The best Essays newsletters

Chris Arnade writes essays and photo dispatches from long walks, mostly through America and abroad, mixing reportage with reflection on books and ideas. Recent issues cover de Tocqueville's Democracy in America, the history of the integrated circuit, and updates on his health and travel plans.

Long-form essays on basketball's emotional and cultural side, mixing personal narrative with player and team writing, plus guest contributors and a podcast. Recent issues cover Bay Area Valkyries fandom, Joel Embiid's injury-shadowed career, and a guest-written NBA season preview told through individual athletes.

A personal Substack mixing diary entries, restaurant writing and political commentary, including columns first published in LabourList. Readers get a witty, first-person view of British politics and daily life from an outsider's perspective.

Chisel is a literary magazine and digital newsletter that publishes essays, criticism, reported features and poetry on beauty, obsession and play, with an emphasis on timeless rather than timely work. Recent issues include a long essay on the comic character Concrete and a reprinted poem, plus calls for contributors and updates on its print edition.

Personal essays that blend cultural commentary, history, and anecdote to examine religion, intelligence, and social life. Readers get opinionated, narrative-driven takes on how society interprets itself.

Sherry Ning writes reflective essays on hard-to-name human experiences, mixing art history, philosophy, and personal anecdote with a serious, literary voice. Readers get meditations on art, desire, consumerism, love and mortality that aim to articulate feelings people rarely put into words.

A personal essay newsletter mixing rural Americana, backwoods travel, cultural criticism and religious and philosophical reflection. Readers get idiosyncratic, voice-driven writing, including meditations on art, modernity and the writer's own creative struggles.

Essays by Zachary L. Zavidé connecting religion, science fiction, urban policy and fashion through cultural and historical analysis. Readers get long-form, idiosyncratic takes such as reading Asimov's Foundation through the Bahá'í Faith or revisiting Jakarta's traffic rules.

A personal culture newsletter from an Instagram and TikTok creator featuring essays, quarterly book roundups, and pop culture commentary. Readers get a witty, self-aware first-person take on literature and celebrity news.

Coffee + Crumbs is a storytelling publication for mothers, sharing personal essays and themed collections of writing and art about motherhood. The excerpts cover its final collection, book club guides for a related book, and a personal essay on finding community as a new mom, as the publication closes after 12+ years.

Personal essays on motherhood, work and pop culture, with a particular interest in television. Readers get candid, reflective writing about parenting young children and the cultural pressures around it.

Boom is a Chinese-language newsletter whose excerpted issues carry only short titles such as 'Don't turn back', 'Survival rules' and 'Timing and the road that led here'. The material gives too little body text to judge its specific content or perspective.