Books like White
Bret Easton Ellis's essays on post-Empire America: celebrity, social media and the fate of the transgressive artist in a culture that demands likability.
Explore books like this on the map12 books for readers of White
Trick Mirror
Nine essays on how late-2010s America scams itself, the internet as self, the wedding industry, athleisure and optimisation, written from inside the trap by someone who does not pretend to be above it.
The Philosophy of Modern Song
Sixty-six short essays on songs by other people, from Stephen Foster to Elvis Costello, each with a riff on what the song is really about.
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again
Essays on state fairs, cruise ships, tennis, and television that reveal the absurdity and melancholy hiding in American entertainment culture.
When You Are Engulfed in Flames
Sedaris on quitting cigarettes by moving to Tokyo for three months, on domestic life with Hugh in Paris and Normandy, and on the neighbours, strangers and medical complaints that keep finding him.
Naked
Sedaris on his obsessive-compulsive childhood in Raleigh, hitchhiking, apple picking with strangers, a summer at a nudist colony and his mother's last years, the book that made his name.
Notes of a Native Son
Baldwin returns from Paris to America to bury his father, and in ten essays lays out what the country's racial lie has cost a son, a church, and a prose style.
Minor Feelings
Hong writes about Asian-American shame, Richard Pryor, friendship, and why the minor feelings of a model-minority life refuse to stay put.
The Labyrinth of Solitude
Paz's essays on the Mexican character, on the pachuco, the fiesta, death, and the masks Mexicans wear.
On Photography
Six essays on what it means to see the world through photographs, and what the camera consumes, numbs and moralises away.
A Small Place
Kincaid addresses the tourist directly as she describes Antigua, the island where she grew up, and lays out what centuries of colonial rule and the corruption that followed have done to it.
Just Us: An American Conversation
A hybrid of poems, essays, and images documenting Rankine's attempts to hold everyday conversations about whiteness with friends, strangers, and herself.
Novelist as a Vocation
Essays on how Murakami became a novelist, from the baseball game where he decided to write his first book to the daily routine and stubbornness that have kept him writing since.