The 10 Best Essay Collections of the Decade (2010s)
This is one of the 743 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.
About this list
Literary Hub, 17 Books
This list presents "The 10 Best Essay Collections of the Decade," curated by Emily Temple and published on December 23, 2019, by Literary Hub. It aims to highlight the most impactful essay collections published in English between 2010 and 2019. The selection process involved extensive debate and multiple voting rounds among the Literary Hub staff, indicating a thorough and participatory methodology. The list reflects a considered effort to balance critical acclaim with personal impact, as evidenced by the inclusion of dissenting opinions and an expanded list of honorable mentions. This curated selection was designed to encapsulate the diverse literary voices and themes that defined the decade's essayistic landscape.
This list was originally published in 2019 and was added to this site over 1 year ago.
| Rank | Book | Authors | Year | Country | Language | Actions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10247 | The Mind's Eye | Oliver Sacks | 2010 | British | English | |
| 1671 | Pulphead | John Jeremiah Sullivan | 2011 | American | English | |
| 8472 | The Book Of My Lives | Aleksandar Hemon | 2013 | American | English | |
| 2973 | Braiding Sweetgrass | Robin Wall Kimmerer | 2013 | American | English | |
| 5334 | White Girls | Hilton Als | 2013 | American | English | |
| 6423 | On Immunity | Eula Biss | 2014 | American | English | |
| 11803 | The Mother Of All Questions | Rebecca Solnit | 2017 | American | English | |
| 4731 | Tell Me How It Ends | Valeria Luiselli | 2017 | Mexican | English | |
| 4994 | Feel Free | Zadie Smith | 2018 | British | English | |
| 3590 | Thick | Tressie McMillan Cottom | 2019 | American | English | |
| 3572 | The Possessed | Elif Batuman | 2010 | Turkish | English | |
| 5159 | Bad Feminist | Roxane Gay | 2014 | American | English | |
| 11785 | Little Labors | Rivka Galchen | 2016 | American | English | |
| 11906 | This Young Monster | Charlie Fox | 2017 | British | English | |
| 11906 | Animals Strike Curious Poses | Elena Passarello | 2017 | American | English | |
| 12428 | The Collected Schizophrenias | Esmé Weijun Wang | 2019 | American | English | |
| 9938 | The Book Of Delights | Ross Gay | 2019 | American | English |