40 Best Essays of All Time (With Links),Learn anything, anytime.
Web Must-Read Essay Collections 1. Against Interpretation — Susan Sontag 2. Alibis: Essays on Elsewhere — André Aciman 3. American Romances — Rebecca Brown Web more great science & tech. reads The Environment The Fate of Earth by Elizabeth Kolbert State of the Species by Charles C. Mann Death of a Mountain by Erik Reece 30 WebApr 29, · The Best Short Essays - The Electric Typewriter The Electric Typewriter Great articles and essays by the world's best journalists and writers. 29th Apr The WebOct 10, · The Best American Essays of the Century (The Best American Series): Oates, Joyce Carol, Atwan, Robert: blogger.com: Books Books › WebI found over 12 best essays lists and several essay anthologies and combined the essays into one meta-list. The meta-list below includes every essay that was on at least two of ... read more
On 6 lists George Orwell — Shooting an Elephant E. White — Once More to the Lake Joan Didion — Goodbye To All That On 5 lists Joan Didion — On Keeping A Notebook Annie Dillard — Total Eclipse Jo Ann Beard — The Fourth State of Matter David Foster Wallace — A Supposedly Fun Thing I Will Never Do Again On 3 lists Jonathan Swift — A Modest Proposal Virginia Woolf — Street Haunting: A London Adventure John McPhee — The Search for Marvin Gardens Joan Didion — The White Album Eudora Welty — The Little Store Phillip Lopate — Against Joie de Vivre On 2 lists Sei Shonagon — Hateful Things from The Pillow Book Yoshida Kenko — Essays in Idleness Michel de Montaigne — On Some Verses of Virgil Robert Burton — Anatomy of Melancholy John Milton — Areopagitica William Hazlitt — On Going a Journey Charles Lamb — The Superannuated Man Henry David Thoreau — Civil Disobedience Henry David Thoreau — Where I Lived, and What I Lived For from Walden Henry David Thoreau — Economy from Walden Henry David Thoreau — Walking Robert Louis Stevenson — The Lantern-Bearers Zora Neale Hurston — How It Feels to Be Colored Me George Orwell — A Hanging Junichiro Tanizaki — In Praise of Shadows Fernando Pessoa — The Book of Disquiet James Agee and Walker Evans — Let Us Now Praise Famous Men Simone Weil — On Human Personality M.
A Place to Live — Natalia Ginzburg Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination — Toni Morrison Pulphead — John Jeremiah Sullivan Selected Essays — Michel de Montaigne Shadow and Act — Ralph Ellison Sidewalks — Valeria Luiselli Sister Outsider — Audre Lorde The Size of Thoughts — Nicholson Baker Slouching Towards Bethlehem — Joan Didion The Souls of Black Folk — W. Du Bois The Story About the Story — anthology, edited by J. Hallman Ten Years in the Tub — Nick Hornby Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man — Henry Louis Gates This Is Running for Your Life — Michelle Orange This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage — Ann Patchett Tiny Beautiful Things — Cheryl Strayed Tuxedo Junction: Essays on American Culture — Gerald Early Twenty-eight Artists and Two Saints — Joan Acocella The Unspeakable — Meghan Daum Vermeer in Bosnia — Lawrence Weschler The Wave in the Mind — Ursula K.
Le Guin We Need Silence to Find Out What We Think — Shirley Hazzard We Should All Be Feminists — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi What Are People For? When I Was a Child I Read Books — Marilynne Robinson The White Album — Joan Didion White Girls — Hilton Als The Woman Warrior — Maxine Hong Kinston The Writing Life — Annie Dillard Writing With Intent — Margaret Atwood True Story Newsletter. Money To Have is To Owe by David Graeber The Austerity Delusion by Paul Krugman The Blind Side by Michael Lewis 50 more great articles about money. Politics The Hinge of History by Joan Didion How the News Took Over Reality by Oliver Burkeman Masters of the Universe Go to Camp by Philip Weiss 30 more great articles about politics.
History Does It Help to Know History? by Adam Gopnik by Charles C. Mann A History of Violence by Steven Pinker The Worst Mistake in History by J. Diamond 25 more great articles about history. True Crime The Body in Room by Mark Bowden True Crime by David Grann The Art of the Steal by Joshua Bearman 20 more great true crime reads. Race Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America by Kiese Laymon Time and Distance Overcome by Eula Biss 25 more great essays about Race. Food The Last Meal by Michael Paterniti If You Knew Sushi by Nick Tosches Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace 35 more great articles about food. Psychology Thresholds of Violence by Malcolm Gladwell We Are All Confident Idiots by David Dunning Fantastic Beasts and How to Rank Them by Kathryn Schulz What is the Monkeysphere?
by David Wong 50 more great articles about psychology. Happiness What Makes Us Happy? by Joshua Shenk Money? by Bill McKibben The Real Roots of Midlife Crisis by Jonathan Rauch 15 more great articles about happiness. Rowling What Drives Success? by Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld 10 more great articles about success. by Zoe Carpenter 35 more great articles about health. Mental Health The Epidemic of Mental Illness by Marcia Angell Adventures in Depression by Allie Brosh Surviving Anxiety by Scott Stossel 20 more great articles about mental health. Ethics The Moral Instinct by Steven Pinker Not Nothing by Stephen Cave The Greatest Good by Derek Thompson 10 more great reads about ethics.
Education Getting In by Malcolm Gladwell Learning by Degrees by Rebecca Mead Building a Better Teacher by Elizabeth Green 20 more great articles about education.
Now I want to share the whole list with you with the addition of my notes about writing. Each item on the list has a direct link to the essay, so please click away and indulge yourself. Once you open the package, eat the whole goddamn thing. I tried to find ones that were well-written and awe-inspiring at the same time. I wanted them to have the power to change my thinking and change my life. And they delivered. Now, you may have a different motivation to peruse these amazing essays. But a part of it is still with you.
It changed you the very moment you read its last line. Just browse through them, read the summary, writing tips , and check the bonus material at the end. Download your free PDF and learn about the top tools used by freelance writers. David Sedaris — Laugh, Kookaburra. A great family drama takes place against the backdrop of the Australian wilderness. And the Kookaburra laughs… This is one of the best essays of the lot. Writing tips from the essay:. Do you think your life punches you in the face all too often? After reading this essay you will change your mind.
Reading about loss and hardships often makes us sad at first, but then, enables us to feel grateful for our lives. White — Once more to the lake. What does it mean to be a father? Can you see your younger self, reflected in your child? This beautiful essay tells the story of the author, his son, and their traditional stay at a placid lake hidden within the forests of Maine. This place of nature is filled with sunshine and childhood memories. It also provides for one of the greatest meditations on nature and the passing of time. Zadie Smith — Fail Better. Aspiring writers feel a tremendous pressure to perform.
The daily quota of words often turns out to be nothing more than gibberish. What then? Also, should the writer please the reader or should she be fully independent? What does it mean to be a writer, anyway? This essay is an attempt to answer these questions, but its contents are not only meant for scribblers. Virginia Woolf — Death of the Moth. Amid an ordinary day, sitting in a room of her own, Virginia Woolf tells about the epic struggle for survival and the evanescence of life. This short essay is truly powerful. In the beginning, the atmosphere is happy. Life is in full force. And then, suddenly, it starts to fade away. Meghan Daum — My Misspent Youth. Many of us, at some point or another, dream about living in New York. Roger Ebert — Go Gentle Into That Good Night.
Probably the greatest film critic of all time, Roger Ebert, tells us not to rage against the dying of the light. This essay is full of courage, erudition, and humanism. George Orwell — Shooting an Elephant. Orwell, apparently a free representative of British rule, feels to be nothing more than a puppet succumbing to the whim of the mob. George Orwell — A Hanging. The most horrible thing is the normality of it. Christopher Hitchens — Assassins of The Mind. In one of the greatest essays written in defense of free speech, Christopher Hitchens shares many examples of how modern media kneel to the explicit threats of violence posed by Islamic extremists.
He recounts the story of his friend, Salman Rushdie, author of Satanic Verses who, for many years had to watch over his shoulder because of the fatwa of Ayatollah Khomeini. With his usual wit, Hitchens shares various examples of people who died because of their opinions and of editors who refuse to publish anything related to Islam because of fear and it was written long before the Charlie Hebdo massacre. After reading the essay, you realize that freedom of expression is one of the most precious things we have and that we have to fight for it. Christopher Hitchens — The New Commandments. Watch, as Christopher Hitchens slays one commandment after the other on moral, as well as historical grounds.
For example, did you know that there are actually many versions of the divine law dictated by God to Moses which you can find in the Bible? If you approach it with an open mind, this essay may change the way you think about the Bible and religion. Phillip Lopate — Against Joie de Vivre. If you want to remain happy, just remain stupid. Personally, I can bear the onus of happiness or joie de vivre for some time. Philip Larkin — The Pleasure Principle. This piece comes from the Required Writing collection of essays. Well worth a read. Sigmund Freud — Thoughts for the Times on War and Death. How the peaceful, European countries could engage in a war that would eventually cost more than 17 million lives?
What stirs people to kill each other? Is it their nature, or are they puppets of imperial forces with agendas of their own? Zadie Smith — Some Notes on Attunement. This one is about the elusiveness of change occurring within you. For Zadie, it was hard to attune to the vibes of Joni Mitchell — especially her Blue album. But eventually, she grew up to appreciate her genius, and all the other things changed as well. This top essay is all about the relationship between human, and art. We should like it because it has an instantaneous, emotional effect on us. Although, according to Stansfield Gary Oldman in Léon, liking Beethoven is rather mandatory. Annie Dillard — Total Eclipse. My imagination was always stirred by the scene of the solar eclipse in Pharaoh, by Boleslaw Prus.
I wondered about the shock of the disoriented crowd when they saw how their ruler could apparently switch off the light. Getting immersed in this essay by Annie Dillard has a similar effect. It produces amazement and some kind of primeval fear. After the eclipse, nothing is going to be the same again. Édouard Levé — When I Look at a Strawberry, I Think of a Tongue. This suicidally beautiful essay will teach you a lot about the appreciation of life. Gloria E. Anzaldúa — How to Tame a Wild Tongue. Anzaldúa, who was born in south Texas, had to struggle to find her true identity.
She was American, but her culture was grounded in Mexico. In this way, she and her people were not fully respected in either of the countries. This essay is an account of her journey of becoming the ambassador of the Chicano Mexican-American culture. Kurt Vonnegut — Dispatch From A Man Without a Country. In terms of style, this essay is flawless. Mary Ruefle — On Fear. Most psychologists and gurus agree that fear is the greatest enemy of success or any creative activity. Mary Ruefle takes on this basic human emotion with flair. Susan Sontag — Against Interpretation. In this highly intellectual essay, Sontag fights for art and its interpretation. Hell if I know! I will judge it through my subjective experience! Nora Ephron — A Few Words About Breasts.
This is a heartwarming, coming-of-age story about a young girl who waits for her breasts to finally grow. The size of breasts is a big deal for women. Carl Sagan — Does Truth Matter — Science, Pseudoscience, and Civilization.
100 Must-Read Essay Collections,The Meta-Lists Website
WebI found over 12 best essays lists and several essay anthologies and combined the essays into one meta-list. The meta-list below includes every essay that was on at least two of Web Must-Read Essay Collections 1. Against Interpretation — Susan Sontag 2. Alibis: Essays on Elsewhere — André Aciman 3. American Romances — Rebecca Brown WebDec 13, · Read it here. A gorgeous mini-essay from an American giant that is equally relevant to writers of poetry or prose, and is almost a poem itself. “No tears in the writer, Web more great science & tech. reads The Environment The Fate of Earth by Elizabeth Kolbert State of the Species by Charles C. Mann Death of a Mountain by Erik Reece 30 WebApr 29, · The Best Short Essays - The Electric Typewriter The Electric Typewriter Great articles and essays by the world's best journalists and writers. 29th Apr The WebOct 10, · The Best American Essays of the Century (The Best American Series): Oates, Joyce Carol, Atwan, Robert: blogger.com: Books Books › ... read more
On Lies, Secrets, and Silence — Adrienne Rich It changed you the very moment you read its last line. Pulphead — John Jeremiah Sullivan Having to sit down and write a paper whether it be your college thesis or a five paragraph essay for an elementary level English course can be an intimidating and stressful if not overwhelming experience. Findings — Kathleen Jamie
Los Angeles Washington Chicago Houston Atlanta Dallas Seattle Phoenix Portland San Jose Pittsburgh. If you want to remain happy, just remain stupid. How can we get past all of the barriers that children and students put up for us and for themselv. The best essayists can make any subject interesting. Tuxedo Junction: Essays on American Culture — Gerald Early Writing Lessons for All Levels Writing is a skill that you can always build on and improve, 100 greatest essays, which means your learning journey is never truly over. I tried to find ones that were well-written and 100 greatest essays at the same time.
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