Essays

An essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition of an essay is vague, overlapping with those of an article and a short story. Almost all modern essays are written in prose, but works in verse have been dubbed essays (e.g. Alexander Pope's An Essay on Criticism and An Essay on Man). While brevity usually defines an essay, voluminous works like Joh ...more

New Releases Tagged "Essays"

A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness
On Morrison
The Irish Goodbye: Micro-Memoirs
Frog: And Other Essays
Braving the Truth: Essential Essays for Reckoning with and Reimagining Faith
How to Disappear and Why
One Aladdin Two Lamps
The Snakes That Ate Florida: Reporting, Essays, and Criticism
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
That's a Great Question, I'd Love to Tell You: A Funny, Awkward, and Deeply Human Collection of Stories About Love, Anxiety, and Self-Acceptance
The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World
The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet
Big Dumb Eyes: Stories from a Simpler Mind
The Greatest Sentence Ever Written
Bread of Angels: A Memoir
The Comfort Book
The Message
Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts
Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves
Actress of a Certain Age: My Twenty-Year Trail to Overnight Success
The Land of Sweet Forever: Stories and Essays
Who Is Government? The Untold Story of Public Service
Every Day I Read: 53 Ways to Get Closer to Books
Consider the Lobster and Other Essays by David Foster WallaceA Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by David Foster WallaceMe Talk Pretty One Day by David SedarisBird by Bird by Anne LamottNaked by David Sedaris
Best Book of Essays
402 books — 183 voters

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. TolkienThe Hobbit, or There and Back Again by J.R.R. TolkienHarry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. RowlingTo Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee1984 by George Orwell
Works of Pure Genius
733 books — 577 voters
The God Delusion by Richard DawkinsGod Is Not Great by Christopher HitchensThe Demon-Haunted World by Carl SaganThe End of Faith by Sam HarrisLetter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris
Notable Atheist Books
557 books — 956 voters

A Room of One’s Own by Virginia WoolfWalden or, Life in the Woods by Henry David ThoreauA Collection of Essays by George OrwellThe Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays by Albert CamusArguably by Christopher Hitchens
Best/Favorite Books of Essays
554 books — 248 voters
The Gilded Wolves by Roshani ChokshiDescendant of the Crane by Joan HeOn the Come Up by Angie ThomasWe Hunt the Flame by Hafsah FaizalWith the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo
2019 Books by Authors of Color
349 books — 380 voters

Bad Feminist
Slouching Towards Bethlehem
A Room of One’s Own
We Should All Be Feminists
Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion
Me Talk Pretty One Day
Men Explain Things to Me
The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet
Consider the Lobster and Other Essays
The Fire Next Time (Vintage International)
The White Album
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again:  Essays and Arguments
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches
Upstream: Selected Essays
When You Are Engulfed in Flames

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