The essay is a literary device for saying almost everything about almost anything. - Aldous Huxley
Denver Public Library’s Core Collections are essential titles of a genre that represent the breadth and diversity of our contemporary world. They are also available on Overdrive! We continue our blog series with essays that reflect our world’s human diversity.
Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex, by Angela Chen
“A journalist, using her own perspective along with those of a diverse group of asexual people, presents a careful cultural analysis that explores how societal norms limit understanding of sex and relationships and celebrates the breadth of sexuality and queerness.”
American Like Me, edited by America Ferrera
Booklist Editors’ Choice winner. “From an award-winning actress and political activist comes a vibrant and varied collection of first person accounts from prominent figures about the experience of growing up between cultures.”
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man, by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
“A leading Black scholar interviews famous African Americans, exploring their views on America and the significance of their lives in terms of race relations.”
Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women that a Movement Forgot, by Mikki Kendall
Rise: A Feminist Book Project List winner. “Insightful, incendiary and ultimately hopeful, Hood Feminism is both an irrefutable indictment of a movement in flux and also a clear-eyed assessment of how to save it.”
You Can’t Touch My Hair and Other Things I Still Have To Explain, by Phoebe Robinson
Amelia Bloomer Lists winner. “The stand-up comedian and WNYC podcaster offers humorous, poignant essays describing her experience as a black woman in modern America.”
I'm Afraid of Men, by Vivek Shraya
Amelia Bloomer Lists winner. “A trans artist explores how masculinity was imposed on her as a boy and continues to haunt her as a girl—and how we might reimagine gender for the twenty-first century.”
Sitting Pretty: the View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body, by Rebekah Taussig
“From disability advocate with a PhD in disability studies and creative nonfiction, an essay collection based on a lifetime of experiences in a paralyzed body, tackling themes of identity, accessibility, bodies, and representation.”
Here For It: Or How to Save Your Soul in America, by R. Eric Thomas
“A humorist and playwright provides a heartfelt and humorous memoir-in-essays about growing up seeing the world differently, finding unexpected hope and every awkward, extraordinary stumble along the way.”
Non-binary Lives: An Anthology of Intersecting Identities, edited by Jos Twist, Ben Vincent, Meg-John Barker, and Kat Gupta
“Leading non-binary people share stories of their intersecting lives. This thought-provoking anthology shows that there is no right or wrong way to be non-binary.”
Shapes of Native Nonfiction: Collected Essays By Contemporary Writers, edited by Elissa Washuta and Theresa Warburton
“While exploring familiar legacies of personal and collective trauma and violence, these writers push, pull and break the conventional essay structure to overhaul the dominant cultural narrative that romanticize Native lives, yet deny Native emotional response.”
Check out these titles and more from the Core Collections. You can see the other blog in the Essay Core Collection Series Almost Anything About Almost Everything below:
Essays In Remembrance: Almost Everything About Almost Anything
Essays by Women: Almost Everything About Almost Anything
Essays for AA.NH/PI Heritage Month: Almost Everything About Almost Anything
This blog was written by guest contributor Dana F.
