Best Essays

The 30 highest-rated Essays, scored from 7.4K reader ratings.

Sort byDecadeMinimum ratings30 results

By year of first publication, 1903–2022. The busiest stretch is 2010–2019, with 6. Select a bar to narrow the list.

1
8.88.8 / 10
The Fire Next TimeJames Baldwin383 ratings“The Fire Next Time” is a brief, intense book on race in America: two essays written as letters, forceful without ever ranting.Our view
2
8.58.5 / 10
The Anthropocene ReviewedJohn Green729 ratings“The Anthropocene Reviewed” is a collection of short personal essays in which John Green finds reasons to keep paying attention to human life.Our view
3
8.58.5 / 10
We Should All Be FeministsChimamanda Ngozi Adichie805 ratingsAt sixty-odd pages this essay can be read in one sitting, and its strength is exactly that economy.Our view

Why The Fire Next Time is #1

The Fire Next Time (James Baldwin) scores 8.8/10 from 383 ratings — 0.3 points ahead of The Anthropocene Reviewed in second place.

The score is a weighted average across 3 independent rating sources. A title with few ratings is pulled toward the category average, so a handful of enthusiastic reviews cannot outrank a book that thousands of readers have judged. To keep the list varied, the top 20 holds at most two books from one series and three by one author; the rest follow further down. Method →