I enjoy essay books. Recommendations of your favorites? – TheBookSwarm

47 Answers

Anne Rivers Siddons has a great essay collection.

SusanQuestion author

Thank you.

LJ

Why I Am Not a Christian and other essays by Bertrand Russell.

SusanQuestion author

Thank you.

Currently reading a sample of The Displaced due for release in April and it’s great

A room of one’s own by Virginia Woolf

SusanQuestion author

Thank you.

Mortality by Christopher Hitchens: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13529055-mortality?from_search=true

SusanQuestion author

Thank you.

Howard’s End is on the Landing by Susan Hill, To Make a Praire by Maxine Kumin

SusanQuestion author

Thank you.

You Play The Girl by Carina Chocano. https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/carina-chocano/you-play-the-girl/

Any books by David Sedaris, maybe start with Me Talk Pretty One Day.

SusanQuestion author

I’ve read a few of his. I think his are more like memoirs?

SusanQuestion author

Thank you.

B. J. Novak it’s a great book. ?

I liked this book too, but it’s actually short stories rather than essays.

SusanQuestion author

Thank you.

I don’t know if it counts as an essay but the Narrative of Frederick Douglass is beautifully written and inspiring.

SusanQuestion author

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I read Great American Essays each year.

SusanQuestion author

I have 2017. ?

Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace ?

SusanQuestion author

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A Supposedly Fun Thing I Will Never Do Again by DFW is a lot of fun, too.

The Fire This Time edited by Jesmyn Ward

SusanQuestion author

Thank you.

Lives of a Cell and the Medusa and the Snail by Lewis Thomas. First Person Rural, Second Person Rural and Third Oerson Rural by Noel Perrin.

SusanQuestion author

Thank you.

Bad Feminist, Furiously Happy, People I Want To Punch In The Throat

SusanQuestion author

Thank you. I did read “ Furiously happy”….?

I feel bad about my neck by Nora Ephron

SusanQuestion author

Thank you.

Susan I am a big fan of essays, too.

This I believe. Essays from the NPR radio series

SusanQuestion author

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David Foster Wallace essays

SusanQuestion author

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Check out the essays by authors Annie Dillard and Barbara Kingsolver (both write mostly about the natural world). Also Joan Didion—more about culture.

SusanQuestion author

Thank you.

George Orwell. All of his essays—Why I Write, Burmese Days, Shooting an Elephant, and more—are excellent.

SusanQuestion author

Thank you.

You’re welcome!

This is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett

SusanQuestion author

Thank you.

Joan Didion, Slouching Toward Bethlehem or The White Album (Slouching is taught a lot in university classes–Her writing was that groundbreaking.)

On Immunity by Eula Biss
We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby (FUNNY)
Shrill by Lindy West –funny, but whip smart
The Encylopedia of Trouble and Spaciousness by Rebecca Solnit
James Baldwin

Anthologies:
The Art of the Personal Essay by Philip Lopate is also taught a lot
Best American Essays of the Century (the 20th, not this century) Edited by Joyce Carol Oates
The Best American Essays comes out annually in the fall. There are also special topical editions–Sports, science writing, food writing, etc.

SusanQuestion author

Thank you.

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