- All Art is Propaganda: Critical Essays by George Orwell – Best known for his novels, Orwell was also a prolific essayist. In this collection his critical essays focus on literature and the politics of literature. Also in the library’s collection is the companion volume, Facing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative Essays.
Also available as an ebook on Hoopla.
- Bad Feminist: Essays by Roxane Gay – Gay is an essayist, novelist, and pop-culture icon. This collection includes essays with a wide range of topics and tones including essays about race, fairy tales, violence, friendship, and Scrabble. The essays can be serious or lighthearted and capture despair or optimism. There is something for everyone.
Also available as an audiobook on Hoopla and an ebook on Libby.
- Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays by Zadie Smith – A collection of Smith’s essays covering a broad range of topics and organized under five sections – “Reading,” “Being,” “Seeing,” “Feeling” and “Remembering.”
Also available as an audiobook on Hoopla.
- Chronicles of a Liquid Society by Umberto Eco – Best known as the author of the classic work of fiction, The Name of the Rose, this posthumous collection of essays documents Eco’s final observations about the modern world.
Also available as an ebook on Hoopla.
- Collected Essays by James Baldwin – This comprehensive collection of Baldwin’s essays includes the classics such as The Fire Next Time, Notes of a Native Son, and Nobody Knows My Name.
- Essays of E.B. White by E.B. White – A collection of thirty one essays by the author of Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little. These essays are arranged by the topics “The Farm,” “The Planet,” “The City,” “Florida,” “Memories,” “Diversion and Obsession” and “Books, Men, and Writing.”
Also available as an audiobook and an ebook on Hoopla.
- The Glorious American Essay: One Hundred Essays from Colonial Times to the Present edited by Phillip Lopate – This anthology includes three centuries of American essays covering a wide variety of themes and writers.
- Known and Strange Things: Essays by Teju Cole – Teju Cole is an author of fiction and nonfiction and a photographer. This book is a selection of his essays that were previously published in a variety of publications. Many focus on his favorite topics – photography, literature, music, travel, and politics.
Also available as an audiobook on Hoopla.
- Myself with Others: Selected Essays by Carlos Fuentes – This collection of essays by the Mexican novelist covers the most prominent themes of his work: autobiography, love of literature (with essays on Diderot, Gogol, Kundera, Cervantes, and Garcia Marquez), and politics.
- What I Stand On: The Collected Essays of Wendell Berry (2 volumes) – The essays in these two volumes were selected by Berry and his long-time editor. They encompass his writing career from 1969-2017 and reveal his thoughts and concerns as a farmer, citizen, teacher, activist, and ecologist.