13 Feminist Essay Collections to Read While You Wait For Emily Ratajkowski's Book

One of the best books of 2019, Jia Tolentino's Trick Mirror asks the question of what happens to our behavior when we live most of our lives online. Offering nuanced and witty commentary on just about everything you could consider part of the zeitgeist, Trick Mirror is recommended reading for anyone interested in the way we live and think today.

Taking on topics as diverse as Brexit and teen idols, Feel Free showcases Zadie Smith's extreme versatility as a writer. Split into five parts, this collection of cultural criticisms, personal essays, and political writings proves no subject is too fringe or too mainstream for the unstoppable Man Booker Prize winner.

Nikesh Shukla's The Good Immigrant brings together 21 writers to explore what it means to be Black, Asian, and minority ethnic in Britain today in a series of poignant and powerful essays.

Following the success of her feminist manifesto, We Should All Be Feminists, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie pens 15 more important and necessary essays in Dear Ijeawele. Written in response to a friend's request for advice on how to raise her baby girl as a feminist, Adichie's essays form a simple blueprint on how to raise our children free of gender roles and biases.

In Bad Feminist, Roxane Gay blends anecdotal stories, critical analysis, and humor to explore the intersectionality of race and gender. Acerbic and fantastically funny, Bad Feminist should sit on everyone's bookshelf.

Sex Power Money by comedian Sara Pascoe is a clever and funny journey through the history of human sexuality up to and including modern attitudes toward sex, gender, and porn. While the book is extremely well-researched and delves into some pretty heavy topics, Pascoe peppers the text with her trademark whip-smart wit, meaning you don't need a degree in biology to enjoy this essay collection.

I Will Not Be Erased, compiled by the editors of Gal-dem.com, is a series of essays written by Black and Brown (predominantly British) women. Centered on the theme of growing up, the 14 essays in this collection offer up thought-provoking and moving reflections on adolescence, identity, and ambition.

The Mother of All Questions is worth a read for Rebecca Solnit's poetic prose alone. Writing on everything from Lolita and rape jokes to incel shootings and fragile masculinity, Solnit explores issues both big and small with urgency and passion.

Inspired by Elizabeth Day's hugely popular podcast, How to Fail is part memoir, part manifesto. Covering everything from imposter syndrome and loneliness to infertility and loss, Day draws on her own life experiences to champion the idea that we should celebrate life's little (and large) failures.

In Hood Feminism, author and activist Mikki Kendall unpacks issues at the center of the mainstream feminist movement, namely how it neglects women from marginalized communities. Kendall's essays — which brilliantly explain how everything from housing to gun violence and poverty are essentially feminist issues — should be required reading for anyone who calls themselves a feminist.

Pandora Sykes asks how we know what our best life looks like in her collection of essays on modern life, How Do We Know We're Doing It Right? With essays on wellness, consumerism, work, and the pursuit of happiness, Sykes's collection reminds us there is no one path to contentment.

A heartfelt collection of personal essays on growing up the daughter of Indian immigrants in Canada, One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter by Scaachi Koul is guaranteed to make you laugh out loud as Koul recounts stories about family, friendship, sex, and race with both sharp perspective and self-deprecating humor.

With a PhD in celebrity culture (yes, really), Anne Helen Petersen's Too Fat Too Slutty Too Loud is, unsurprisingly, an in-depth discussion on what it means to be a woman celebrity. Lena Dunham, Nicki Minaj, and Kim Kardashian are all subject to Petersen's razor-sharp analysis.