Edward Said — Reflections on Exile, best essay ever. Written init still inspires generations of people. This is an essential work to understanding American culture. The amount of beautiful sentences it contains is just overwhelming. What does it mean to be a father?
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter.
Robert Atwan, the founder of The Best American Essays series, picks the 10 best essays of the postwar period. Links to the essays are provided when available. So to make my list of the top ten essays since less impossible, I decided to exclude all the great examples of New Journalism--Tom Wolfe, Gay Talese, Michael Herr, and many others can be reserved for another list. I also decided to include only American writers, so such outstanding English-language essayists as Chris Arthur and Tim Robinson are missing, though they have appeared in The Best American Essays series. And I selected essaysnot essayists. A list of the top ten essayists since would best essay ever some different writers. And the best essays show that the name of the genre is also a verb, so they demonstrate a mind in process--reflecting, trying-out, essaying.
Against a violent historical background, Baldwin recalls his deeply troubled relationship with his father and explores his growing awareness of himself as a black American. However you view the racial politics, best essay ever, the prose is undeniably best essay ever, beautifully modulated and yet full of urgency. Norman Mailer, best essay ever, "The White Negro" originally appeared in Dissent An essay that packed an enormous wallop at the time may make some of us cringe today with its hyperbolic dialectics and hyperventilated metaphysics. Odd, how terms can bounce back into life with an entirely different set of connotations. What might Mailer call the new hipsters? Read the essay here. Susan Sontag, "Notes on 'Camp'" originally appeared in Partisan Review I was familiar with it as an undergraduate, hearing it used often by a set of friends, best essay ever, department store window decorators in Manhattan.
But after Sontag unpacked the concept, with the help of Oscar Wilde, I began to see the cultural world in a different light. John McPhee, "The Search for Marvin Gardens" originally appeared in The New Yorkerbest essay ever, I roll the dice—a six and a two. Through the air I move my token, the flatiron, to Vermont Avenue, where dog packs range, best essay ever. As the games progress and as properties are rapidly snapped up, McPhee juxtaposes the well-known sites on best essay ever board—Atlantic Avenue, Park Place—with actual visits to their crumbling locations, best essay ever.
He goes to jail, not just in the game but in fact, portraying what life has now become in a city that in better days was a Boardwalk Empire. The essay was collected in Pieces of the Frame Read the essay here subscription required. Joan Didion, "The White Album" originally appeared in New West Annie Dillard, "Total Eclipse" originally appeared in Antaeus Phillip Lopate, "Against Joie de Vivre" originally appeared in Ploughshares The essay was selected by Gay Talese for The Best American Essays and collected in Against Joie de Vivre in Jo Ann Beard, "The Fourth State of Matter" originally appeared in The New Yorker A question for nonfiction writing students: When writing a true story best essay ever on actual events, how does the narrator create dramatic tension when most readers can be expected to know what happens in the end?
David Foster Wallace, "Consider the Lobster" originally appeared in Gourmet Susan Orlean selected the essay for The Best American Essays and Wallace collected it in Consider the Lobster and Other Essays I wish I could include twenty more essays but these ten in themselves comprise a wonderful and wide-ranging mini-anthology, one that showcases some of the most outstanding literary voices of our time. The Millions. SITE LICENSE ACCESS. The Top 10 Essays Since By Robert Atwan. More from pw. A Year In Reading: PW Picks: Books of the Week. New Pub Dates for Forthcoming Books: You Don't Know Zora Neale Hurston, best essay ever. About Us Contact Us Submission Guidelines Subscriber Services Advertising Info Terms of Use Privacy Policy Do Not Sell Calls for Info Editorial Calendar Archives Press FAQ.
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The essay was selected by Gay Talese for The Best American Essays and collected in Against Joie de Vivre in Jo Ann Beard, "The Fourth State of Matter" originally appeared in The New Yorker , A question for nonfiction writing students: When writing a true story based on actual events, how does the narrator create dramatic tension when most readers can be expected to know what happens in the end? David Foster Wallace, "Consider the Lobster" originally appeared in Gourmet , Susan Orlean selected the essay for The Best American Essays and Wallace collected it in Consider the Lobster and Other Essays I wish I could include twenty more essays but these ten in themselves comprise a wonderful and wide-ranging mini-anthology, one that showcases some of the most outstanding literary voices of our time.
The Millions. SITE LICENSE ACCESS. The Top 10 Essays Since By Robert Atwan. More from pw. A Year In Reading: PW Picks: Books of the Week. New Pub Dates for Forthcoming Books: You Don't Know Zora Neale Hurston. About Us Contact Us Submission Guidelines Subscriber Services Advertising Info Terms of Use Privacy Policy Do Not Sell Calls for Info Editorial Calendar Archives Press FAQ. Children's Announcements. Stay ahead with Tip Sheet! Free newsletter: the hottest new books, features and more. Email Address Password Log In Forgot Password. Premium online access is only available to PW subscribers.
If you have an active subscription and need to set up or change your password, please click here. We move through the world as if we can protect ourselves from its myriad dangers, exercising what little agency we have in an effort to keep at bay those fears that gather at the edges of any given life: of loss, illness, disaster, death. It is these fears—amplified by the birth of her first child—that Eula Biss confronts in her essential essay collection, On Immunity. As any great essayist does, Biss moves outward in concentric circles from her own very private view of the world to reveal wider truths, discovering as she does a culture consumed by anxiety at the pervasive toxicity of contemporary life.
As Biss interrogates this culture—of privilege, of whiteness—she interrogates herself, questioning the flimsy ways in which we arm ourselves with science or superstition against the impurities of daily existence. Five years on from its publication, it is dismaying that On Immunity feels as urgent and necessary a defense of basic science as ever. Vaccination, we learn, is derived from vacca —for cow—after the 17th-century discovery that a small application of cowpox was often enough to inoculate against the scourge of smallpox, an etymological digression that belies modern conspiratorial fears of Big Pharma and its vaccination agenda. But Biss never scolds or belittles the fears of others, and in her generosity and openness pulls off a neat and important trick: insofar as we are of the very world we fear, she seems to be suggesting, we ourselves are impure, have always been so, permeable, vulnerable, yet so much stronger than we think.
It would also come to be the titular essay in her collection published in The Mother of All Questions follows up on that work and takes it further in order to examine the nature of self-expression—who is afforded it and denied it, what institutions have been put in place to limit it, and what happens when it is employed by women. Solnit has a singular gift for describing and decoding the misogynistic dynamics that govern the world so universally that they can seem invisible and the gendered violence that is so common as to seem unremarkable; this naming is powerful, and it opens space for sharing the stories that shape our lives.
The Mother of All Questions, comprised of essays written between and , in many ways armed us with some of the tools necessary to survive the gaslighting of the Trump years, in which many of us—and especially women—have continued to hear from those in power that the things we see and hear do not exist and never existed. Aside from the fact that this essay is a heartbreaking masterpiece, this is such a good conceit—transforming a cold, reproducible administrative document into highly personal literature. Luiselli interweaves a grounded discussion of the questionnaire with a narrative of the road trip Luiselli takes with her husband and family, across America, while they both Mexican citizens wait for their own Green Card applications to be processed.
It is on this trip when Luiselli reflects on the thousands of migrant children mysteriously traveling across the border by themselves. Amid all of this, Luiselli also takes on more, exploring the larger contextual relationship between the United States of America and Mexico as well as other countries in Central America, more broadly as it has evolved to our current, adverse moment. Tell Me How It Ends is so small, but it is so passionate and vigorous: it desperately accomplishes in its less-thanpages-of-prose what centuries and miles and endless records of federal bureaucracy have never been able, and have never cared, to do: reverse the dehumanization of Latin American immigrants that occurs once they set foot in this country.
Though I believe Smith could probably write compellingly about anything, she chooses her subjects wisely. She writes with as much electricity about Brexit as the aforementioned Beliebers—and each essay is utterly engrossing. Tressie McMillan Cottom is an academic who has transcended the ivory tower to become the sort of public intellectual who can easily appear on radio or television talk shows to discuss race, gender, and capitalism. I had wanted to create something meaningful that sounded not only like me, but like all of me. It was too thick. A finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction, Thick confirms McMillan Cottom as one of our most fearless public intellectuals and one of the most vital. In The Possessed Elif Batuman indulges her love of Russian literature and the result is hilarious and remarkable.
Each essay of the collection chronicles some adventure or other that she had while in graduate school for Comparative Literature and each is more unpredictable than the next. Rich in historic detail about Russian authors and literature and thoughtfully constructed, each essay is an amalgam of critical analysis, cultural criticism, and serious contemplation of big ideas like that of identity, intellectual legacy, and authorship. With wit and a serpentine-like shape to her narratives, Batuman adopts a form reminiscent of a Socratic discourse, setting up questions at the beginning of her essays and then following digressions that more or less entreat the reader to synthesize the answer for herself.
The digressions are always amusing and arguably the backbone of the collection, relaying absurd anecdotes with foreign scholars or awkward, surreal encounters with Eastern European strangers. But she is also curious and enthusiastic and reflective and so knowledgeable that she might even convince you she has me! that you too love Russian literature as much as she does. Generally, I find stories about the trials and tribulations of child-having to be of limited appeal—useful, maybe, insofar as they offer validation that other people have also endured the bizarre realities of living with a tiny human, but otherwise liable to drift into the musings of parents thrilled at the simple fact of their own fecundity, as if they were the first ones to figure the process out or not.
There are days when this does not feel good. Each item on the list has a direct link to the essay, so please, click away and indulge yourself. Once you open the package, you have to 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. Perhaps, you like to polish your skills to write that required essay for your college application to go along with a great ACT or SAT score. But a part of it is still with you. It changed you the very moment you read its last line. The essays are not listed in any particular order.
Amazing essays to challenge your intellect and stir up your imagination and creativity in one great book. 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 quite 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. In the midst of 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 a truly powerful one. 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 will 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 in general. 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 was apparently able to 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.
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