Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Seeing Is Believing | 1985 | Colm Tóibín | Buy |
| 2 | Walking Along the Border | 1987 | Colm Tóibín | Buy |
| 3 | Bad Blood | 1988 | Colm Tóibín | Buy |
| 4 | Homage to Barcelona | 1990 | Colm Tóibín | Buy |
| 5 | Dubliners | 1990 | Colm Tóibín | Buy |
| 6 | Trial of the Generals | 1990 | Colm Tóibín | Buy |
| 7 | The Sign of the Cross | 1994 | Colm Tóibín | Buy |
| 8 | The Guinness Book Of Ireland | 1995 | Colm Tóibín | Buy |
| 9 | The Kilfenora Teaboy | 1996 | Colm Tóibín | Buy |
| 10 | Conversations and Portraits | 1997 | Colm Tóibín | Buy |
| 11 | The Irish Famine | 1999 | Colm Tóibín | Buy |
| 12 | Love in a Dark Time | 2002 | Colm Tóibín | Buy |
| 13 | Lady Gregory’s Toothbrush | 2002 | Colm Tóibín | Buy |
| 14 | Ireland | 2008 | Colm Tóibín | Buy |
| 15 | All a Novelist Needs | 2010 | Colm Tóibín | Buy |
| 16 | New Ways to Kill Your Mother | 2012 | Colm Tóibín | Buy |
| 17 | On Elizabeth Bishop | 2015 | Colm Tóibín | Buy |
| 18 | Henry James and American Painting | 2017 | Colm Tóibín | Buy |
| 19 | Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know | 2018 | Colm Tóibín | Buy |
| 20 | Sean Scully: Walls of Aran | 2020 | Colm Tóibín | Buy |
| 21 | A Guest at the Feast | 2023 | Colm Tóibín | Buy |
| 22 | On James Baldwin | 2024 | Colm Tóibín | Buy |
Toibin’s non-fiction is almost as extensive as his fiction. His early work includes travel books about the Irish border during the Troubles and a personal account of Barcelona. He has written about the Irish famine, Catholic ritual across Europe, and the relationship between homosexuality and literature in Love in a Dark Time.
His literary criticism covers a wide range of subjects. He has published book-length studies of Elizabeth Bishop and Henry James, as well as shorter essays on writers from Oscar Wilde to Sebastian Barry. A Guest at the Feast, his most recent non-fiction collection, gathers personal essays and cultural criticism from across his career.