Nonfiction

Best Essays Books

The personal essay is one of literature's most direct forms — a single mind in encounter with a subject, working something out on the page. The best collections are as satisfying as any fiction.

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Slouching Towards Bethlehem Joan Didion · 1968 Editor's Choice Get it on Amazon →

The Fire Next Time James Baldwin · 1963 Essential Read Get it on Amazon →

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Consider the Lobster David Foster Wallace · 2005 Recommended Get it on Amazon →

Men Explain Things to Me Rebecca Solnit · 2014 Recommended Get it on Amazon →

Feel Free Zadie Smith · 2018 Recommended See details →

A Grief Observed C. S. Lewis · 1961 Recommended See details →

A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge Alfred Klemmt · 1710 Recommended See details →

A Woman of No Importance Oscar Wilde · 1893 Recommended See details →

A week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers Henry David Thoreau · 1849 Recommended See details →

Adventures in Contentment David Grayson · 1907 Recommended See details →

Between man and man Martin Buber · 1947 Recommended See details →

Collected papers Sigmund Freud · 1906 Recommended See details →

Conformity and conflict James P. Spradley · 1971 Recommended See details →

Dante Gabriel Rossetti Dante Gabriel Rossetti · 1895 Recommended See details →

De Proust a Camus André Maurois · 1963 Recommended See details →

Domestic manners of the Americans Frances Milton Trollope · 1832 Recommended See details →

Edvard Munch Edvard Munch · 1927 Recommended See details →

Excursions Henry David Thoreau · 1840 Recommended See details →

Geschichte und Klassenbewusstsein György Lukács · 1923 Recommended See details →

Historias de cronopios y de famas Julio Cortázar · 1962 Recommended See details →

History of the Wars Procopius · 1531 Recommended See details →

Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow Jerome Klapka Jérôme · 1880 Recommended See details →

Little rivers Henry van Dyke · 1895 Recommended See details →

Louise Bourgeois Louise Bourgeois · 1981 Recommended See details →

Makura no sōshi Sei Shōnagon · 1917 Recommended See details →

Our bodies, ourselves Boston Women's Health Book Collective · 1971 Recommended See details →

Painting as a pastime Winston S. Churchill · 1921 Recommended See details →

Philosophical essays Bertrand Russell · 1910 Recommended See details →

Plein Ciel Danielle Steel · 1988 Recommended See details →

Pluralistic Universe William James · 1908 Recommended See details →

Prejudices H. L. Mencken · 1919 Recommended See details →

Roads to Freedom Bertrand Russell · 1918 Recommended See details →

SPIRITS REBELLIOUS Kahlil Gibran · 1908 Recommended See details →

Selected literary criticism D. H. Lawrence · 1935 Recommended See details →

The Age of Reason Thomas Paine · 1794 Recommended See details →

The Aran Islands J. M. Synge · 1906 Recommended See details →

The Human Condition Hannah Arendt · 1958 Recommended See details →

The Life of the Fields Richard Jefferies · 1884 Recommended See details →

The Open Air Richard Jefferies · 1885 Recommended See details →

The Road to Serfdom Friedrich A. von Hayek · 1944 Recommended See details →

The autocrat of the breakfast-table Sr. Oliver Wendell Holmes · 1858 Recommended See details →

The essays of Elia, first series Charles Lamb · 1800 Recommended See details →

The rambler Samuel Johnson · 1750 Recommended See details →

The writings of Henry David Thoreau Henry David Thoreau · 1884 Recommended See details →

Wolfert's roost and other papers Washington Irving · 1854 Recommended See details →

Works (American Notes Charles Dickens · 1800 Recommended See details →

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