examples of narrative nonfiction essays

25 Great Nonfiction Essays You Can Read Online for Free

Alison Doherty

Alison Doherty is a writing teacher and part time assistant professor living in Brooklyn, New York. She has an MFA from The New School in writing for children and teenagers. She loves writing about books on the Internet, listening to audiobooks on the subway, and reading anything with a twisty plot or a happily ever after.

View All posts by Alison Doherty

I love reading books of nonfiction essays and memoirs , but sometimes have a hard time committing to a whole book. This is especially true if I don’t know the author. But reading nonfiction essays online is a quick way to learn which authors you like. Also, reading nonfiction essays can help you learn more about different topics and experiences.

Besides essays on Book Riot,  I love looking for essays on The New Yorker , The Atlantic , The Rumpus , and Electric Literature . But there are great nonfiction essays available for free all over the Internet. From contemporary to classic writers and personal essays to researched ones—here are 25 of my favorite nonfiction essays you can read today.

“Beware of Feminist Lite” by  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The author of We Should All Be Feminists  writes a short essay explaining the danger of believing men and woman are equal only under certain conditions.

“It’s Silly to Be Frightened of Being Dead” by Diana Athill

A 96-year-old woman discusses her shifting attitude towards death from her childhood in the 1920s when death was a taboo subject, to World War 2 until the present day.

“Letter from a Region in my Mind” by James Baldwin

There are many moving and important essays by James Baldwin . This one uses the lens of religion to explore the Black American experience and sexuality. Baldwin describes his move from being a teenage preacher to not believing in god. Then he recounts his meeting with the prominent Nation of Islam member Elijah Muhammad.

“Relations” by Eula Biss

Biss uses the story of a white woman giving birth to a Black baby that was mistakenly implanted during a fertility treatment to explore racial identities and segregation in society as a whole and in her own interracial family.

“Friday Night Lights” by Buzz Bissinger

A comprehensive deep dive into the world of high school football in a small West Texas town.

“The Case for Reparations” by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Coates examines the lingering and continuing affects of slavery on  American society and makes a compelling case for the descendants of slaves being offered reparations from the government.

“Why I Write” by Joan Didion

This is one of the most iconic nonfiction essays about writing. Didion describes the reasons she became a writer, her process, and her journey to doing what she loves professionally.

“Go Gentle Into That Good Night” by Roger Ebert

With knowledge of his own death, the famous film critic ponders questions of mortality while also giving readers a pep talk for how to embrace life fully.

“My Mother’s Tongue” by Zavi Kang Engles

In this personal essay, Engles celebrates the close relationship she had with her mother and laments losing her Korean fluency.

“My Life as an Heiress” by Nora Ephron

As she’s writing an important script, Ephron imagines her life as a newly wealthy woman when she finds out an uncle left her an inheritance. But she doesn’t know exactly what that inheritance is.

“My FatheR Spent 30 Years in Prison. Now He’s Out.” by Ashley C. Ford

Ford describes the experience of getting to know her father after he’s been in prison for almost all of her life. Bridging the distance in their knowledge of technology becomes a significant—and at times humorous—step in rebuilding their relationship.

“Bad Feminist” by Roxane Gay

There’s a reason Gay named her bestselling essay collection after this story. It’s a witty, sharp, and relatable look at what it means to call yourself a feminist.

“The Empathy Exams” by Leslie Jamison

Jamison discusses her job as a medical actor helping to train medical students to improve their empathy and uses this frame to tell the story of one winter in college when she had an abortion and heart surgery.

“What I Learned from a Fitting Room Disaster About Clothes and Life” by Scaachi Koul

One woman describes her history with difficult fitting room experiences culminating in one catastrophe that will change the way she hopes to identify herself through clothes.

“Breasts: the Odd Couple” by Una LaMarche

LaMarche examines her changing feelings about her own differently sized breasts.

“How I Broke, and Botched, the Brandon Teena Story” by Donna Minkowitz

A journalist looks back at her own biased reporting on a news story about the sexual assault and murder of a trans man in 1993. Minkowitz examines how ideas of gender and sexuality have changed since she reported the story, along with how her own lesbian identity influenced her opinions about the crime.

“Politics and the English Language” by George Orwell

In this famous essay, Orwell bemoans how politics have corrupted the English language by making it more vague, confusing, and boring.

“Letting Go” by David Sedaris

The famously funny personal essay author , writes about a distinctly unfunny topic of tobacco addiction and his own journey as a smoker. It is (predictably) hilarious.

“Joy” by Zadie Smith

Smith explores the difference between pleasure and joy by closely examining moments of both, including eating a delicious egg sandwich, taking drugs at a concert, and falling in love.

“Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan

Tan tells the story of how her mother’s way of speaking English as an immigrant from China changed the way people viewed her intelligence.

“Consider the Lobster” by David Foster Wallace

The prolific nonfiction essay and fiction writer  travels to the Maine Lobster Festival to write a piece for Gourmet Magazine. With his signature footnotes, Wallace turns this experience into a deep exploration on what constitutes consciousness.

“I Am Not Pocahontas” by Elissa Washuta

Washuta looks at her own contemporary Native American identity through the lens of stereotypical depictions from 1990s films.

“Once More to the Lake” by E.B. White

E.B. White didn’t just write books like Charlotte’s Web and The Elements of Style . He also was a brilliant essayist. This nature essay explores the theme of fatherhood against the backdrop of a lake within the forests of Maine.

“Pell-Mell” by Tom Wolfe

The inventor of “new journalism” writes about the creation of an American idea by telling the story of Thomas Jefferson snubbing a European Ambassador.

“The Death of the Moth” by Virginia Woolf

In this nonfiction essay, Wolf describes a moth dying on her window pane. She uses the story as a way to ruminate on the lager theme of the meaning of life and death.

You Might Also Like

• Features for Creative Writers
• Features for Work
• Features for Higher Education
• Features for Teachers
• Features for Non-Native Speakers
• Learn Blog Grammar Guide Community Events FAQ
• Grammar Guide

Narrative Nonfiction Books: Definition and Examples

Hannah Yang

Table of Contents

What is narrative nonfiction, narrative nonfiction examples, how prowritingaid can help you write narrative nonfiction.

There are countless types of nonfiction books that you can consider writing. One popular genre you might have heard of is narrative nonfiction.

So, what exactly is narrative nonfiction?

The short answer is that narrative nonfiction is any true story written in the style of a fiction novel.

Read on to learn more about what narrative nonfiction looks like as well as some examples of bestselling narrative nonfiction books.

Let’s start with a quick overview of what narrative nonfiction means.

Narrative Nonfiction Definition

Narrative nonfiction, which is also sometimes called literary nonfiction or creative nonfiction, is a subgenre of nonfiction . This subgenre includes any true story that’s written in the style of a novel.

It’s easy to understand this term if you break it down into its component parts. The first word, narrative, means story. The second word, nonfiction , means writing that’s based on fact rather than imagination.

So, if you put those two words together, it’s clear that narrative nonfiction refers to true events that are written in the style of a story.

Narrative Nonfiction Meaning

You can think of narrative nonfiction as a genre that focuses both on conveying the truth and on telling a good story.

Everything in a narrative nonfiction book should be an accurate portrayal of true events. However, those events are told using techniques that are often used in fiction.

For example, narrative nonfiction writers might consider writing craft elements such as plot structure, character development, and effective world-building to craft a compelling story.

Most narrative nonfiction books include the following elements:

A protagonist (either the author themselves or the core subject of the story)

A cast of characters (who are real people)  

Immersive, fleshed-out scenes

A plot arc similar to the plot arcs found in fiction novels

Use of literary devices such as metaphors, symbols, and flashbacks

Some narrative nonfiction writers also play with more creative elements to make the story more intriguing, such as multiple POVs, alternating timelines, and even the inclusion of emails, diary entries, and text messages.

Be confident about grammar

Check every email, essay, or story for grammar mistakes. Fix them before you press send.

At the end of the day, though, narrative nonfiction is still a form of nonfiction. That means it’s important to try to be as accurate as possible.

Authors writing in this genre need extensive research skills, whether that means combing through historical records or interviewing experts. It’s impossible to create a completely accurate representation of any true story, so it’s fine to take some creative license when writing narrative nonfiction, but most authors still do as much research as they can to make sure they’re correctly depicting what happened.

Which Genres Count as Narrative Nonfiction?

It’s hard to draw a clear line around what counts as narrative nonfiction since many works of writing blur the lines between subgenres.

Two genres that commonly intersect with narrative nonfiction are memoir and autobiography, which are terms that apply when an author tells the story of their own life. When these stories are told in a narrative style, some people consider that to be narrative nonfiction or literary nonfiction, while others believe memoir and autobiography should be a separate category.

Most journalism and biographies aren’t included under the narrative nonfiction umbrella, since they usually focus more on reporting than on telling a story. Still, a form of journalism called literary journalism deliberately aims to tell personal stories in a more creative way, and there are also biographies that do the same.

Some books in other nonfiction subgenres, such as travel writing, true crime, and even food writing, can also be told in a way that resembles narrative nonfiction. In fact, more and more nonfiction books these days are using literary techniques to hook readers in.

Narrative nonfiction books can focus on just about any topic as long as they use literary styles to tell true stories. If you’re writing nonfiction, you can definitely consider incorporating literary elements to craft a compelling narrative around your topic.

The best way to understand a genre of writing is by reading examples within that genre. Here are ten of the best narrative nonfiction books to add to your reading list.

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (1965)

Truman Capote, best known for his novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s, started out as a fiction writer. When he wrote In Cold Blood , he famously called it a “nonfiction novel,” which introduced that term into the popular consciousness for the first time.   

In Cold Blood tells the story of a brutal quadruple murder that took place in 1959 in Holcomb, Kansas. The book describes the details of the murder, the ensuing investigation, and the eventual arrest of the murderers.  

In many ways, In Cold Blood defined the narrative nonfiction genre. It was one of the first times an author had written journalism in the structure of a novel, and it inspired many future writers to try creative nonfiction too.

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer (1997)

Jon Krakauer is a journalist and a mountaineer who summited Mt. Everest on the day a terrible storm hit the mountain. That storm ended up claiming five lives and leaving Krakauer himself ridden with guilt.

Into Thin Air is Krakauer’s account of his adventure and its deadly aftermath. It portrays the entire cast of characters that accompanied him up the mountain and also shows the character growth Krakauer experienced as a result.

This book is a famous example of a memoir that reads like an adventure novel. The American Academy of Arts and Letters gave this book an Academy Award in Literature in 1999 and described it as combining “the finest tradition of investigative journalism with the stylish subtlety and profound insight of the born writer.”

Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand (1999)

Seabiscuit was a California racehorse in the 1930s. Because of his crooked leg, he was never expected to win.

However, when Seabiscuit was bought by Charles Howard and ridden by a jockey named Red Pollard, he rose to unexpected success. Now, Seabiscuit is remembered as one of the most iconic racehorses of all time.

Laura Hillenbrand, an equestrian writer, tells Seabiscuit’s story in this classic work of narrative nonfiction. Charles Howard, Red Pollard, and all the other characters involved in Seabiscuit’s life are researched and portrayed in a masterful way.   

Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi (2003)

From 1995 to 1997, Nafisi led a secret book club at her house in Tehran. Every Thursday, she met with her most dedicated female student to read banned Western classics together, from Pride and Prejudice to Lolita.

In Reading Lolita in Tehran , Nafisi describes her experiences throughout the Iranian revolution. It’s a gripping book that provides rare and extraordinary insight into what it was like to be a woman in Tehran in the late 1990s.

Like all great narrative nonfiction, this book would be a compelling novel even if you didn’t know it was a true story, but the fact that it’s all true makes it even more powerful.  

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (2010)

Henrietta Lacks was a Black woman whose cells were taken by medical researchers in 1951 without her knowledge or consent. Ever since then, her cells, now known as HeLa cells, have been kept alive for medical uses.

HeLa cells have been essential for researching diseases, creating the polio vaccination, and making other medical breakthroughs. And yet, her family never benefited from or consented to their use.

Rebecca Skloot’s bestselling book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells Lacks’ story in a thoughtful and illuminating way, weaving in research on the unjust intersection of medicine and race. The book won many awards and was later made into an HBO movie.

Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly (2016)

America’s achievements in space could never have happened without the contributions of Black female mathematicians at NASA, known as “human computers.” Before modern computers existed, these women used pen and paper to perform the calculations that launched rockets into space.

Shetterly’s book tells the stories of four of these brilliant women: Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, and Christine Darden. The story follows them for over three decades as they overcame racial and gender prejudices to help shape American history.  

This work of literary nonfiction is well-researched, informative, and powerful. It was also made into a major motion picture by Twentieth Century Fox.

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi (2016)

Paul Kalanithi, a Stanford neurosurgeon, was only 36 years old when he received his Stage IV lung cancer diagnosis. He went from treating patients to becoming the patient in such a short span of time that he had to quickly learn how to accept his own mortality.

Kalanithi wrote this medical memoir during the last years of his life, describing how he came to terms with his diagnosis. When Breath Becomes Air tells Kalanithi’s story in a poignant and unforgettable way.   

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann (2017)

Killers of the Flower Moon is a true crime murder mystery about a terrible crime in the 1920s, when members of the Osage Indian nation in Oklahoma started getting killed one by one. Anyone who tried to investigate was in danger of getting murdered too until the death toll rose to over two dozen.

When the truth was finally uncovered, it turned out to be a chilling conspiracy bolstered by prejudice against Indigenous people.

Journalist David Grann tells the story of this shocking crime in this narrative nonfiction book, which is soon to be made into a major motion picture.

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara (2018)

The Golden State Killer was a serial killer who raped and murdered dozens of people in the 1970s and 1980s. Michelle McNamara was a true crime journalist who coined the name “Golden State Killer” in 2013 when she was poring over police records, determined to figure out the killer’s identity.

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, which was still in the process of being written when McNamara died, blurs the genres between nonfiction, memoir, and crime fiction. The book eventually helped lead to the killer’s capture.

Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in WWII by Daniel James Brown (2021)

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Japanese Americans faced suspicion and systemic prejudice from their own country. In spite of the injustices they faced over the next several years, many Japanese Americans still signed up to fight for the US in World War II.

In Facing the Mountain , Daniel James Brown tells the stories of four Japanese American heroes: Rudy Tokiwa, Kats Miho, Gordon Hirabayashi, and Fred Shiosaki. The book follows these four men and their families and communities, who were irreversibly impacted by the events of the war.

Writing narrative nonfiction can be incredibly rewarding, but it can also be unusually tricky because you have to accomplish two goals at once. Unlike other nonfiction, which aims to inform, or most fiction, which aims to entertain, narrative nonfiction seeks to inform and entertain at the same time.

To inform, you’ll need your writing to be clear and easily readable. To entertain, you’ll need it to be gripping and active.

ProWritingAid can help with both of those goals. At the most basic level, the AI-powered grammar checker will make sure your writing is free of grammar, spelling, and punctuation mistakes. At a more sophisticated level, it will also make sure you’re hooking your reader in by using the active voice, precise word choices, and varied sentence lengths.

In addition, you can also use ProWritingAid to make sure you’re writing in the right tone and for the right reading level. Running your narrative nonfiction manuscript through ProWritingAid will ensure your writing truly shines.

There you have it—our complete guide to narrative nonfiction.

Good luck, and happy writing!

Hannah is a speculative fiction writer who loves all things strange and surreal. She holds a BA from Yale University and lives in Colorado. When she’s not busy writing, you can find her painting watercolors, playing her ukulele, or hiking in the Rockies. Follow her work on hannahyang.com or on Twitter at @hannahxyang.

Get started with ProWritingAid

Drop us a line or let's stay in touch via :

Subscribe to our newsletter

1,000 narrative nonfiction articles & essays to read online, success and failure, science & technology, the environment, climate change, the internet, social media, artificial intelligence, art and culture, short memoir examples, linguistics, mental health, food & nutrition, gender and sexuality, 40 great writers, 100 great books.

About The Electric Typewriter We search the net to bring you the best nonfiction, articles, essays and journalism

The Finest Narrative Non-Fiction Essays

Narrative essays that I consider ideal models of the medium

• Linguistics

Perhaps you're the same kind of non- Writer writer. The playful amateur kind who uses it to explore and communicate ideas, rather than making the medium part of your identity. But even amateurs want to be good. I certainly want to get good.

Knowing what you like is half the battle in liking what you create. In that spirit, I collect narrative non-fiction essays that I think are exceptional. They're worth looking at closely – their opening moves, sentence structure, turns of phrase, and narrative arcs.

The only sensible way to improve your writing is by echoing the work of other writers. Good artists copy and great artists steal quotes from Picasso.

You may want to start your own collection of lovely essays like this. There will certainly be some Real Writers who find my list trite and full of basic, mainstream twaddle. It probably is. I've done plenty of self-acceptance work and I'm okay with it.

Twaddle aside, the essays below are worth your attention.

by Paul Ford

Paul Ford explains code in 38,000 words and somehow makes it all accessible, technically accurate, narratively compelling, and most of all, culturally insightful and humanistic.

I have unreasonable feelings about this essay. It is, to me, perfect. Few essays take the interactive medium of the web seriously, and this one takes the cake. There is a small blue cube character, logic diagrams, live code snippets to run, GIFs, tangential footnotes, and a certificate of completion at the end.

by David Foster Wallace – Published under the title 'Shipping Out'

Forgive me for being a David Foster Wallace admirer. The guy had issues, but this account of his 7-day trip on a luxury cruiseliner expresses an inner monologue that is clarifying, rare and often side-splittingly hilarious.

He taught me it is 100% okay to write an entire side-novel in your footnotes if you need to.

by David Graeber

Graeber explores play and work from an anthropological perspective. He's a master of moving between the specific and the general. Between academic theory and personal storytelling. He's always ready with armfuls of evidence and citations but doesn't drown you in them.

by Malcolm Gladwell

This piece uses a typical Gladwellian style. He takes a fairly dull question – Why had ketchup stayed the same, while mustard comes in dozens of varieties? – and presents the case in a way that makes it reasonably intriguing. He's great at starting with specific characters, times and places to draw you in. There are always rich scenes, details, personal profiles, and a grand narrative tying it all together.

Some people find the classic New Yorker essay format overdone, but it relies on storytelling techniques that consistently work.

by Mark Slouka

by Joan Didion

Looking to publish? Meet your dream editor, designer and marketer on Reedsy.

Find the perfect editor for your next book

1 million authors trust the professionals on Reedsy. Come meet them.

Guides • Perfecting your Craft

Last updated on Feb 20, 2023

Creative Nonfiction: How to Spin Facts into Narrative Gold

Creative nonfiction is a genre of creative writing that approaches factual information in a literary way. This type of writing applies techniques drawn from literary fiction and poetry to material that might be at home in a magazine or textbook, combining the craftsmanship of a novel with the rigor of journalism. 

Here are some popular examples of creative nonfiction:

• The Collected Schizophrenias by Esmé Weijun Wang
• Intimations by Zadie Smith
• Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
• Translating Myself and Others by Jhumpa Lahiri
• The Madwoman in the Attic by Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar
• I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
• Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino

Creative nonfiction is not limited to novel-length writing, of course. Popular radio shows and podcasts like WBEZ’s This American Life or Sarah Koenig’s Serial also explore audio essays and documentary with a narrative approach, while personal essays like Nora Ephron’s A Few Words About Breasts and Mariama Lockington’s What A Black Woman Wishes Her Adoptive White Parents Knew also present fact with fiction-esque flair.

Writing short personal essays can be a great entry point to writing creative nonfiction. Think about a topic you would like to explore, perhaps borrowing from your own life, or a universal experience. Journal freely for five to ten minutes about the subject, and see what direction your creativity takes you in. These kinds of exercises will help you begin to approach reality in a more free flowing, literary way — a muscle you can use to build up to longer pieces of creative nonfiction.

If you think you’d like to bring your writerly prowess to nonfiction, here are our top tips for creating compelling creative nonfiction that’s as readable as a novel, but as illuminating as a scholarly article.

Write a memoir focused on a singular experience

Humans love reading about other people’s lives — like first-person memoirs, which allow you to get inside another person’s mind and learn from their wisdom. Unlike autobiographies, memoirs can focus on a single experience or theme instead of chronicling the writers’ life from birth onward.

For that reason, memoirs tend to focus on one core theme and—at least the best ones—present a clear narrative arc, like you would expect from a novel. This can be achieved by selecting a singular story from your life; a formative experience, or period of time, which is self-contained and can be marked by a beginning, a middle, and an end. 

When writing a memoir, you may also choose to share your experience in parallel with further research on this theme. By performing secondary research, you’re able to bring added weight to your anecdotal evidence, and demonstrate the ways your own experience is reflective (or perhaps unique from) the wider whole.

Example: The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking , for example, interweaves the author’s experience of widowhood with sociological research on grief. Chronicling the year after her husband’s unexpected death, and the simultaneous health struggles of their daughter, The Year of Magical Thinking is a poignant personal story, layered with universal insight into what it means to lose someone you love. The result is the definitive exploration of bereavement — and a stellar example of creative nonfiction done well.

📚 Looking for more reading recommendations? Check out our list of the best memoirs of the last century .

Tip: What you cut out is just as important as what you keep

When writing a memoir that is focused around a singular theme, it’s important to be selective in what to include, and what to leave out. While broader details of your life may be helpful to provide context, remember to resist the impulse to include too much non-pertinent backstory. By only including what is most relevant, you are able to provide a more focused reader experience, and won’t leave readers guessing what the significance of certain non-essential anecdotes will be.

💡 For more memoir-planning tips, head over to our post on outlining memoirs .

Of course, writing a memoir isn’t the only form of creative nonfiction that lets you tap into your personal life — especially if there’s something more explicit you want to say about the world at large… which brings us onto our next section.

Pen a personal essay that has something bigger to say

Personal essays condense the first-person focus and intimacy of a memoir into a tighter package — tunneling down into a specific aspect of a theme or narrative strand within the author’s personal experience.

Often involving some element of journalistic research, personal essays can provide examples or relevant information that comes from outside the writer’s own experience. This can take the form of other people’s voices quoted in the essay, or facts and stats. By combining lived experiences with external material, personal essay writers can reach toward a bigger message, telling readers something about human behavior or society instead of just letting them know the writer better.

Example: The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison

Leslie Jamison's widely acclaimed collection The Empathy Exams  tackles big questions (Why is pain so often performed? Can empathy be “bad”?) by grounding them in the personal. While Jamison draws from her own experiences, both as a medical actor who was paid to imitate pain, and as a sufferer of her own ailments, she also reaches broader points about the world we live in within each of her essays.

Whether she’s talking about the justice system or reality TV, Jamison writes with both vulnerability and poise, using her lived experience as a jumping-off point for exploring the nature of empathy itself.

Tip: Try to show change in how you feel about something

Including external perspectives, as we’ve just discussed above, will help shape your essay, making it meaningful to other people and giving your narrative an arc. 

Ultimately, you may be writing about yourself, but readers can read what they want into it. In a personal narrative, they’re looking for interesting insights or realizations they can apply to their own understanding of their lives or the world — so don’t lose sight of that. As the subject of the essay, you are not so much the topic as the vehicle for furthering a conversation.

Often, there are three clear stages in an essay:

• Initial state 
• Encounter with something external
• New, changed state, and conclusions

By bringing readers through this journey with you, you can guide them to new outlooks and demonstrate how your story is still relevant to them.

Had enough of writing about your own life? Let’s look at a form of creative nonfiction that allows you to get outside of yourself.

Tell a factual story as though it were a novel

The form of creative nonfiction that is perhaps closest to conventional nonfiction is literary journalism. Here, the stories are all fact, but they are presented with a creative flourish. While the stories being told might comfortably inhabit a newspaper or history book, they are presented with a sense of literary significance, and writers can make use of literary techniques and character-driven storytelling.

Unlike news reporters, literary journalists can make room for their own perspectives: immersing themselves in the very action they recount. Think of them as both characters and narrators — but every word they write is true. 

If you think literary journalism is up your street, think about the kinds of stories that capture your imagination the most, and what those stories have in common. Are they, at their core, character studies? Parables? An invitation to a new subculture you have never before experienced? Whatever piques your interest, immerse yourself.

Example: The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan

If you’re looking for an example of literary journalism that tells a great story, look no further than Michael Pollan’s The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World , which sits at the intersection of food writing and popular science. Though it purports to offer a “plant’s-eye view of the world,” it’s as much about human desires as it is about the natural world.

Through the history of four different plants and human’s efforts to cultivate them, Pollan uses first-hand research as well as archival facts to explore how we attempt to domesticate nature for our own pleasure, and how these efforts can even have devastating consequences. Pollan is himself a character in the story, and makes what could be a remarkably dry topic accessible and engaging in the process.

Tip: Don’t pretend that you’re perfectly objective

You may have more room for your own perspective within literary journalism, but with this power comes great responsibility. Your responsibilities toward the reader remain the same as that of a journalist: you must, whenever possible, acknowledge your own biases or conflicts of interest, as well as any limitations on your research. 

Thankfully, the fact that literary journalism often involves a certain amount of immersion in the narrative — that is, the writer acknowledges their involvement in the process — you can touch on any potential biases explicitly, and make it clear that the story you’re telling, while true to what you experienced, is grounded in your own personal perspective.

Approach a famous name with a unique approach 

Biographies are the chronicle of a human life, from birth to the present or, sometimes, their demise. Often, fact is stranger than fiction, and there is no shortage of fascinating figures from history to discover. As such, a biographical approach to creative nonfiction will leave you spoilt for choice in terms of subject matter.

Because they’re not written by the subjects themselves (as memoirs are), biographical nonfiction requires careful research. If you plan to write one, do everything in your power to verify historical facts, and interview the subject’s family, friends, and acquaintances when possible. Despite the necessity for candor, you’re still welcome to approach biography in a literary way — a great creative biography is both truthful and beautifully written.

Example: American Prometheus  by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin

Alongside the need for you to present the truth is a duty to interpret that evidence with imagination, and present it in the form of a story. Demonstrating a novelist’s skill for plot and characterization, Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s American Prometheus is a great example of creative nonfiction that develops a character right in front of the readers’ eyes.

American Prometheus follows J. Robert Oppenheimer from his bashful childhood to his role as the father of the atomic bomb, all the way to his later attempts to reckon with his violent legacy.

FREE COURSE

How to Develop Characters

In 10 days, learn to develop complex characters readers will love.

The biography tells a story that would fit comfortably in the pages of a tragic novel, but is grounded in historical research. Clocking in at a hefty 721 pages, American Prometheus distills an enormous volume of archival material, including letters, FBI files, and interviews into a remarkably readable volume. 

📚 For more examples of world-widening, eye-opening biographies, check out our list of the 30 best biographies of all time .

Tip: The good stuff lies in the mundane details

Biographers are expected to undertake academic-grade research before they put pen to paper. You will, of course, read any existing biographies on the person you’re writing about, and visit any archives containing relevant material. If you’re lucky, there’ll be people you can interview who knew your subject personally — but even if there aren’t, what’s going to make your biography stand out is paying attention to details, even if they seem mundane at first.

Of course, no one cares which brand of slippers a former US President wore — gossip is not what we’re talking about. But if you discover that they took a long, silent walk every single morning, that’s a granular detail you could include to give your readers a sense of the weight they carried every day. These smaller details add up to a realistic portrait of a living, breathing human being.

But creative nonfiction isn’t just writing about yourself or other people. Writing about art is also an art, as we’ll see below.

Put your favorite writers through the wringer with literary criticism

Literary criticism is often associated with dull, jargon-laden college dissertations — but it can be a wonderfully rewarding form that blurs the lines between academia and literature itself. When tackled by a deft writer, a literary critique can be just as engrossing as the books it analyzes.

Many of the sharpest literary critics are also poets, poetry editors , novelists, or short story writers, with first-hand awareness of literary techniques and the ability to express their insights with elegance and flair. Though literary criticism sounds highly theoretical, it can be profoundly intimate: you’re invited to share in someone’s experience as a reader or writer — just about the most private experience there is.

Example: The Madwoman in the Attic by Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar

Take The Madwoman in the Attic by Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, a seminal work approaching Victorian literature from a feminist perspective. Written as a conversation between two friends and academics, this brilliant book reads like an intellectual brainstorming session in a casual dining venue. Highly original, accessible, and not suffering from the morose gravitas academia is often associated with, this text is a fantastic example of creative nonfiction.

Tip: Remember to make your critiques creative

Literary criticism may be a serious undertaking, but unless you’re trying to pitch an academic journal, you’ll need to be mindful of academic jargon and convoluted sentence structure. Don’t forget that the point of popular literary criticism is to make ideas accessible to readers who aren’t necessarily academics, introducing them to new ways of looking at anything they read. 

If you’re not feeling confident, a professional nonfiction editor could help you confirm you’ve hit the right stylistic balance.

Give your book the help it deserves

The best editors, designers, and book marketers are on Reedsy. Sign up for free and meet them.

Learn how Reedsy can help you craft a beautiful book.

Is creative nonfiction looking a little bit clearer now? You can try your hand at the genre , or head to the next post in this guide and discover online classes where you can hone your skills at creative writing.

Join a community of over 1 million authors

Reedsy is more than just a blog. Become a member today to discover how we can help you publish a beautiful book.

Structure your memoir for maximum impact

Use our free template to plan an unputdownable memoir.

1 million authors trust the professionals on Reedsy. Come meet them.

Enter your email or get started with a social account:

When I first started reading and writing creative nonfiction , I was particularly struck by the “braided essay”—its poeticism, its interlacing movements, its endless possibilities. The beauty of a braid lies in the way it weaves distinct strands into a coherent whole, the way individual strands intermittently appear and disappear.

If you’ve ever felt like your essay was missing something or needed more texture, or if you’re someone who loves miscellany, a braided essay might be right for you. But before I wax eloquent about the braided essay:

What is a braided essay?

A braid is a structure commonly used in the genre of creative nonfiction, though it can easily be adapted for use in other genres. Richard Powers’ The Overstory and Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84 are great examples of novels that use braiding as a structure.

Simply put, a braided essay is one that weaves two or more distinct “threads” into a single essay. A thread can be a story with a plot or simply a string of thought about a specific topic.

A braided essay is one that weaves two or more distinct “threads” into a single essay. A thread can be a story with a plot or simply a string of thought about a specific topic.

If all of this sounds abstract and complicated, don’t fret: the good news is that a braided essay is much easier to understand in practice than in theory. Consider, for instance, Roxane Gay’s “ What We Hunger For ,” which consists of two threads. In thread A, Gay writes about The Hunger Games and the representation of female strength in pop culture. In thread B, she recounts memories of her childhood as a girl. Gay breaks up these two threads into smaller fragments, then alternates fragments from thread A with those from thread B.

This alternating movement draws out themes and ideas from each thread, such that the essay as a whole points to larger ideas and themes.

This alternating movement draws out themes and ideas from each thread, such that the essay as a whole points to larger ideas and themes. In the case of “What We Hunger For,” the result of braiding is an essay that combines The Hunger Games and the writer’s personal experiences to gesture to the themes of strength, trauma, storytelling, the power of reading, and hope for healing. This happens often in braided essay: the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts.

What counts as a “thread?”

For something to count as a “thread,” it has to be sufficiently distinct in terms of style and/ or content. To braid these threads together, break each into fragments, then alternate a fragment from one braid with a fragment from another braid. Check out the following diagram to see how this works:

How to braid threads in a braided essay

To help your reader distinguish one thread from another, writers often add a visual break between fragments from different threads. This usually means inserting either an additional section break or an asterisk between fragments.

In addition, while there are no maximum number of threads you can include in an essay, an essay with too many threads can get out of hand really quickly!

What makes a braided essay coherent?

Distinct threads often speak to one thing (or a few things) that unifies the essay. In Maggie Nelson’s Bluets , it is the narrator’s love of blue—established in the very beginning of the book-length essay—that provides coherence to the many threads in the essay, which range from philosophy to personal suffering, vision to pain. In other essays, what unifies the threads becomes apparent only as the essay develops; the pleasure of reading such essays comes from seeing how disparate threads gradually come together. A good example is “ Time and Distance Overcome ” by Eula Biss, which begins as an essay about the history of telephone poles and develops into a meditation on race. Another wonderful example by Biss is “Babylon,” which can be found in her book Notes from No Man’s Land .

The best braided essays, however, unfold associatively, even ambiguously.

The best braided essays, however, unfold associatively, even ambiguously. While coherence is important, making the links between the various threads too neat or too obvious can make an essay feel contrived and boring. When writing a braided essay, it’s always good to remember: your reader is often smarter than you think!

Before we explore how to write a braided essay, let’s look more closely at braided essay examples for inspiration.

Braided essay examples

• Rebecca Solnit’s “The Blue of Distance” is a classic braided essay that weaves the narrator’s meditations on the color blue in 15th century paintings and her personal reflections on distance, memory, and longing. This unlikely pairing plunges the reader into a poetic, blue-hued aura, inviting us to contemplate our own relationships with distance and longing. “The Blue of Distance” can be found in A Field Guide to Getting Lost alongside two more essays of the same name.
• In “ The Empathy Exams ,” Leslie Jamison draws on events in her personal life and her experiences working as a medical actor to craft a moving meditation on the concept of empathy. This essay also uses the form of a hermit crab essay (for more on hermit crabs, check out #9 in this article) with deftness and to great emotional effect. This essay can also be found in Jamison’s book, The Empathy Exams .
• Annie Dillard’s “An Expedition to the Pole” is a fascinating braided essay that interlaces the narrator’s religious experiences in church with reportage on famous polar expeditions. While this essay is rather long, the ending – in which the two separate threads fuse into one – makes it entirely worth it. “An Expedition to the Pole,” which opened up my ideas of what’s possible in a braided essay, can be found in Dillard’s essay collection, Teaching a Stone to Talk .
• In “Reality TV Me,” Jia Tolentino’s reflection on her time as a contestant on a reality tv show is intercut with short, ekphrastic descriptions of various scenes from the show. The result is a fun yet compelling meditation on the concepts of reality and performance. This essay can be found in Tolentino’s essay collection, Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion .
• Braiding Sweetgrass offers, in the words of its author Robin Wall Kimmerer, “a braid of stories” about nature “woven from three stands: indigenous ways of knowing, scientific knowledge, and the story of an Anishinaabekwe scientist trying to bring them together in service to what matters most.” Expect to be delighted, jolted, and awed by this brilliant book.
• Rivka Galchen’s Little Labors is a miscellany of thoughts on motherhood, children’s literature, and great women writers. Enchanting and entirely unique, Little Labors is a great braided essay example in book form.
• In A Twenty Minute Silence Followed by Applause , Shawn Wen paints a portrait of the mime Marcel Marceau with a varied collection of materials. At times cutting and moving, this innovative essay is a must-read.

Inspired yet? Follow this step-by-step guide on how to write a braided essay to write your own!

How to write a braided essay

The writing process, by definition, requires many rounds of drafting and revision. For a more general step-by-step guide to writing essays, check out the guides in these articles on writing lyric essays , narrative essays , and memoirs .

1. Get inspired and generate ideas

The best way to learn how to write a braided essay is to read one, and to get an idea of what’s possible. Next, begin making a list of ideas for your essay. If you’re in need of writing prompts, check out our Facebook group !

2. Do a freewrite

Once you’ve chosen one idea, explore its possibilities by doing a freewrite. While freewriting, be sure to keep your pen moving – don’t even stop to correct any grammatical or spelling mistakes! The point of a freewrite is to keep the ideas flowing until you arrive at an idea that feels right. In the words of Peter Elbow, who developed the freewriting strategy, “The consequence [of writing] is that you must start by writing the wrong meanings in the wrong words; but keep writing until you get to the right meanings in the right words. Only in the end will you know what you are saying.” In my personal experience, it often takes at least 10-15 minutes for a freewrite to yield the ideas that feel right.

3. Read your freewrite

As you read what you’ve just written, highlight important themes, ideas, words, and/or motifs. Rely on your intuition in this process. Of these, identify the core of the essay you’d like to write. This is the primary thread of your essay.

4. Begin writing your primary thread

Rather than starting from “the beginning,” however, begin with the thing that resonates most with you. Doing so not only helps you to maintain momentum in the writing process, but also provides an anchor for your writing. Because braided essays are so associative, it can be easy to lose track of what feels right in the process of writing.

5. Start on your other thread(s)

It is often much easier to build a braided essay when you do it bit by bit, rather than thread by thread. The reason is that, with a braided essay, development in one braid often affects another. It’s much easier to develop one thread alongside another. This also makes the final produce much more organic.

6. Read what you have so far

Now that you have written the beginnings of several threads, read what you have and notice how your essay has already morphed. Doing these regular “check-ins” with your braided essay can help you to stay on top of how it is developing. If not, a braided essay can get unruly very quickly!

7. Continue writing

If you’re not sure how to continue, do research. This can be any form of research – from interviews to googling, immersive to archival. As you do research, keep an eye out for opportunities for expansion. Ask yourself: what new associations emerge?

8. Repeat steps 4-7 until satisfied.

Good writing is often built section by section, rather than produced in one burst. As you read what you have written so far, note places to expand and places to cut.

Once you’re satisfied with your braided essay, begin paying attention to the finer things: word choice, sentence structure, figurative words. Revising and editing are key to making your braided essay work. If you’re looking for a fresh pair of eyes to look at your writing, check out our schedule of nonfiction workshops !

Writing a braided essay for the first time can be challenging, but remember to have fun in the process. If you’d like to learn about other forms of creative nonfiction, check out this article !

Write the best braided essays at Writers.com

What will your braided essay be about? Perhaps you’ll combine the most seemingly unrelated topics: your marriage with the history of paleontology; your time in high school with musings on the color orange; the anatomy of an orca with your favorite jacket.

Whatever the braids, write the best braided essays at Writers.com, where you’ll receive expert feedback on the essays you write. Find inspiration in our upcoming creative nonfiction courses , and forge new relationships between seemingly-unalike things.

I have written a braided essay (although I did not know it by this name until reading this post) of approximately 11,000 words. Too long for a short-story; too short for standard creative nonfiction.

Where does one publish a braided essay of intermediate length?

Hi Kathleen,

Good question! I don’t know of any journals off the bat that accept essays of that length–generally, the upper limit will range between 3,000 and 7,500 words. Nonetheless, you might find a good home for your essay at this article: https://writers.com/best-places-submit-creative-nonfiction-online

Best of luck!

Hi Kathleen, This is such a great explanation of the Braided Essay and these examples are amazing. I just bought ‘A Twenty Minute Silence’– thank you for introducing me to this text.

Question: I teach Creative Writing and my students love these Lyric Essay forms, but one student noted, ‘It seems like most collage and braided essays are about serious subjects: loss, heartbreak, grief, abuse, etc. Are there any funny collage or braided essays?’

I thought surely there must be but scanning Brevity and other online journals I could not come across a single ‘funny’ collage or braided essay. There are numerous funny Hermit Crab Essays but do you know of any funny/humorous Braided or Collage Essays?

I can also be reached at [email protected] (should you want to respond or have a response).

Sorry for the long comment here. Really enjoyed reading this! Thanks again.

I’m working on a braided essay for my class at the moment and its about mud and magic. Not a funny story but a fun story about childhood and imagination.

Have you looked up David Sedaris (Santaland Diaries) or Dave Barry? Off the top of my head, I’m sure they’d have something!

[…] writing styles, and this one is called a braided or woven essay. A braided essay is where you take two seemingly dissimilar topics and weave them together into one. In this case, I describe the physical and psychological strength my adoptive mother required to […]

I’m writing my memoir and can see a few threads that I could use for the braided structure, Does braiding work just as well for a book (80,000 words) as for an essay?

Leave a Comment Cancel Reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Join the Mailing List

Search the blog.

Input your search keywords and press Enter.

Alyssa Teaches

an Upper Elementary Blog

Teaching Narrative Nonfiction

I remember when I first saw the term “narrative nonfiction” in my state’s reading standards and honestly, I didn’t know what it meant! If you’re new to teaching literary nonfiction, I hope this post will give you a good overview to get you started!

What Is Narrative Nonfiction?

Narrative nonfiction, or literary nonfiction, is nonfiction text that uses a storytelling structure to present information about a topic, such as a real person or event. It’s different than expository text, which simply presents the facts.

Since the facts are written in a narrative format with characters, a setting, a plot, etc., it can be a more engaging and memorable way for students to learn about the world.

It’s kind of tricky to differentiate between narrative nonfiction and historical fiction. To me, narrative nonfiction is more about presenting facts through a story, and historical fiction is more about telling a story that is based on some facts. Clear as mud, lol.

Biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs are definitely part of the narrative nonfiction genre, but it can also include texts based on historical events or other topics like animals. The good news is that there’s a huge variety of texts that will attract readers with different interests in your classroom.

Introducing Narrative Nonfiction

One way to kick off this unit is to put out a selection of nonfiction, fiction, and literary nonfiction books for students to explore. You can have them work in small groups to discuss what they notice about the formats of the books and maybe sort them into groups.

They’ll start to see that expository nonfiction books have text features and mostly stick to the facts, but narrative nonfiction books look a lot more like fiction and often contain dialogue. I like to create an anchor chart as groups share the characteristics they notice.

Another option to introduce literary nonfiction is to start with a mentor text read-aloud and ask students to identify the author’s purpose. This leads to great discussions and helps students see that it’s kind of the best of both worlds. Scroll down for some of my recommendations for books to use!

Book Pairings

Another way to teach students the difference between expository texts and narrative nonfiction texts is to pair literary nonfiction books with nonfiction books on the same topic. Students can compare and contrast the structures and details of the two books. I ask students to discuss which type is the most efficient to use if you need to find a fact quickly, and I also have them share which type they prefer. You can also try using shorter passages , which are great for reading groups.

Here are some examples of book pairings:

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind [picture book] by William Kamkwamba and Wind Power: Alternative Energy by Matthew Ziem

I, Fly: The Buzz About Flies and How Awesome They Are by Bridget Heos and Flies by Larry Dane Brimner

Similarly, you can compare narrative nonfiction books or passages with fiction by asking students to highlight the facts they find it in each. This is a great way to reinforce author’s purpose for this unit – while they’re being entertained, they are also being hit with lots of facts!

Literary Nonfiction Skills and Standards

There are tons of reading skills that you can weave into a literary nonfiction unit, including:

• summarizing the events and supporting details (and sequencing, too)
• drawing conclusions and making inferences
• identifying the conflict and resolution
• analyzing the author’s word choice (i.e., figurative language, descriptive words, vocabulary)
• identifying cause and effect relationships
• inferring character traits
• identifying the narrator of the story
• describing how the language, characters, and setting contribute to the plot
• explaining the author’s purpose
• synthesizing the main idea of the text (i.e., what are this person’s contributions/why is this event significant?)

My fourth graders were struggling one year with summarizing the events of a text. I read aloud Only Passing Through: The Story of Sojourner Truth by Anne Rockwell. We identified the major events in the story as a class and then I assigned partners one event to illustrate and write in their own words. We put them together to create our own timeline of the book and it made a really nice display.

This genre is a perfect one to dive deep into character analysis and have students infer character traits using evidence from the text. They can practice making conclusions about that person’s contributions or the event’s significance. I’ve also had some great conversations with my students about what might have happened to the character(s) if they’d lived in a different place or time.

My Favorite Narrative Nonfiction Books

Here are a few narrative nonfiction mentor texts that I recommend for 3rd-6th grades! Click on the titles for more info!

• Finding Winnie: The True Story of the World’s Most Famous Bear by Lindsay Mattick
• Pop!: The Invention of Bubble Gum by Meghan McCarthy
• We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball by Kadir Nelson
• The Boston Tea Party by Russell Freedman
• One Plastic Bag: Isatou Ceesay and the Recycling Women of the Gambia by Miranda Paul
• Owen & Mzee: The True Story of a Remarkable Friendship by Isabella Hatkoff
• Mr. Ferris and His Wheel by Kathryn Gibbs Davis
• Separate is Never Equal by Duncan Tonatiuh
• The Marvelous Thing that Came From a Spring by Gilbert Ford
• Mesmerized: How Ben Franklin Solved a Mystery That Baffled All of France by Mara Rockliff
• Henry’s Freedom Box by Levine Ellen
• Ivan: The Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla by Katherine Applegate
• Nya’s Long Walk: A Step at a Time by Linda Sue Park
• Balloons Over Broadway by Melissa Sweet
• One Tiny Turtle by Nicola Davies

Scholastic News and Time for Kids are some other good places to look for short narrative nonfiction articles.

I think narrative nonfiction is a really engaging and fun genre to teach. It definitely makes informational text more accessible for reluctant readers! It’s also fun to have students write their own pieces after researching a person or topic of interest to them. What tips do you have for teaching a literary nonfiction unit?

This post contains affiliate links; I earn a small commission from products purchased through these links.

Related posts

Teaching Students to Identify Sensory Words

7 Ways to Teach Word Analysis Every Day

Teaching Headings and Subheadings

30 comments.

Hey there – I was wondering if you had a link to the anchor chart you used? So glad I found your site and TPT – need more VA TPT teachers 🙂

Hi Rachel, I’m glad you’re finding the content helpful! Please email me through the Contact page and I can send it to you!

I would love to have the anchor chart that you used! I’ll be using your guidance as I teach this for the first time! So great!

I was searching for additional work on narrative nonfiction. I found this very attractive and informative for fourth graders in this virtual learning era. I will definitely use the image as my introduction.

I was thinking of how to teach Nonfiction and came across your post. Thank you so much for posting it. I found it very useful.

I subscribed but I was never sent these anchor charts.

Hi April, thanks for subscribing! You should receive an email asking you to confirm your subscription. Please check for that in your spam folder!

I subscribed but was never sent the anchor chart.

Hi Erin, thanks for subscribing! You should receive a confirmation email asking you to confirm your subscription, and then you’ll get a second email with the download. Please reach out again if you don’t see it!

Thank you for the post. I also subscribed with the hopes of receiving the anchor chart but it hasn’t come through yet.

Hi Leslie, thanks for subscribing! If you used your work email address, it may have been blocked or gone to your spam folder. Can you please try again with a personal email?

Could you please share your anchor chart? Thanks!

Hi there! If you use the link at the bottom of the post to enter your email, it will automatically be sent to you!

Thank you for sharing!

Hello. I subscribed, but alas no anchor chart. I did check all mail including spam and did use a personal email address. Thanks for your help.

Sending you an email, Kimberly!

Hi there, I did subscribe like the others but did not receive the anchor chart. I checked my spam folder as well.

I’ll send it your way, Lisa!

Hello! I did subscribe to follow your work, though I did not a chart. How would I go about being able to get one? Thank you!

Hi Jill! Did you receive a confirmation email? Let me know if you haven’t gotten access to the PDF yet!

Hello Alyssa. Great website and resources! I just wanted to let you know that I have subscribed and checked my spam folder, but I have received no confirmation email and anchor charts. I would love the PDF if possible. Thank you so much!

Hi Euan! Did the download go through for you?

Hello! I subscribed and received the confirmation email, but did not receive the anchor chart. I would love to use the anchor chart with my students. Thannks!

Hi Sherri! Did the download go through for you?

Hi, I subscribed and did not receive the anchor chart. Are you able to email to me or send a pdf?

Hi, I’m not sure what’s going on with this download lately! Did you receive a confirmation email?

I subscribed and didn’t get the narrative nonfiction anchor chart.

Hi there! Did you confirm your subscription in the initial email? Let me know if you still don’t see it!

Did you ever post the anchor chart? and yes, I would love to see the mini-lessons you taught with this unit. My 11th grade students are interviewing someone over Christmas break in anticipation of writing a 1000-word nonfiction narrative. The collection will be published by our local newspaper into a hard-bound book. I’m excited to get rolling after Christmas. We’ve been reading memoirs and collecting beautiful sentences.

What an amazing project! I did something similar in 8th grade and interviewed my grandmother! You can access the anchor chart by subscribing to my weekly newsletter at the end of the blog post!

Leave a Reply Cancel Reply

Join the mailing list for tips, ideas, and freebies.

• Mentor Teacher
• Organization
• Social Studies
• Teacher Tips
• Virginia Studies

Why a Powerful Premise Matters: The Foundation of Engaging Stories

The convergence of a captivating plot, intriguing characters, and a vivid setting may seem like the essential building blocks of any compelling story. However, beneath these elements lies the foundational …

Creativity vs Innovation: Understanding the Distinctive Impact in Business Growth

In exploring the landscape of business and development, the concepts of creativity and innovation often emerge as critical drivers of progress. While frequently used interchangeably, these two terms encapsulate distinct …

How to Effect Positive Change in Your Community: Simple Steps to Get Started

Making a meaningful impact in your community can begin with simple steps. Engaging with your neighbors, understanding local needs, and using your unique skills can contribute significantly to community betterment. …

The Essence of a Great Story: Unpacking Narrative Core Values

The essence of a great story often feels like an elusive alchemy, a magical blend of elements that, when combined, have the power to transport readers or audiences to new …

Keeping the Story in Mind: Crafting a Compelling Narrative in Documentary Filmmaking

Documentary filmmaking is a creative process that begins with a spark of curiosity and grows into an impactful piece of storytelling. The journey from concept to screen is not just …

295 Engaging Short Story Prompts to Spark Your Creativity and Improve Your Writing Skill

Unleash your creativity with these 295 short story prompts! Immerse yourself in magical worlds, solve fascinating puzzles, overcome dramatic life events or explore futuristic worlds. From everyday situations to extraordinary …

110 Inspiring Roleplay Ideas for Writers, Storytellers, and Creatives

Ready to ignite your imagination? Dive into this extensive list of role-playing scenarios! Perfect for writers and storytellers, these ideas span across time, space, and reality. Your next great story …

Booklist Queen

This post may contain affiliate links which earn me a commission at no additional cost to you.

40 Narrative Nonfiction Books That Read Like Novels

Skip the dry textbooks and read some nonfiction books that read like novels instead with these top narrative nonfiction books.

The older I get, the more nonfiction books I tend to read, and I have to admit that narrative nonfiction books are my absolute favorite.

There’s something so compelling about approaching the dividing line of fiction vs nonfiction – using fiction techniques to enhance a nonfiction story.

Not sure what narrative nonfiction means? Don’t worry, I’ll start with the narrative nonfiction definition before diving into the best examples of narrative nonfiction that you’ll want to add to your reading list.

Don’t Miss a Thing

What is Narrative Nonfiction?

Sometimes called creative nonfiction or literary nonfiction, narrative nonfiction is a type of nonfiction that reads like a novel.

Narrative nonfiction is still nonfiction. These books are well-researched and factually accurate. The difference is in the literary techniques used in narrative nonfiction books. For narrative nonfiction is all about the story – telling a compelling narrative that is as informational as it is entertaining.

Imagine the difference between nonfiction and fiction as a spectrum, where on one side is the completely imaginary fiction and on the other dry factual nonfiction.

Narrative nonfiction would fall as close to the fiction side as you can while still being nonfiction. On the other hand, historical novels are as close to nonfiction as you can while still being fiction – factually correct in almost everything but with artistic license in some regards.

Bestselling NOnfiction Memoirs

The Glass Castle

Jeannette walls.

One of the most powerful memoirs of recent years, Jeannette Walls recounts the story of her tumultuous childhood. She opens the book with the account of how at 3 years old, she ends up hospitalized with severe burns after pouring scalding water on herself when cooking hot dogs for lunch. You meet her charming father Rex, equal measures brilliant and paranoid; her mother Rose, selfish and depressed; and her three siblings, trying their best just to survive. To quote my husband, “Sometimes someone’s train wreck of a life is fascinating.”

Publication Date: March 2005 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Tara Westover

There is no excuse to not read Tara Westover’s spectacular memoir. In my opinion, Educated was one of the best books of the last decade . Westover grew up in the rural mountains of Idaho with no formal education. Despite her extremist survivalist parents and violent older brother, Westover managed to make her way into college, eventually earning a Ph.D. Her amazing determination is inspiring while the circumstances of her childhood are incredibly sad. Definitely one of those books that will stay with you for a long time.

Publication Date: 20 February 2018 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Hillbilly Elegy

J. d. vance.

First off, you need to understand that J. D. Vance’s memoir is not about life in rural Kentucky as I often see erroneously stated. Instead, it’s about his family life in Southwestern Ohio and how the Hillbilly culture and ethics his grandparents brought from rural Kentucky affected the lives and choices of his grandparents, parents and even himself. Having grown up in that same region of Ohio, I can say that many of his observations ring true. While you might not agree with all of Vance’s conclusions, he has certainly started a conversation, forcing readers to ponder how culture affects us and what heritage you will pass down to your children.

Publication Date: 28 June 2016 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

Lori gottlieb.

As a therapist, Lori Gottlieb spent all day helping others with their problems. Yet, when her longtime boyfriend unexpectedly broke up with her, she found herself on the receiving end of therapy. Gottlieb’s memoir is top-notch with exceptional pacing, slyly weaving in explanations of therapy within the fascinating story of Gottlieb’s therapy sessions. You’ll quickly become attached to finding out what happens to her patients – a narcissistic tv producer, a dying newlywed, and a depressed senior citizen. A great book club book that highlights the importance of discussing mental health.

Publication Date: 2 April 2019 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Cheryl Strayed

Sometimes it takes doing something crazy, like hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, for you to truly put your life in order. By 22, Cheryl Strayed’s life felt out of control, so she decided to make a life-changing decision to hike the PCT. Her story (and the subsequent movie) have inspired many women to search to find themselves in a similar fashion, making it one of the top books of the decade. While I don’t think everyone needs to go on a crazy hike as she did, all of us could sometimes use a reset on our lives. You’ll laugh at Strayed’s mishaps, be in awe had her stupidity and bravery, and, if you are like me, really want to go for a hike.

Publication Date: 20 March 2012 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Roxane Gay has made a name for herself among contemporary Black female authors with her bestselling collection of essays, Bad Feminist . In her poignant memoir, Gay focuses on her weight and self-image. After being raped as a child, Gay used food and an overweight body as a shield. Speaking with candor on the realities of being obese in America and the conflict between self-love and self-care, Gay’s opinions are raw and honest and complicated.

Publication Date: 13 June 2017 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Sonali Deraniyagala

On a December morning in 2004, a tsunami struck Sri Lanka, killing Sonali Deraniyagala’s parents, husband, and children. Wave loads page upon page of tragedy. Deraniyagala describes the loss of her family and the difficult journey she had to create a new life for herself. Many readers have called this the saddest book ever, so be prepared for a deep look at how one woman has learned to process her almost unbearable pain.

Publication Date: 2013 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Save for Later

True Crime Nonfiction Stories

In Cold Blood

Truman capote.

Truman Capote was the founder of narrative nonfiction with his thrilling look at an unspeakable crime. On November 15, 1959, in the small farming town of Holcomb, Kansas, two men brutally murder the Clutter family in their home for no apparent reason. Through extensive interviews from the first days on the scene and following the events all the way to the execution of the murderers, Capote suspensefully unfolds the whole story of exactly what happened and more intriguing of all, why it happened. Make sure you set aside a chunk of time to read this modern classic because, I promise, once you start you’ll realize this is a book you can’t put down .

Publication Date: 1965 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

John berendt.

In 1981, a death at the grandest mansion in Savannah provokes the question: Was it murder or self-defense. The shooting sends a tidal wave through the town whose effects are still visible a decade later. With a colorful cast of characters, you’ll hardly believe this narrative nonfiction story isn’t a novel.

Publication Date: 13 January 1994 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Killers of the Flower Moon

David grann.

David Grann investigates the fascinating case of the Osage murders in the 1920s. After discovering oil on their land, the Osage Indian Nation in Oklahoma are among the richest people in the world at the time. Once the death toll surpasses 24 Osage, the newly created FBI takes up the investigation to expose an alarming conspiracy behind these notorious crimes.

Publication Date: 18 April 2017 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark

Michelle mcnamara.

Michelle McNamara’s hunt for a serial killer epitomized the fascination with true crime narrative nonfiction. For over a decade, a violent serial rapist plagued Northern California and then went on to commit 10 sadistic murders, never to be caught. Thirty years later, journalist Michelle McNamara took on the cold case, obsessively determined to find the Golden State Killer. Posthumously published two years after her death, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark is McNamara’s masterpiece of her search for the truth. Even more fascinating, only two months after this book was published, a suspect was formally charged in the murders.

Publication Date: 27 February 2018 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

The Orchid Thief

Susan orlean.

The rare endangered ghost orchid Polyrrhiza lindenii only grows in a few places, one of which is the Fakahatchee Strand State Preserve in Florida. Obsessed with obtaining ghost orchids to sell for profit, horticulturist John Laroche hatched a scheme to use a loophole in the law that allows Seminole natives to pick the flowers in the wild. Susan Orlean dives into the world of flower-selling to learn all about Laroche’s obsession and his subsequent arrest.

Publication Date: 1998 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much

Allison hoover bartlett.

Step into the world of rare book collecting with a cat-and-mouse game between an amateur detective and a book thief. While most rare book thieves are in it for the cash, John Charles Gilkey just desperately wanted to own the books he loved so much. As Gilkey’s escapades continue, book dealer Ken Sanders finds himself driven to catch the thief. Exploring the common love of books, Bartlett befriended both Gilkey and Sanders to learn all about Gilkey’s exploits and how Sanders was finally able to catch him.

Publication Date: 2009 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

A Taste for Poison

Neil bradbury.

Poison is one of the most popular methods chosen in murder mysteries, but how do they work? Bradbury blends science, history, and true crime with an exploration of eleven deadly poisons, how they affect the body and which infamous killers have used them.

Publication Date: 1 February 2022 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Narrative Nonfiction about War

Laura Hillenbrand

Laura Hillenbrand’s bestselling book details the life of Louis Zamperini, a former Olympic runner who even shook hands with Hitler at the Berlin Olympics. Shot down in the Pacific Ocean in 1943, Lt. Zamperini managed to survive on a life raft for 47 days only to be found by the Japanese. Lt. Zamperini’s resilience will amaze you as he struggles to survive life as a Japanese prisoner for almost three years.

Publication Date: 16 November 2010 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

John Hershey

On August 6, 1945, for the first time, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on a city, completely destroying Hiroshima, Japan. War correspondent John Hershey was one of the first Western journalists to witness the ruins of Hiroshima. Commissioned by the New Yorker , Hershey wrote about the events of the day and the memories of the survivors in an article that was reprinted as a Pulitzer Prize-winning book.

Publication Date: 1946 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Black Hawk Down

Mark bowden.

In 1993, a hundred US soldiers were dropped by helicopters into a crowded Mogadishu market in the middle of the day to capture two Somali warlords. The quick in-and-out operation went to pieces when two Black Hawk helicopters were shot down, trapping dozens of soldiers in place overnight in a hellish fight against thousands of Somalians.

Publication Date: 10 February 1999 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Band of Brothers

Stephen e. ambrose.

The thrilling account of Easy Company, a unit of the 506th Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division of the US Army is one of my favorite World War 2 books . The book gets its title from the Shakespeare quote, “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he today who sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.” Instead of following one man’s journey, the cast of characters winds in and out as men come and go from the company due to reassignment, injury, and death. Stephen Ambrose’s powerful book is a remarkable look at the everyday men who became legends.

Publication Date: 6 June 1992 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Science & Technology Nonfiction Narratives

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Rebecca skloot.

Raising questions about privacy, medical research, and ethics, Rebecca Skloot spent more than a decade researching the history of Henrietta Lacks and her immortal cells. Just before her death of cervical cancer, Henrietta Lack’s cells were taken without her permission and scientists figured out how to keep them alive indefinitely. The created cell line was then used for countless medical research. Interspersing the history of Henrietta’s family with the medical use of her cells, Skloot has penned a memorable work.

Publication Date: 2 February 2010 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Hidden Figures

Margot lee shetterly.

Telling of the true story of NASA’s African-American female mathematicians, this book became a hit movie in 2016. Segregated from their white colleagues, these fierce women used pencil and paper to calculate the physics needed to launch men to the moon. Be warned that the writing is a bit dry but the characters are fascinating.

Publication Date: 6 September 2016 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

When Breath Becomes Air

Paul kalanithi.

At only 36 years old, Dr. Kalanithi was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Suddenly, he found himself thrust from the role of a neurosurgeon to that of a dying patient. Coming face-to-face with his mortality, Kalanithi decided to write his memoir and wrestle with the question: “What makes life worth living in the face of dying?” Easily one of the best memoirs of the decade, When Breath Becomes Air will likely make you sob uncontrollably.

Publication Date: 19 January 2016 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Being Mortal

Atul gawande.

The triumph of modern medicine has created cures for endless diseases and extended life, but at what cost. Surgeon Atul Gawande contemplates how the medical profession must remember that quality of life is more important than quantity of life. Opposing procedures that unnecessarily prolong suffering, Gawande discusses how to humanly reform hospice care and the care of the elderly to provide aid and dignity.

Publication Date: 7 October 2014 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Hidden Valley Road

Robert kolker.

Shortly after World War II, Don and Mimi Galvin seemed to be living the American Dream, raising their twelve children in Colorado. Until one after another, six of their ten sons were diagnosed with schizophrenia. The tale of an American family who became the center of most of our current research on schizophrenia, Hidden Valley Road has become one of the top nonfiction books of 2020 .

Publication Date: 7 April 2020 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Best Narrative Nonfiction About Sports

The Blind Side

Michael lewis.

Michael Lewis is an expert at writing narrative nonfiction, and he takes his talents to cover football in The Blind Side . You probably know it’s the inspiring story of Michael Oher, who, after being taken in by the Tuohy family, rose to become one of the most sought after football players of his generation. However, what you probably don’t realize is that the book itself is also about the evolution of football. Lewis gives a fascinating look at how the game has changed over the decades and why that leads to the importance of Michael Oher’s position.

Publication Date: 17 September 2006 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Into Thin Air

Jon krakauer.

While writing a story about the overcrowding on Mt. Everest, investigative journalist Jon Krakauer got much more than he expected. Climbing to the summit on May 10, 1996, Krakauer’s group was engulfed by a storm that ended up claiming five lives. With his firsthand account of the glories and dangers of climbing Mt. Everest, Krakauer will have you gripped to the page as you follow along with his expedition. This heartstopping modern classic that anyone with an outdoor mindset will love has certainly earned a place among the best narrative nonfiction books.

Publication Date: 2 April 2009 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

The Boys in the Boat

Daniel james brown.

In a sport dominated by elite East Coast schools, a group of young men, sons of dockworkers, loggers, and farmers, at the University of Washington rowed to the Olympic Gold Medal in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Led by an enigmatic coach and aided by a visionary boat builder, the nine working-class boys came together with determination and commitment to become world champions.

Publication Date: 4 June 2013 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Friday Night Lights

H. g. bissinger.

When you think of Texas, high school football probably comes to mind. Football is serious business in the Lone Star State, and nowhere more so than Odessa. Way out in the oilfields of West Texas, the lives of the people of Odessa seem to revolve around nothing but football, for which they have been rewarded with the winning-est football team in Texas History. Bissinger’s exposé on the subject shines a brilliant light on the town’s obsession – both the good of uniting its citizens and the bad of justifying anything that will help the team win on Friday night. Friday Night Lights inspired both a dramatic motion picture and a successful television series, but the book is completely true.

Publication Date: 1990 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

In 1938, the single biggest newsmaker was not Hitler or Mussolini, but the crooked-legged racehorse Seabiscuit. Laura Hillenbrand details how such an unlikely hero became an American icon. When Charles Howard wanted to own racehorses, he allied himself with Tom Smith, a mysterious mustang breaker from Colorado, and Red Pollard, a half-blind former boxer turned jockey, in a partnership that would transform bad luck and injury into an inspirational success story.

Publication Date: 30 June 1999 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Narrative Nonfiction Business Books

Phil Knight

In grad school, Phil Knight had a crazy idea that Japanese running shoes could overtake the domination of German company Adidas. He partnered up with his former track coach to help design innovative shoes and traveled to Japan to bring this crazy idea to life. Following the ups and downs of the journey that built the billion-dollar company Nike is today, Knight’s memoir will hook you in with a band of eccentric characters and an underdog story with excellent narrative pacing.

Publication Date: 26 April 2016 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

John Carreyrou

Imagine a Silicon Valley startup that raised insane amounts of money all based on a gigantic fraud. It sounds like a fictional thriller, but it is the actual true story of the company Theranos. Investigative journalist John Carreyrou’s expose of Elizabeth Holmes’s company is an eye-opening read and one of the best narrative nonfiction books of recent years.

Publication Date: 21 May 2018 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Matthew Desmond

Harvard sociologist Matthew Desmond tells the true stories of eight families from the poorest neighborhoods of Milwaukee. All of these families are barely scraping by, having had to spend almost all of their earnings on rent alone. Each is facing eviction and an unknown future. Based on years of fieldwork, Evicted takes an eye-opening look at extreme poverty and eviction in America today.

Publication Date: 1 March 2016 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

The Big Short

The U.S. stock market crash in 2008 sparked a great recession that affected a generation. Michael Lewis explains that the real crash came a year earlier in the bond and real estate derivatives markets. The Big Short follows four Wall Street outsiders who predicted the credit and housing bubble collapse and made loads of cash doing so. Michael Lewis does an excellent job taking dense material and turning it into an easily understood, compelling character-driven drama.

Publication Date: 15 March 2010 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Nonfiction to Explore the World

Nothing to Envy

Barbara demick.

It’s hard to imagine a dictatorship right out of dystopian fiction could be alive and well right in our modern world. Yet, reading about North Korea, you’ll be astonished at our own modern-day totalitarian society. Through the stories of six North Koreans who eventually defected to South Korea, Barbara Demick tells the history of an Orwellian society that has had a major influence in the last decade.

Publication Date: 2010 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Behind the Beautiful Forevers

Katherine boo.

In the shadow of Mumbai’s luxury hotels lies the Annawadi slum where life is brutal. However, a wave of worldwide economic prosperity has even Annawadi’s residents hopeful that their life is improving. Boo introduces you to a colorful cast of characters including Abdul, a Muslim teenager making a profit in recycling garbage; Asha, a woman resolved to use political corruption in her favor to send her daughter to college; and Kalu, a teenage scrap metal thief. Boo follows the Annawadi residents as a global recession rocks the city and tensions caused by race, caste, and money affect each of them.

Publication Date: 7 February 2012 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Reading Lolita in Tehran

Azar nafisi.

For two years, every Thursday morning Azar Nafisi would gather seven of her female students in her living room and read forbidden Western classics like Jane Austen and Vladimir Nabokov. With Islamic morality squads patrolling Tehran to censor and inhibit artistic expression that went against their fundamentalist beliefs, Nafisi and her students risked their lives to immerse themselves in exploring how the literature connected to their lives.

Publication Date: 2003 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Top Nonfiction Books About History

The Warmth of Other Suns

Isabel wilkerson.

From the First World War to the 1970s, a mass exodus ensued of Blacks leaving the South and settling in northern and western cities. Wilkerson’s book highlights three stories from The Great Migration: Ida Mae Gladney who left sharecropping in 1937 for a blue-collar life in Chicago; George Starling, who left Florida in 1945 for Harlem where he fought for civil rights; and Robert Foster, who moved from Louisiana in 1953 to become a personal physician.

Publication Date: 7 September 2010 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Slouching Towards Bethlehem

Joan didion.

In a series of essays, Joan Didion conveys the essence of life in the 1960s, mostly focusing on California. Placing herself at the center of each piece, Didion’s reporting describes the grim realities behind San Francisco’s perceived utopian counterculture in blunt terms. With essays on John Wayne and Howard Hughes and growing up in California, Didion’s collection is renowned for its distinct styling.

Publication Date: 1968 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

The Devil in the White City

Erik larson.

A master of narrative nonfiction, Erik Larson turns his attention to the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. Larson expertly interweaves two parallel storylines. The first is that of Daniel H. Burnham, the architect and mastermind of the fair. At the same time in Chicago, there lurked the serial killer Henry H. Holmes, a pharmacist intent on building his own type of fairgrounds – a torture chamber full of every imaginable horror. By contrasting the lives of these two figures, Larson presents a startling juxtaposition of American history.

Dave Cullen

With meticulous in-depth research, Dave Cullen examines the mass shooting that forever changed America. In a day and age where shootings are sadly becoming the norm instead of the exception, Cullen takes you back to that fateful day in 1999. On that tragic day, Cullen was one of the first reporters on the scene and has since spent years piecing together the full story of what happened at Columbine High School.

Publication Date: 6 April 2009 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Destiny of the Republic

Candice millard.

A Civil War hero and reformist congressman, James A. Garfield was nominated for president against his will and went on to use his Presidency to fight against political corruption. Yet, just four months into his presidency, he was shot by a deranged assassin. Although he survived the initial shooting, the bullet in his spine left Garfield incapacitated, sparking a heated behind-the-scenes power struggle. Although every means was tried to help the ailing President, the incompetence of his doctors eventually led to his death two months after the shooting.

Publication Date: 20 September 2011 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

What are Your Favorite Narrative Nonfiction Books?

What do you think? Do you like that narrative nonfiction books read like novels? Or do you prefer to read less literary history books? As always, let me know in the comments!

More Nonfiction Books to Read:

• The Best Nonfiction Books of 2021
• 53 Life Changing Books to Read This Year
• 10 Memoirs That Will Make You Cry
• 22 Books That Make You Think Differently
• The New York Times Nonfiction Bestseller List

Recommended

Reader Interactions

Susan (Bloggin' 'bout Books) says

August 9, 2021 at 9:13 pm

Great list! You included several of my favorite examples of narrative non-fiction here. I’ve been enjoying narrative non-fiction on audio lately—right now I’m listening to DEAD WAKE by Erik Larson. It’s fascinating!

Michelle says

August 11, 2021 at 11:44 am

An excellent list as always! Thank you! Though I’m going to make a case for including A Higher Call by Adam Makos (or Devotion – I’m hard pressed to decide which is #1 and which is #2 of his) and A Perfect Horse by Elizabeth Letts.

Brenda Romanoff says

August 11, 2021 at 1:46 pm

I have read all the nonfiction narrative. I didn’t realize how much I loved those books. New to me. Thank you for all your hard work about books. Love it! Brenda

August 17, 2021 at 12:37 pm

The Amazon link to “Into Thin Air” is wrong. It takes you to “If I Stay”

Rachael says

August 23, 2021 at 11:18 am

Thanks for letting me know! I’ve fixed it now.

October 10, 2021 at 4:31 pm

In the description of The Henrietta Lacks book you accidentally referred to Lacks as the author.

October 16, 2021 at 11:30 pm

Thanks for the catch! I’ve fixed it now.

How to Use narrative in a Sentence

• He is writing a detailed narrative of his life on the island.

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'narrative.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Can you solve 4 words at once?

Word of the day.

See Definitions and Examples »

Get Word of the Day daily email!