* The Last American Ghost Town (2013)
* Lost Country: Rediscovering a Forgotten America (2016)
* West Texas and the Fight to Save America's Last Desert (2018)
* The Value of Human Diversity: A PsychologicalPerspective (2021)
Essays and articles
* "The Real Meaning of the Rust Belt" (The New York Times, 2016)
* "Why the American West Is Still Wild" (The Atlantic, 2018)
* "The Fight to Save America's Last Desert" (The New Republic, 2018)
* "The Future of the American West" (The Washington Post, 2019)
* "The Value of Human Diversity" (Psychology Today, 2021)
Short stories
* "The Last Train" (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, 2014)
* "The Ghost of the Alamo" (Weird Tales, 2015)
* "The Man Who Loved the Desert" (The Best American Short Stories 2016)
Awards
* National Book Critics Circle Award (2016)
* PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay (2017)
* Whiting Award (2018)