watching the Miss America Pageant,” Gerald Early (x 2) “Digressions,” Gerald Early

from Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America , Barbara Ehrenreich (x 3) “Serving in Florida,” Barbara Ehrenreich “Cultural Baggage,” Barbara Ehrenreich “War Without Humans: Modern Blood Rites Revisited,” Barbara Ehrenreich

“The Solace of Open Spaces,” Gretel Ehrlich (x 2) from the Journals, Gretel Ehrlich “Lijiang,” Gretel Ehrlich

“On Dumpster Diving,” Lars Eighner (x 3)

“Brown Wasps,” Loren Eiseley “The Angry Winter,” Loren Eiseley “The Snout,” Loren Eiseley

“Tradition and the Individual Talent,” T.S. Eliot “Marie Lloyd,” T.S. Eliot “The Dry Salvages,” T.S. Eliot

“The American Scholar,” Ralph Waldo Emerson “The Conservative,” Ralph Waldo Emerson “Nature,” Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Ways We Lie,” Stephanie Ericsson (x 2)

“Young Hunger,” M.F.K. Fisher (x 2) “Once a Tramp, Always,” M.F.K. Fisher “The Flaw,” M.F.K. Fisher “Paris Journal,” M.F.K. Fisher

“The Crack-up,” F. Scott Fitzgerald (x 3) “Sleeping and Waking,” F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Learning to Write,” Benjamin Franklin from the Autobiography , Benjamin Franklin “The Levee,” Benjamin Franklin

“When Doctors Make Mistakes,” Atul Gawande (x 2) from “Overkill,” Atul Gawande “Final Cut,” Atul Gawande “Why Boston’s Hospitals Were Ready,” Atul Gawande

“He and I,” Natalia Ginzburg (x 2)

“Java Man,” Malcolm Gladwell “None of the Above: What I.Q. Doesn’t Tell You about Race,” Malcolm Gladwell “The Tipping Point,” Malcolm Gladwell

“Sex, Drugs, Disasters, and the Extinction of Dinosaurs,” Stephen Jay Gould (x 3) “Creation Myths of Cooperstown,” Stephen Jay Gould “A Biological Homage to Mickey Mouse,” Stephen Jay Gould “The Median Isn’t the Message,” Stephen Jay Gould

“Mirrorings,” Lucy Grealy (x 2)

“The Lost Childhood,” Graham Greene (x 2)

“Apotheosis of Martin Luther King,” Elizabeth Hardwick (x 2)

“No Name Woman,” Maxine Hong Kingston (x 5) “Tongue-Tied,” Maxine Hong Kingston

“On the Pleasure of Hating,” William Hazlitt (x 2) “On Going a Journey,” William Hazlitt “The Fight,” William Hazlitt “Brummelliana,” William Hazlitt

“Illumination Rounds,” Michael Herr (x 3)

“The Courage of Turtles,” Edward Hoagland (x 2) “The Threshold and the Jolt of Pain,” Edward Hoagland “Heaven and Nature,” Edward Hoagland

“Salvation,” Langston Hughes (x 3) “Bop,” Langston Hughes

“How it Feels to Be Colored Me,” Zora Neale Hurston (x 6)

“The Declaration of Independence,” Thomas Jefferson (x 3)

“The Boarding house,” Samuel Johnson “The Solitude of the Country,” Samuel Johnson “Dignity and Uses of Biography,” Samuel Johnson “Conversation,” Samuel Johnson “Debtors’ Prisons (1),” Samuel Johnson “Debtors’ Prisons (2),” Samuel Johnson “To Reign Once More in Our Native Country,” Samuel Johnson

“A Small Place,” Jamaica Kincaid (x 2) “On Seeing England for the First Time,” Jamaica Kincaid “Girl,” Jamaica Kincaid “Biography of a Dress,” Jamaica Kincaid

“Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King, Jr. (x 7) “I Have a Dream,” Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Dream Children: a Reverie,” Charles Lamb (x 2) “New Year’s Eve,” Charles Lamb “A Chapter on Ears,” Charles Lamb “The Superannuated Man,” Charles Lamb from “On Some of the Old Actors,” Charles Lamb

“Coming Home Again,” Chang-Rae Lee (x 2)

“Second Inaugural Address,” Abraham Lincoln (x 3) “First Inaugural Address,” Abraham Lincoln “The Gettysburg Address,” Abraham Lincoln

“Against Joie de Vivre,” Phillip Lopate “Portrait of my Body,” Phillip Lopate “On the Necessity of Turning Oneself into a Character,” Phillip Lopate “The Dead Father: A Rememberance of Donald Barthelme,” Phillip Lopate

“Flight,” Barry Lopez “Grown Men,” Barry Lopez “The Raven,” Barry Lopez “Landscape and Narrative,” Barry Lopez

“The Fourth of July,” Audre Lorde “Poetry is Not a Luxury,” Audre Lorde “The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism,” Audre Lorde

“The Undertaking,” Thomas Lynch (x 3)

“On Being a Cripple,” Nancy Mairs (x 2) “Ron her Son,” Nancy Mairs “Body in Trouble,” Nancy Mairs “Disability,” Nancy Mairs

“My Confession,” Mary McCarthy “Artists in Uniform,” Mary McCarthy “Yonder Peasant, Who Is He?,” Mary McCarthy

“The Case for Single-Child Families,” Bill McKibben “Waste Not, Want Not,” Bill McKibben “Curbing Nature’s Paparazzi,” Bill McKibben

“The Search for Marvin Gardens,” John McPhee (x 4) “Under the Snow,” John McPhee from Annals of the Former World , John McPhee

“On Being an American,” H.L. Mencken “Hills of Zion,” H.L. Mencken “Reflections on Journalism,” H.L. Mencken “The Libido for the Ugly,” H.L. Mencken “Funeral march,” H.L. Mencken

“The Way to Rainy Mountain,” N. Scott Momaday (x 4) “An American Land Ethic,” N. Scott Momaday

“Of some verses on Virgil,” Michel de Montaigne (x 2) “Of books,” Michel de Montaigne “Of a monstrous child,” Michel de Montaigne from “On Cannibals,” Michel de Montaigne “Of Democritus and Heraclitus,” Michel de Montaigne “Of Experience,” Michel de Montaigne

“Two Ways to Belong in America,” Bharati Mukherjee (x 2)

“This is Not Who We Are,” Naomi Shihab Nye “Thank You in Arabic,” Naomi Shihab Nye “One Village,” Naomi Shihab Nye

“Eulogy for the Honorable Reverend Clementa Pinckney,” Barack Obama (x 2) “A More Perfect Union,” Barack Obama

“Shooting an Elephant,” George Orwell (x 5) “Politics and the English Language,” George Orwell (x 2) “Such, Such were the Joys,” George Orwell “Reflections on Gandhi,” George Orwell “The Moon under Water,” George Orwell “A Hanging,” George Orwell

“Drugstore in Winter,” Cynthia Ozick “The Lesson of the Master,” Cynthia Ozick “Highbrow Blues,” Cynthia Ozick “Portrait of the Essay as a Warm Body,” Cynthia Ozick

“The Allegory of the Cave,” Plato (x 2)

“An Animal’s Place,” Michael Pollan “Why “Natural” Doesn’t Mean Anything Anymore,” Michael Pollan “What’s Eating America,” Michael Pollan

“Future is Now,” Katherine Anne Porter “St. Augustine and the Bullfight,” Katherine Anne Porter “The Necessary Enemy,” Katherine Anne Porter

“Between the Sexes, a Great Divide,” Anna Quindlen “Stuff Is Not Salvation,” Anna Quindlen “The War We Haven’t Won,” Anna Quindlen “Homeless,” Anna Quindlen

“Split at the Root,” Adrienne Rich “Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying,” Adrienne Rich “Taking Women Students Seriously,” Adrienne Rich “Claiming an Education,” Adrienne Rich from “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence,” Adrienne Rich

“Aria: a Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood,” Richard Rodriguez (x 3) “Late Victorians,” Richard Rodriguez “Going Home Again,” Richard Rodriguez from Crossing Borders , Richard Rodriguez from Darling , Richard Rodriguez “Private Language, Public Language,” Richard Rodriguez “‘Blaxicans’ and Other Reinvented Americans,” Richard Rodriguez

“Oranges and Sweet Sister Boy,” Judy Ruiz (x 2)

“Under the Influence,” Scott Russell Sanders (x 2 ) “The Men we Carry in our Minds,” Scott Russell Sanders (x 2) “The Singular First Person,” Scott Russell Sanders “The Inheritance of Tools,” Scott Russell Sanders

“Letter to President Pierce, 1855,” Chief Seattle (x 2)

“Repeat After Me,” David Sedaris “Loggerheads,” David Sedaris “A Plague of Tics,” David Sedaris “Guy Walks into a Bar Car,” David Sedaris “The Drama Bug,” David Sedaris “Remembering My Childhood on the Continent of Africa,” David Sedaris

“On Noise,” Seneca “Asthma,” Seneca “Scipio’s Villa,” Seneca “Slaves,” Seneca “Epistle 47,” Seneca “Sick,” Seneca

“Language and Literature from a Pueblo Indian Perspective,” Leslie Marmon Silko (x 2)

“What Should a Billionaire Give—and What Should You?,” Peter Singer (x 2) from Animal Liberation , Peter Singer

“A Century of Cinema,” Susan Sontag (x 2) “Regarding the Pain of Others,” Susan Sontag (x 2) “Notes on ‘Camp,'” Susan Sontag from “Freak Show,” Susan Sontag “Unguided Tour,” Susan Sontag from “AIDS and Its Metaphors,” Susan Sontag.

“Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions,” Elizabeth Cady Stanton (x 3) “Seneca Falls Keynote Address,” Elizabeth Cady Stanton

“Black Men and Public Space,” Brent Staples (x 3) “Why Colleges Shower Their Students with A’s,” Brent Staples

“Aes Triplex,” Robert Louis Stevenson “The Lantern-bearers,” Robert Louis Stevenson “An Apology for Idlers,” Robert Louis Stevenson “On Marriage,” Robert Louis Stevenson

“A Modest Proposal,” Jonathan Swift (x 6) “Good Manners and Good Breeding,” Jonathan Swift “A Meditation upon a Broom-stick,” Jonathan Swift

“Mother Tongue,” Amy Tan (x 6)

“Decolonizing the Mind,” Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (x 2)

“Lives of a Cell,” Lewis Thomas “Notes on Punctuation,” Lewis Thomas “To Err is Human,” Lewis Thomas “Becoming a Doctor,” Lewis Thomas “The Medusa and the Snail,” Lewis Thomas

“Civil Disobedience,” Henry David Thoreau (x 3) “Walking,” Henry David Thoreau (x 2) “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For,” Henry David Thoreau (x 2) “The Battle of the Ants,” Henry David Thoreau “Night and Moonlight,” Henry David Thoreau

“The Secret Life of James Thurber,” James Thurber “Sex Ex Machina,” James Thurber “My Own Ten Rules for a Happy Marriage,” James Thurber “Snapshot of a Dog,” James Thurber

“Ain’t I a Woman?,” Sojourner Truth (x 2)

“Advice to Youth,” Mark Twain (x 2) “Corn-pone Opinions,” Mark Twain “Italian without a master,” Mark Twain “Thoughts of God,” Mark Twain from Life on the Mississippi “Letters from the Earth,” Mark Twain

“In Search of our Mothers’ Gardens,” Alice Walker (x 2) “Looking for Zora,” Alice Walker “Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self,” Alice Walker “Becoming What We’re Called,” Alice Walker

“Consider the Lobster,” David Foster Wallace (x 3) “Ticket to the Fair,” David Foster Wallace “Shipping Out: On the (Nearly Lethal) Comforts of a Luxury Cruise,” David Foster Wallace

“Once More to the Lake,” E.B. White (x 9) “The Ring of Time,” E.B. White “About Myself,” E.B. White

“Writing and Analyzing a Story,” Eudora Welty (x 2) “Sweet Devouring,” Eudora Welty “Clamorous to Learn,” Eudora Welty “One Writer’s Beginnings,” Eudora Welty “The Little Store,” Eudora Welty “Listening,” Eudora Welty

“The Clan of One-Breasted Women,” Terry Tempest Williams (x 2)

“A Preface to Persius,” Edmund Wilson (x 2) “Old Stone House,” Edmund Wilson “Life is a Narrative,” Edmund Wilson

“Yeager,” Tom Wolfe (x 3) “Putting Daddy On,” Tom Wolfe “The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby,” Tom Wolfe

The Death of the Moth,” Virginia Woolf (x 6) “In Search of a Room of One’s Own,” Virginia Woolf (x 2) “Leslie Stephen,” Virginia Woolf “Harriette Wilson,” Virginia Woolf “Ellen Terry,” Virginia Woolf “Street Haunting,” Virginia Woolf from Three Guineas , Virginia Woolf

Anthologies Surveyed:

The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present , ed. Philip Lopate (1997); The Best American Essays of the Century, ed. Joyce Carol Oates and Robert Atwan (2001);  Touchstone Anthology of Contemporary Creative Nonfiction: Work from 1970 to the Present , ed. Lex Williford and Michael Martone (2007);  The Norton Reader: An Anthology of Nonfiction , 14th edition, ed. Melissa Goldthwaite, Joseph Bizup, John Brereton, Anne Fernald, Linda Peterson (2015);  The Norton Book of Personal Essays , ed. Joseph Epstein (1997); The Best Creative Nonfiction , ed. Lee Gutkind, Volumes 1, 2, & 3 (2007); The Signet Book of American Essays , ed. M. Jerry Weiss and Helen Weiss (2006); The Oxford Book of Essays , ed. John Gross (1991); 50 Essays: A Portable Anthology , Samuel Cohen (2011); The Eloquent Essay: An Anthology of Classic & Creative Nonfiction , ed. John Loughery (2000); The Broadview Anthology of Expository Prose , Third Edition, ed. Laura Buzzard, Don LePan, Nora Ruddock, Alexandria Stuart (2016); The Next American Essay , ed. John D’Agata (2003) & The Lost Origins of the Essay , ed. John D’Agata (2009) & The Making of the American Essay , ed. John D’Agata (2016); Contemporary Creative Nonfiction , ed. B. Minh Nguyen and Porter Shreve (2005); Contemporary Creative Nonfiction: The Art of Truth , ed. Bill Roorbach (2001); 40 Model Essays , Second edition, ed. Jane E. Aaron and Ellen Kuhl Repetto (2003); The Seagull Reader: Essays , Third Edition, ed. Joseph Kelly (2015)

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50 Must-Read Contemporary Essay Collections

Essay collections: Like short stories, but TRUE! When you're in the mood for fact over fiction, check out these must-read contemporary essay collections.

Liberty Hardy

Liberty Hardy is an unrepentant velocireader, writer, bitey mad lady, and tattoo canvas. Turn-ons include books, books and books. Her favorite exclamation is “Holy cats!” Liberty reads more than should be legal, sleeps very little, frequently writes on her belly with Sharpie markers, and when she dies, she’s leaving her body to library science. Until then, she lives with her three cats, Millay, Farrokh, and Zevon, in Maine. She is also right behind you. Just kidding! She’s too busy reading. Twitter: @MissLiberty

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I feel like essay collections don’t get enough credit. They’re so wonderful! They’re like short story collections, but TRUE. It’s like going to a truth buffet. You can get information about sooooo many topics, sometimes in one single book! To prove that there are a zillion amazing essay collections out there, I compiled 50 great contemporary essay collections, just from the last 18 months alone.  Ranging in topics from food, nature, politics, sex, celebrity, and more, there is something here for everyone!

I’ve included a brief description from the publisher with each title. Tell us in the comments about which of these you’ve read or other contemporary essay collections that you love. There are a LOT of them. Yay, books!

Must-Read Contemporary Essay Collections

They can’t kill us until they kill us  by hanif abdurraqib.

“In an age of confusion, fear, and loss, Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib’s is a voice that matters. Whether he’s attending a Bruce Springsteen concert the day after visiting Michael Brown’s grave, or discussing public displays of affection at a Carly Rae Jepsen show, he writes with a poignancy and magnetism that resonates profoundly.”

Would Everybody Please Stop?: Reflections on Life and Other Bad Ideas  by Jenny Allen

“Jenny Allen’s musings range fluidly from the personal to the philosophical. She writes with the familiarity of someone telling a dinner party anecdote, forgoing decorum for candor and comedy. To read  Would Everybody Please Stop?  is to experience life with imaginative and incisive humor.”

Longthroat Memoirs: Soups, Sex and Nigerian Taste Buds  by Yemisi Aribisala

“A sumptuous menu of essays about Nigerian cuisine, lovingly presented by the nation’s top epicurean writer. As well as a mouth-watering appraisal of Nigerian food,  Longthroat Memoirs  is a series of love letters to the Nigerian palate. From the cultural history of soup, to fish as aphrodisiac and the sensual allure of snails,  Longthroat Memoirs  explores the complexities, the meticulousness, and the tactile joy of Nigerian gastronomy.”

Beyond Measure: Essays  by Rachel Z. Arndt

“ Beyond Measure  is a fascinating exploration of the rituals, routines, metrics and expectations through which we attempt to quantify and ascribe value to our lives. With mordant humor and penetrating intellect, Arndt casts her gaze beyond event-driven narratives to the machinery underlying them: judo competitions measured in weigh-ins and wait times; the significance of the elliptical’s stationary churn; the rote scripts of dating apps; the stupefying sameness of the daily commute.”

Magic Hours  by Tom Bissell

“Award-winning essayist Tom Bissell explores the highs and lows of the creative process. He takes us from the set of  The Big Bang Theory  to the first novel of Ernest Hemingway to the final work of David Foster Wallace; from the films of Werner Herzog to the film of Tommy Wiseau to the editorial meeting in which Paula Fox’s work was relaunched into the world. Originally published in magazines such as  The Believer ,  The New Yorker , and  Harper’s , these essays represent ten years of Bissell’s best writing on every aspect of creation—be it Iraq War documentaries or video-game character voices—and will provoke as much thought as they do laughter.”

Dead Girls: Essays on Surviving an American Obsession  by Alice Bolin

“In this poignant collection, Alice Bolin examines iconic American works from the essays of Joan Didion and James Baldwin to  Twin Peaks , Britney Spears, and  Serial , illuminating the widespread obsession with women who are abused, killed, and disenfranchised, and whose bodies (dead and alive) are used as props to bolster men’s stories. Smart and accessible, thoughtful and heartfelt, Bolin investigates the implications of our cultural fixations, and her own role as a consumer and creator.”

Betwixt-and-Between: Essays on the Writing Life  by Jenny Boully

“Jenny Boully’s essays are ripe with romance and sensual pleasures, drawing connections between the digression, reflection, imagination, and experience that characterizes falling in love as well as the life of a writer. Literary theory, philosophy, and linguistics rub up against memory, dreamscapes, and fancy, making the practice of writing a metaphor for the illusory nature of experience.  Betwixt and Between  is, in many ways, simply a book about how to live.”

Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give by Ada Calhoun

“In  Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give , Ada Calhoun presents an unflinching but also loving portrait of her own marriage, opening a long-overdue conversation about the institution as it truly is: not the happy ending of a love story or a relic doomed by high divorce rates, but the beginning of a challenging new chapter of which ‘the first twenty years are the hardest.'”

How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: Essays  by Alexander Chee

“ How to Write an Autobiographical Novel  is the author’s manifesto on the entangling of life, literature, and politics, and how the lessons learned from a life spent reading and writing fiction have changed him. In these essays, he grows from student to teacher, reader to writer, and reckons with his identities as a son, a gay man, a Korean American, an artist, an activist, a lover, and a friend. He examines some of the most formative experiences of his life and the nation’s history, including his father’s death, the AIDS crisis, 9/11, the jobs that supported his writing—Tarot-reading, bookselling, cater-waiting for William F. Buckley—the writing of his first novel,  Edinburgh , and the election of Donald Trump.”

Too Much and Not the Mood: Essays  by Durga Chew-Bose

“ Too Much and Not the Mood is a beautiful and surprising exploration of what it means to be a first-generation, creative young woman working today. On April 11, 1931, Virginia Woolf ended her entry in A Writer’s Diary with the words ‘too much and not the mood’ to describe her frustration with placating her readers, what she described as the ‘cramming in and the cutting out.’ She wondered if she had anything at all that was truly worth saying. The attitude of that sentiment inspired Durga Chew-Bose to gather own writing in this lyrical collection of poetic essays that examine personhood and artistic growth. Drawing inspiration from a diverse group of incisive and inquiring female authors, Chew-Bose captures the inner restlessness that keeps her always on the brink of creative expression.”

We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy  by Ta-Nehisi Coates

“‘We were eight years in power’ was the lament of Reconstruction-era black politicians as the American experiment in multiracial democracy ended with the return of white supremacist rule in the South. In this sweeping collection of new and selected essays, Ta-Nehisi Coates explores the tragic echoes of that history in our own time: the unprecedented election of a black president followed by a vicious backlash that fueled the election of the man Coates argues is America’s ‘first white president.'”

Look Alive Out There: Essays by Sloane Crosley

“In  Look Alive Out There,  whether it’s scaling active volcanoes, crashing shivas, playing herself on  Gossip Girl,  befriending swingers, or squinting down the barrel of the fertility gun, Crosley continues to rise to the occasion with unmatchable nerve and electric one-liners. And as her subjects become more serious, her essays deliver not just laughs but lasting emotional heft and insight. Crosley has taken up the gauntlets thrown by her predecessors—Dorothy Parker, Nora Ephron, David Sedaris—and crafted something rare, affecting, and true.”

Fl â neuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London  by Lauren Elkin

“Part cultural meander, part memoir,  Flâneuse  takes us on a distinctly cosmopolitan jaunt that begins in New York, where Elkin grew up, and transports us to Paris via Venice, Tokyo, and London, all cities in which she’s lived. We are shown the paths beaten by such  flâneuses  as the cross-dressing nineteenth-century novelist George Sand, the Parisian artist Sophie Calle, the wartime correspondent Martha Gellhorn, and the writer Jean Rhys. With tenacity and insight, Elkin creates a mosaic of what urban settings have meant to women, charting through literature, art, history, and film the sometimes exhilarating, sometimes fraught relationship that women have with the metropolis.”

Idiophone  by Amy Fusselman

“Leaping from ballet to quiltmaking, from the The Nutcracker to an Annie-B Parson interview,  Idiophone  is a strikingly original meditation on risk-taking and provocation in art and a unabashedly honest, funny, and intimate consideration of art-making in the context of motherhood, and motherhood in the context of addiction. Amy Fusselman’s compact, beautifully digressive essay feels both surprising and effortless, fueled by broad-ranging curiosity, and, fundamentally, joy.”

Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture  by Roxane Gay

“In this valuable and revealing anthology, cultural critic and bestselling author Roxane Gay collects original and previously published pieces that address what it means to live in a world where women have to measure the harassment, violence, and aggression they face, and where they are ‘routinely second-guessed, blown off, discredited, denigrated, besmirched, belittled, patronized, mocked, shamed, gaslit, insulted, bullied’ for speaking out.”

Sunshine State: Essays  by Sarah Gerard

“With the personal insight of  The Empathy Exams , the societal exposal of  Nickel and Dimed , and the stylistic innovation and intensity of her own break-out debut novel  Binary Star , Sarah Gerard’s  Sunshine State  uses the intimately personal to unearth the deep reservoirs of humanity buried in the corners of our world often hardest to face.”

The Art of the Wasted Day  by Patricia Hampl

“ The Art of the Wasted Day  is a picaresque travelogue of leisure written from a lifelong enchantment with solitude. Patricia Hampl visits the homes of historic exemplars of ease who made repose a goal, even an art form. She begins with two celebrated eighteenth-century Irish ladies who ran off to live a life of ‘retirement’ in rural Wales. Her search then leads to Moravia to consider the monk-geneticist, Gregor Mendel, and finally to Bordeaux for Michel Montaigne—the hero of this book—who retreated from court life to sit in his chateau tower and write about whatever passed through his mind, thus inventing the personal essay.”

A Really Big Lunch: The Roving Gourmand on Food and Life  by Jim Harrison

“Jim Harrison’s legendary gourmandise is on full display in  A Really Big Lunch . From the titular  New Yorker  piece about a French lunch that went to thirty-seven courses, to pieces from  Brick ,  Playboy , Kermit Lynch Newsletter, and more on the relationship between hunter and prey, or the obscure language of wine reviews,  A Really Big Lunch  is shot through with Harrison’s pointed aperçus and keen delight in the pleasures of the senses. And between the lines the pieces give glimpses of Harrison’s life over the last three decades.  A Really Big Lunch  is a literary delight that will satisfy every appetite.”

Insomniac City: New York, Oliver, and Me  by Bill Hayes

“Bill Hayes came to New York City in 2009 with a one-way ticket and only the vaguest idea of how he would get by. But, at forty-eight years old, having spent decades in San Francisco, he craved change. Grieving over the death of his partner, he quickly discovered the profound consolations of the city’s incessant rhythms, the sight of the Empire State Building against the night sky, and New Yorkers themselves, kindred souls that Hayes, a lifelong insomniac, encountered on late-night strolls with his camera.”

Would You Rather?: A Memoir of Growing Up and Coming Out  by Katie Heaney

“Here, for the first time, Katie opens up about realizing at the age of twenty-eight that she is gay. In these poignant, funny essays, she wrestles with her shifting sexuality and identity, and describes what it was like coming out to everyone she knows (and everyone she doesn’t). As she revisits her past, looking for any ‘clues’ that might have predicted this outcome, Katie reveals that life doesn’t always move directly from point A to point B—no matter how much we would like it to.”

Tonight I’m Someone Else: Essays  by Chelsea Hodson

“From graffiti gangs and  Grand Theft Auto  to sugar daddies, Schopenhauer, and a deadly game of Russian roulette, in these essays, Chelsea Hodson probes her own desires to examine where the physical and the proprietary collide. She asks what our privacy, our intimacy, and our own bodies are worth in the increasingly digital world of liking, linking, and sharing.”

We Are Never Meeting in Real Life.: Essays  by Samantha Irby

“With  We Are Never Meeting in Real Life. , ‘bitches gotta eat’ blogger and comedian Samantha Irby turns the serio-comic essay into an art form. Whether talking about how her difficult childhood has led to a problem in making ‘adult’ budgets, explaining why she should be the new Bachelorette—she’s ’35-ish, but could easily pass for 60-something’—detailing a disastrous pilgrimage-slash-romantic-vacation to Nashville to scatter her estranged father’s ashes, sharing awkward sexual encounters, or dispensing advice on how to navigate friendships with former drinking buddies who are now suburban moms—hang in there for the Costco loot—she’s as deft at poking fun at the ghosts of her past self as she is at capturing powerful emotional truths.”

This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America  by Morgan Jerkins

“Doubly disenfranchised by race and gender, often deprived of a place within the mostly white mainstream feminist movement, black women are objectified, silenced, and marginalized with devastating consequences, in ways both obvious and subtle, that are rarely acknowledged in our country’s larger discussion about inequality. In  This Will Be My Undoing , Jerkins becomes both narrator and subject to expose the social, cultural, and historical story of black female oppression that influences the black community as well as the white, male-dominated world at large.”

Everywhere Home: A Life in Essays  by Fenton Johnson

“Part retrospective, part memoir, Fenton Johnson’s collection  Everywhere Home: A Life in Essays  explores sexuality, religion, geography, the AIDS crisis, and more. Johnson’s wanderings take him from the hills of Kentucky to those of San Francisco, from the streets of Paris to the sidewalks of Calcutta. Along the way, he investigates questions large and small: What’s the relationship between artists and museums, illuminated in a New Guinean display of shrunken heads? What’s the difference between empiricism and intuition?”

One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter: Essays  by Scaachi Koul

“In  One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter , Scaachi Koul deploys her razor-sharp humor to share all the fears, outrages, and mortifying moments of her life. She learned from an early age what made her miserable, and for Scaachi anything can be cause for despair. Whether it’s a shopping trip gone awry; enduring awkward conversations with her bikini waxer; overcoming her fear of flying while vacationing halfway around the world; dealing with Internet trolls, or navigating the fears and anxieties of her parents. Alongside these personal stories are pointed observations about life as a woman of color: where every aspect of her appearance is open for critique, derision, or outright scorn; where strict gender rules bind in both Western and Indian cultures, leaving little room for a woman not solely focused on marriage and children to have a career (and a life) for herself.”

Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions  by Valeria Luiselli and jon lee anderson (translator)

“A damning confrontation between the American dream and the reality of undocumented children seeking a new life in the U.S. Structured around the 40 questions Luiselli translates and asks undocumented Latin American children facing deportation,  Tell Me How It Ends  (an expansion of her 2016 Freeman’s essay of the same name) humanizes these young migrants and highlights the contradiction between the idea of America as a fiction for immigrants and the reality of racism and fear—both here and back home.”

All the Lives I Want: Essays About My Best Friends Who Happen to Be Famous Strangers  by Alana Massey

“Mixing Didion’s affected cool with moments of giddy celebrity worship, Massey examines the lives of the women who reflect our greatest aspirations and darkest fears back onto us. These essays are personal without being confessional and clever in a way that invites readers into the joke. A cultural critique and a finely wrought fan letter, interwoven with stories that are achingly personal, All the Lives I Want is also an exploration of mental illness, the sex industry, and the dangers of loving too hard.”

Typewriters, Bombs, Jellyfish: Essays  by Tom McCarthy

“Certain points of reference recur with dreamlike insistence—among them the artist Ed Ruscha’s  Royal Road Test , a photographic documentation of the roadside debris of a Royal typewriter hurled from the window of a traveling car; the great blooms of jellyfish that are filling the oceans and gumming up the machinery of commerce and military domination—and the question throughout is: How can art explode the restraining conventions of so-called realism, whether aesthetic or political, to engage in the active reinvention of the world?”

Nasty Women: Feminism, Resistance, and Revolution in Trump’s America  by Samhita Mukhopadhyay and Kate Harding

“When 53 percent of white women voted for Donald Trump and 94 percent of black women voted for Hillary Clinton, how can women unite in Trump’s America? Nasty Women includes inspiring essays from a diverse group of talented women writers who seek to provide a broad look at how we got here and what we need to do to move forward.”

Don’t Call Me Princess: Essays on Girls, Women, Sex, and Life  by Peggy Orenstein

“Named one of the ’40 women who changed the media business in the last 40 years’ by  Columbia Journalism Review , Peggy Orenstein is one of the most prominent, unflinching feminist voices of our time. Her writing has broken ground and broken silences on topics as wide-ranging as miscarriage, motherhood, breast cancer, princess culture and the importance of girls’ sexual pleasure. Her unique blend of investigative reporting, personal revelation and unexpected humor has made her books bestselling classics.”

When You Find Out the World Is Against You: And Other Funny Memories About Awful Moments  by Kelly Oxford

“Kelly Oxford likes to blow up the internet. Whether it is with the kind of Tweets that lead  Rolling Stone  to name her one of the Funniest People on Twitter or with pictures of her hilariously adorable family (human and animal) or with something much more serious, like creating the hashtag #NotOkay, where millions of women came together to share their stories of sexual assault, Kelly has a unique, razor-sharp perspective on modern life. As a screen writer, professional sh*t disturber, wife and mother of three, Kelly is about everything but the status quo.”

Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman  by Anne Helen Petersen

“You know the type: the woman who won’t shut up, who’s too brazen, too opinionated—too much. She’s the unruly woman, and she embodies one of the most provocative and powerful forms of womanhood today. In  Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud , Anne Helen Petersen uses the lens of ‘unruliness’ to explore the ascension of pop culture powerhouses like Lena Dunham, Nicki Minaj, and Kim Kardashian, exploring why the public loves to love (and hate) these controversial figures. With its brisk, incisive analysis,  Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud  will be a conversation-starting book on what makes and breaks celebrity today.”

Well, That Escalated Quickly: Memoirs and Mistakes of an Accidental Activist  by Franchesca Ramsey

“In her first book, Ramsey uses her own experiences as an accidental activist to explore the many ways we communicate with each other—from the highs of bridging gaps and making connections to the many pitfalls that accompany talking about race, power, sexuality, and gender in an unpredictable public space…the internet.”

Shrewed: A Wry and Closely Observed Look at the Lives of Women and Girls  by Elizabeth Renzetti

“Drawing upon Renzetti’s decades of reporting on feminist issues,  Shrewed  is a book about feminism’s crossroads. From Hillary Clinton’s failed campaign to the quest for equal pay, from the lessons we can learn from old ladies to the future of feminism in a turbulent world, Renzetti takes a pointed, witty look at how far we’ve come—and how far we have to go.”

What Are We Doing Here?: Essays  by Marilynne Robinson

“In this new essay collection she trains her incisive mind on our modern political climate and the mysteries of faith. Whether she is investigating how the work of great thinkers about America like Emerson and Tocqueville inform our political consciousness or discussing the way that beauty informs and disciplines daily life, Robinson’s peerless prose and boundless humanity are on full display.”

Double Bind: Women on Ambition  by Robin Romm

“‘A work of courage and ferocious honesty’ (Diana Abu-Jaber),  Double Bind  could not come at a more urgent time. Even as major figures from Gloria Steinem to Beyoncé embrace the word ‘feminism,’ the word ‘ambition’ remains loaded with ambivalence. Many women see it as synonymous with strident or aggressive, yet most feel compelled to strive and achieve—the seeming contradiction leaving them in a perpetual double bind. Ayana Mathis, Molly Ringwald, Roxane Gay, and a constellation of ‘nimble thinkers . . . dismantle this maddening paradox’ ( O, The Oprah Magazine ) with candor, wit, and rage. Women who have made landmark achievements in fields as diverse as law, dog sledding, and butchery weigh in, breaking the last feminist taboo once and for all.”

The Destiny Thief: Essays on Writing, Writers and Life  by Richard Russo

“In these nine essays, Richard Russo provides insight into his life as a writer, teacher, friend, and reader. From a commencement speech he gave at Colby College, to the story of how an oddly placed toilet made him reevaluate the purpose of humor in art and life, to a comprehensive analysis of Mark Twain’s value, to his harrowing journey accompanying a dear friend as she pursued gender-reassignment surgery,  The Destiny Thief  reflects the broad interests and experiences of one of America’s most beloved authors. Warm, funny, wise, and poignant, the essays included here traverse Russo’s writing life, expanding our understanding of who he is and how his singular, incredibly generous mind works. An utter joy to read, they give deep insight into the creative process from the prospective of one of our greatest writers.”

Curry: Eating, Reading, and Race by Naben Ruthnum

“Curry is a dish that doesn’t quite exist, but, as this wildly funny and sharp essay points out, a dish that doesn’t properly exist can have infinite, equally authentic variations. By grappling with novels, recipes, travelogues, pop culture, and his own upbringing, Naben Ruthnum depicts how the distinctive taste of curry has often become maladroit shorthand for brown identity. With the sardonic wit of Gita Mehta’s  Karma Cola  and the refined, obsessive palette of Bill Buford’s  Heat , Ruthnum sinks his teeth into the story of how the beloved flavor calcified into an aesthetic genre that limits the imaginations of writers, readers, and eaters.”

The River of Consciousness  by Oliver Sacks

“Sacks, an Oxford-educated polymath, had a deep familiarity not only with literature and medicine but with botany, animal anatomy, chemistry, the history of science, philosophy, and psychology.  The River of Consciousness  is one of two books Sacks was working on up to his death, and it reveals his ability to make unexpected connections, his sheer joy in knowledge, and his unceasing, timeless project to understand what makes us human.”

All the Women in My Family Sing: Women Write the World: Essays on Equality, Justice, and Freedom (Nothing But the Truth So Help Me God)  by Deborah Santana and America Ferrera

“ All the Women in My Family Sing  is an anthology documenting the experiences of women of color at the dawn of the twenty-first century. It is a vital collection of prose and poetry whose topics range from the pressures of being the vice-president of a Fortune 500 Company, to escaping the killing fields of Cambodia, to the struggles inside immigration, identity, romance, and self-worth. These brief, trenchant essays capture the aspirations and wisdom of women of color as they exercise autonomy, creativity, and dignity and build bridges to heal the brokenness in today’s turbulent world.”

We Wear the Mask: 15 True Stories of Passing in America  by Brando Skyhorse and Lisa Page

“For some, ‘passing’ means opportunity, access, or safety. Others don’t willingly pass but are ‘passed’ in specific situations by someone else.  We Wear the Mask , edited by  Brando Skyhorse  and  Lisa Page , is an illuminating and timely anthology that examines the complex reality of passing in America. Skyhorse, a Mexican American, writes about how his mother passed him as an American Indian before he learned who he really is. Page shares how her white mother didn’t tell friends about her black ex-husband or that her children were, in fact, biracial.”

Feel Free: Essays by Zadie Smith

“Since she burst spectacularly into view with her debut novel almost two decades ago, Zadie Smith has established herself not just as one of the world’s preeminent fiction writers, but also a brilliant and singular essayist. She contributes regularly to  The New Yorker  and the  New York Review of Books  on a range of subjects, and each piece of hers is a literary event in its own right.”

The Mother of All Questions: Further Reports from the Feminist Revolutions  by Rebecca Solnit

“In a timely follow-up to her national bestseller  Men Explain Things to Me , Rebecca Solnit offers indispensable commentary on women who refuse to be silenced, misogynistic violence, the fragile masculinity of the literary canon, the gender binary, the recent history of rape jokes, and much more. In characteristic style, Solnit mixes humor, keen analysis, and powerful insight in these essays.”

The Wrong Way to Save Your Life: Essays  by Megan Stielstra

“Whether she’s imagining the implications of open-carry laws on college campuses, recounting the story of going underwater on the mortgage of her first home, or revealing the unexpected pains and joys of marriage and motherhood, Stielstra’s work informs, impels, enlightens, and embraces us all. The result is something beautiful—this story, her courage, and, potentially, our own.”

Against Memoir: Complaints, Confessions & Criticisms  by Michelle Tea

“Delivered with her signature honesty and dark humor, this is Tea’s first-ever collection of journalistic writing. As she blurs the line between telling other people’s stories and her own, she turns an investigative eye to the genre that’s nurtured her entire career—memoir—and considers the price that art demands be paid from life.”

A Twenty Minute Silence Followed by Applause  by Shawn Wen

“In precise, jewel-like scenes and vignettes,  A Twenty Minute Silence Followed by Applause  pays homage to the singular genius of a mostly-forgotten art form. Drawing on interviews, archival research, and meticulously observed performances, Wen translates the gestural language of mime into a lyric written portrait by turns whimsical, melancholic, and haunting.”

Acid West: Essays  by Joshua Wheeler

“The radical evolution of American identity, from cowboys to drone warriors to space explorers, is a story rooted in southern New Mexico.  Acid West  illuminates this history, clawing at the bounds of genre to reveal a place that is, for better or worse, home. By turns intimate, absurd, and frightening,  Acid West  is an enlightening deep-dive into a prophetic desert at the bottom of America.”

Sexographies  by Gabriela Wiener and Lucy Greaves And jennifer adcock (Translators)

“In fierce and sumptuous first-person accounts, renowned Peruvian journalist Gabriela Wiener records infiltrating the most dangerous Peruvian prison, participating in sexual exchanges in swingers clubs, traveling the dark paths of the Bois de Boulogne in Paris in the company of transvestites and prostitutes, undergoing a complicated process of egg donation, and participating in a ritual of ayahuasca ingestion in the Amazon jungle—all while taking us on inward journeys that explore immigration, maternity, fear of death, ugliness, and threesomes. Fortunately, our eagle-eyed voyeur emerges from her narrative forays unscathed and ready to take on the kinks, obsessions, and messiness of our lives.  Sexographies  is an eye-opening, kamikaze journey across the contours of the human body and mind.”

The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative  by Florence Williams

“From forest trails in Korea, to islands in Finland, to eucalyptus groves in California, Florence Williams investigates the science behind nature’s positive effects on the brain. Delving into brand-new research, she uncovers the powers of the natural world to improve health, promote reflection and innovation, and strengthen our relationships. As our modern lives shift dramatically indoors, these ideas—and the answers they yield—are more urgent than ever.”

Can You Tolerate This?: Essays  by Ashleigh Young

“ Can You Tolerate This?  presents a vivid self-portrait of an introspective yet widely curious young woman, the colorful, isolated community in which she comes of age, and the uneasy tensions—between safety and risk, love and solitude, the catharsis of grief and the ecstasy of creation—that define our lives.”

What are your favorite contemporary essay collections?

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