Washoe County Library System

The award-winning and best-selling Jonathan Franzen picks the best essays from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites. He brings his "elegance, acumen, and daring as an essayist" (New York Times) to the collection.

In her introduction to this year’s The Best American Essays, guest editor Vivian Gornick states that her selections “contribute materially to the long and honorable history of the personal essay by way of the value they place on lived experience.” Provocative, daring, and honest at a time when many writers are deliberately silencing themselves in the face of authoritarian and populist censorship movements, the twenty-one essays collected here...

"Author Ross Gay spent a year writing almost-daily essays about the things, large and small, that delight him"--

"A collection of funny personal essays from one of the writers of Superbad and Pineapple Express and one of the producers of The Disaster Artist, Neighbors, and The Boys. (All of these words have been added to help this book show up in people's searches using the wonders of algorithmic technology. Thanks for bearing with us!) Hi! I'm Seth! I was asked to describe my book, Yearbook, for the inside flap (which is a gross phrase) and for websites and...

"Stand-up is all well and good, but observational humor that’s funny and warm may work best in books. And Tom Papa, whose loyal audiences are packed with “date night” couples of all ages, has perfected the form. In We're All In This Together, Papa’s thirty-seven short essays tackle these universal American topics, among others: –Love for Your First Car (“To Buy or Lease”) –The Truth about Personal Hygiene (“How You Know When It’s...

"New York Times bestselling author, comedian, actress, and producer Phoebe Robinson is back with a new essay collection that is equal parts thoughtful, hilarious, and sharp about human connection, race, hair, travel, dating, Black excellence, and more. Written in Phoebe's unforgettable voice and with her unparalleled wit, Robinson's latest collection, laced with spot-on pop culture references, takes on a wide range of topics. From the values she learned...

Deeply meditative and written with wry humor, this wide-ranging collection of new and previously published essays from an award-winning author, explores displacement, trauma and memory, love and how we coexist and encroach on the natural world. "Movement is a constant here. In the title piece, "The Window Seat," she reveals the unexpected enchantments of commercial air travel. In "Obama and the Renaissance Generation," she documents how, despite...

"An insightful look into the mind of a master storyteller—and a unique look at the craft of writing from the beloved and best-selling author of 1Q84, Norwegian Wood, and What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. "Murakami is like a magician who explains what he's doing as he performs the trick and still makes you believe he has supernatural powers" —New York Times Book Review A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK: Esquire, Vulture, LitHub, New York Observer...

"A collection of first-person essays and humor pieces about one woman's attempt to make sense of the baffling, humiliating, and extremely annoying world around her"--

In this candid essay collection, the star of Netflix's "Queer Eye" takes a thoughtful, in-depth look at current topics through his own personal experience, providing stories that speak to challenging internalized beliefs, finding compassion and confidence, and learning more about what makes people so messy and gorgeous.