BVBook Verdict

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Books like Philosophical essays

Loved Philosophical essays by Bertrand Russell? Here are 10 books with a similar appeal — drawn mostly from essays, ranked by how confidently we'd recommend them next.

10 books · ranked

  1. 1

    The Fire Next Time

    James Baldwin · 1963 · Essays

    Two searing essays on race, faith and America; as urgent now as when they were written.

  2. 2

    Slouching Towards Bethlehem

    Joan Didion · 1968 · Essays

    Sharp, cool essays on 1960s America; the book that set the standard for the personal essay.

  3. 3

    Makura no sōshi

    Sei Shōnagon · 1917 · Essays

    A fascinating, detailed account of Japanese court life in the eleventh century. Written by a lady of the court at the height of Heian culture, this book enthralls with its lively gossip, witty observa

  4. 4

    Prejudices

    H. L. Mencken · 1919 · Essays

    Mencken, with his acerbic wit and tongue planted permanently near if not in cheek, laments a world where some feel that all original criticism has been done. New ideas are old ideas with new vocabular

  5. 5

    Pluralistic Universe

    William James · 1908 · Essays

    Lectures on the advantages of using radical empiricism (pluralism) when trying to relate entities in the absolute to the absolute.

  6. 6

    SPIRITS REBELLIOUS

    Kahlil Gibran · 1908 · Essays

    "'Illustrations reproduced from original drawings by the author.'"

  7. 7

    Adventures in Contentment

    David Grayson · 1907 · Essays

    This, I am firmly convinced, is a strange world, as strange a one as I

  8. 8

    Collected papers

    Sigmund Freud · 1906 · Essays

    Presents a selection of the important writings of the nineteenth-century psychiatrist, including "Psychopathology of Everyday Life," "The Interpretation of Dreams," and "Totem and Taboo."

  9. 9

    The Aran Islands

    J. M. Synge · 1906 · Essays

    "In the late 1890s, John M. Synge, in his middle twenties and unsure of his vocations made his way to Paris intending to study French literature and become a literary critic. There he met William Butl

  10. 10

    Painting as a pastime

    Winston S. Churchill · 1921 · Essays

    "'Happy are the painters, for they shall not be lonely' The perfect antidote to the depression that blighted his working life, Sir Winston Churchill took to painting with gusto following his ejection

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