Owen has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1991 and a contributing editor of Golf Digest since 1995; previously he was a contributing editor of The Atlantic Monthly and a senior writer for Harper's Magazine. For six years he was a regular columnist for Home Magazine. He was also a contributing editor and columnist for Spy.

Incomplete - to be updated

Books

• Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less Are the Keys to Sustainability (Riverhead, 2009) ISBN 9781594488825

Many of Owen's books are expansions (or collections) of his previous magazine articles. He writes with wry humor on a curious set of non-fiction topics, including:

• Golf (“Hit and Hope,” “The Making of the Masters,” “My Usual Game,” and “The Chosen One,” a profile of Tiger Woods. In addition, he co-edited a collection of golf stories titled “Lure of the Links.”)
• Home building materials (“Sheetrock and Shellac,” “The Walls Around Us”)
• Inventors and inventions (“Copies in Seconds,” “The Man Who Invented Saturday Morning”)
• Fatherhood and domestic life (“The First National Bank of Dad,” “Around the House”)
• American education issues (“High School,” about the four months he spent pretending to be a high-school student, and “None of the Above,” an exposé of the standardized-testing industry)
• Sheetrock and Shellac: A Thinking Person's Guide to the Art and Science of Home Improvement (Simon & Schuster, 2006) ISBN 9780743251204 ISBN 0743251202
• Copies in Seconds: How a Lone Inventor and an Unknown Company Created the Biggest Communication Breakthrough Since Gutenberg...Chester Carlson and the Birth of Xerox (Simon & Schuster, 2004) ISBN 9780743251181 ISBN 0743251180
• Hit and Hope: How the Rest of Us Play Golf (Simon & Schuster, 2003) ISBN 9780743222372 ISBN 0743222377
• The First National Bank of Dad: The Best Way to Teach Kids About Money (pap. subtitle: 'A Foolproof Method for Teaching Your Kids the Value of Money) (Simon & Schuster, 2003) ISBN 9780743204804 ISBN 0743204808
• The Chosen One: Tiger Woods and the Dilemma of Greatness (Simon & Schuster, 2001) ISBN 9780743222341 ISBN 0743222342
• The Complete Office Golf (Workman Publishing,1999) ISBN 9780761115939 ISBN 0761115935
• The Making of the Masters: Clifford Roberts, Augusta National, and Golf's Most Prestigious Tournament (Simon & Schuster, 1999) ISBN 9780684867212 ISBN 0684867214
• (Foreword only) Princeton Review: Cracking the Sat With Sample Tests on CD-ROM, 2000 Edition (Cracking the SAT and PSAT With Sample Tests), by Adam Robinson and John Katzman (Princeton Review, 1999) ISBN 9780375754043 ISBN 0375754040
• Around the House : Reflections on Life Under a Roof (pap. title: Life Under a Leaky Roof) (Villard, 1998) ISBN 9780679456551 ISBN 0679456554
• (As co-editor:) Lure of the Links: Great Golf Stories...an Anthology (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1997) ISBN 9780871136855 ISBN 0871136856
• (Foreword only) College Admissions: the Student Access Guide to College Admissions by Adam Robinson and John Katzman (Princeton Review, 1993) ISBN 9780679745907 ISBN 0679745904
• The Walls Around Us: The Thinking Person's Guide to How a House Works (Villard, 1991) ISBN 9780394578248 ISBN 0394578244
• The Man Who Invented Saturday Morning: And Other Adventures in American Enterprise (Villard, 1988) ISBN 9780394568102 ISBN 0394568109
• None of the Above: Behind the Myth of Scholastic Aptitude (pap. subtitle: The Truth Behind the SATs) (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1985) ISBN 9780395355404 ISBN 0395355400
• High School: Undercover With the Class of '80 (Viking Press, 1981) ISBN 9780670371495 ISBN 0670371491

Articles Available Online

• "Books: Turning Tricks--The rise and fall of contract bridge," The New Yorker, September 17, 2007
• "Shouts & Murmurs: Passing," The New Yorker, April 2, 2007
• "Precocity Dept.: Bird" (profile of jazz saxophonist Elijah Shiffer), The New Yorker, July 24, 2006
• "Annals of Culture: The Soundtrack of Your Life--Muzak in the realm of retail theatre," The New Yorker, April 10, 2006
• "Pencils Up! The S.A.T.’s Watchdog," The New Yorker, April 3, 2006
• "Shouts & Murmurs: Your Three Wishes--F.A.Q.," The New Yorker, January 16, 2006
• "Hey Pal Dept.: Old Hack" (story about former cab driver and taxi historian Bobby Lowich), The New Yorker, January 26, 2004
• "Our Local Correspondents: Green Manhattan," The New Yorker, October 18, 2004
• "Shouts & Murmurs: 8 Simple Rules For Dating My Ex-Wife," The New Yorker, January 12, 2004
• "Shouts & Murmurs: A Naturalist’s Notes," The New Yorker, August 11, 2003
• "Dept. of Procurement: The Meat Doctor," The New Yorker, June 30, 2003
• "Shouts & Murmurs: Remake" (plot outline for 2003 remake of It's a Wonderful Life), The New Yorker, April 21, 2003
• "NASA, Spinning: Was the space shuttle useful? Not really." Slate Magazine, posted February 4, 2003
• "Mom and Pop Dept.: The Hundred Club," The New Yorker, December 23, 2002
• "Books: Measure for Measure--How the metric system conquered the world-almost," The New Yorker, October 14, 2002
• "Life and Letters: From Race to Chase--Yale’s Stephen L. Carter writes a thriller," The New Yorker, June 3, 2002
• "Notes & Comment: Children and Money--Training a little investor," The Atlantic Monthly, April 1998
• "Where Toys Come From," The Atlantic Monthly, October 1986,
• "Travel: Innocents Abroad--Making Britain fun for a child can be fun for a parent, too,"" The Atlantic Monthly, November 1996
• "Shouts & Murmurs: The Afterlife--Cutting Back," The New Yorker, January 7, 2008
• Cycling the Waterfront Greenway, Manhattan.