Book Riot's 50 Must-Read Contemporary Essay Collections
1. 
Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions
by:
Valeria Luiselli
4.39 avg rating — 16,457 ratings 
3. 
We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy
by:
Ta-Nehisi Coates
4.38 avg rating — 30,600 ratings 
7. 
Dead Girls: Essays on Surviving an American Obsession
by:
Alice Bolin
3.03 avg rating — 4,040 ratings 
10. 
A Really Big Lunch: The Roving Gourmand on Food and Life
by:
Jim Harrison
4.02 avg rating — 950 ratings 11. 
Would You Rather? A Memoir of Growing Up and Coming Out
by:
Katie Heaney
3.78 avg rating — 1,766 ratings 
13. 
All the Lives I Want: Essays About My Best Friends Who Happen to Be Famous Strangers
by:
Alana Massey
3.65 avg rating — 2,099 ratings 14. 
One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter
by:
Scaachi Koul
3.73 avg rating — 13,463 ratings 15. 
We Wear the Mask: 15 Stories of Passing in America
by:
Brando Skyhorse
3.85 avg rating — 218 ratings 
17. 
20. 
Would Everybody Please Stop?: Reflections on Life and Other Bad Ideas
by:
Jenny Allen
3.27 avg rating — 439 ratings 21. 
Longthroat Memoirs: Soups, Sex and Nigerian Taste Buds
by:
Yemisi Aribisala
3.99 avg rating — 140 ratings 
24. 
Betwixt-and-Between: Essays on the Writing Life
by:
Jenny Boully
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 237 ratings 
26. 
Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London
by:
Lauren Elkin
3.58 avg rating — 4,031 ratings 
31. 
This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America
by:
Morgan Jerkins
4.04 avg rating — 6,731 ratings 
34. 
Nasty Women: Feminism, Resistance, and Revolution in Trump's America 4.11 avg rating — 2,025 ratings
35. 
Don't Call Me Princess: Essays on Girls, Women, Sex, and Life
by:
Peggy Orenstein
3.78 avg rating — 856 ratings 36. 
When You Find Out the World is Against You: And Other Funny Memories About Awful Moments
by:
Kelly Oxford
3.65 avg rating — 2,690 ratings 37. 
Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman 3.75 avg rating — 10,159 ratings
38. 
Well, That Escalated Quickly: Memoirs and Mistakes of an Accidental Activist 3.79 avg rating — 2,605 ratings
39. 
Shrewed: A Wry and Closely Observed Look at the Lives of Women and Girls really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 786 ratings
42. 
The Destiny Thief: Essays on Writing, Writers and Life
by:
Richard Russo
3.82 avg rating — 1,082 ratings 
44. 
49. 
The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative 3.97 avg rating — 14,015 ratings
