
Great Essays and Essayists - jasim
http://www.adamponting.com/great-essays-essayists/
======
thicknavyrain
While he doesn't write essays that necessarily create or explain fundamental
ideas in the academic sense, I'd definitely pitch for David Foster Wallace as
an essayist. I picked up a short collection of his essays, "Both Flesh and
Not", and the manner in which his writing flows through and around the topics
of his choice is extremely satisfying to read.

His opinions, insights and deconstruction of other writers and literary works
are also pretty eye opening, even though I come from a hard sciences
background, if only to understand what someone so ridiculously well read has
to say about those things. His general musings on life, modernity and culture
are also pretty great.

The best place to start (in my opinion) is with This is Water, his
commencement address to the incoming class at Kenyon College back in 2005:

[https://fs.blog/2012/04/david-foster-wallace-this-is-
water/](https://fs.blog/2012/04/david-foster-wallace-this-is-water/)

It's a great read, but it's even more enjoyable listening to him deliver it:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-
ydFMI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI)

~~~
HNLurker2
I agree with you that he is amazing writer. But I am worried I may not get his
works like: Infinite Jest and other essay because of not having the American
(USA) cultural context.

~~~
rustyfe
In my opinion, this won't stop you from from enjoying Infinite Jest. There are
a few arcs that might require some insight into American culture (Professional
Football, the US drug rehabilitation system). But the big picture themes are
either very universal or so particular you aren't really expected to be keyed
into them (you don't need to be a competitive tennis player or a Quebecois
separatist to enjoy it).

Pale King might be a bit of a different beast. The focus on the IRS is
somewhat particular, and you may miss big beats because of ignorance about the
IRS. But at the same time, some of the accounting minutiae are such that I
don't think you're expected to understand them.

Anyway! I wouldn't let this steer you away. To me, the joy of DFWs writing is
the individual sentences. The mannerisms and humanity of the characters. If
you miss some details because they're US focused, I don't think it'll be
anything important.

------
jihadjihad
I'd like to toss The Art of the Personal Essay by Phillip Lopate into the mix.
It's a terrific collection that spans the millennia--from ancients like Seneca
and Plutarch to Gore Vidal and H.L. Mencken, and everything in between. As far
as being exposed to different styles and modes of thought go, that anthology
can't be beat.

~~~
nilskidoo
I'm a great fan of Mencken, as well as Ambrose Bierce and I.F. Stone. I love
the idea of essays, but have struggled my whole adult life to find voices who
can write from my own experiences. So, I stay passionate about keeping the art
alive on my own:

[https://nilskidoo.blackblogs.org/archive/](https://nilskidoo.blackblogs.org/archive/)

I've written about homelessness in the Bible Belt- a supremely taboo topic;
and I've observed commonalities between the ideals of Pope Francis' detractors
within Roman-Catholicism and that of Positive Christianity- the denomination
literally begat by the Nazis. I draw more parallels than conclusions, but
having gone to a school without a debate program I feel obligated to define as
many left-field arguments as I can, for posterity or for poops and giggles.

------
pjmorris
As an impressionable 13-year-old, I found Arthur C. Clarke's book of popular
science essays, 'Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the
Possible', to be a real mind-expand-er.

What's your favorite book of science essays?

~~~
jasim
Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli.

Ultimate Questions by Bryan Magee (more philosophy of knowledge than science
per se).

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan.

The Ascent of Man by Jacob Bronowski are not essays, but it is one of the
finest writings on science I've read.

The Art of Doing Science and Engineering by Richard W. Hamming

Letters to a Young Scientist by Edward O. Wilson

I can't not help mention The Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson, which is
fiction, but hear me out - it melds natural philosophy, alchemy, maths,
history, Newton, Leibniz, The Sun King, British parliament, colonialism,
slavery, Egypt, India, war, finance, commerce, revenge, satire and so much
more. I've learnt more about the origins of the Royal Society and the early
days of modern science from these three books than anywhere else.

~~~
0xferruccio
I loved Rovelli's lessons of physics! I didn't know he was known and read
outside of Italy too

------
mykowebhn
No female essayists or essayists of color?

Virginia Woolf, as an example, was a superb essayist.

~~~
casefields
This is one persons opinion, not some affirmative action quota that needs to
be met to be accepted. Write your own list and submit it.

~~~
thicknavyrain
Perhaps rather fittingly, Virginia Woolf's essay "A room of one's own" is an
absolutely brilliant read on _why_ precisely women are and were so often
neglected and left out of the cultural conversation and literary landscape.

One of the cruxes being that opinions matter and the reinforcements culture
(such as the compilations of widely shared lists like these) provides sustains
their exclusion.

I'd give it a look, it's not preachy and it's thoroughly entertaining.

[http://seas3.elte.hu/coursematerial/PikliNatalia/Virginia_Wo...](http://seas3.elte.hu/coursematerial/PikliNatalia/Virginia_Woolf_-
_A_Room_of_Ones_Own.pdf)

------
schemathings
Guy Davenport is another fascinating essayist - a true polymath - he ties
together narratives that are at first glance unrelated into a beautiful whole.
I've only read The Geography of the Imagination which is 40 essays, but he has
other compilations as well. One of his essays is on Youtube narrated by a
former student apparently.
[https://youtu.be/sFe7cqXuzZU](https://youtu.be/sFe7cqXuzZU)

------
pmoriarty
The greatest essays I've read have been by Seneca.

Here is my favorite, _On The Shortness of Life_ :

[https://tripinsurancestore.com/4/on-the-shortness-of-
life.pd...](https://tripinsurancestore.com/4/on-the-shortness-of-life.pdf)

------
lbacaj
Shameless self promotional plug, if you would like to listen to any of these
essays on the go, some of them seem long for me to read in on one sitting. You
can do so using a new App I built that uses some beautiful sounding Machine
Learning AI models to convert any of these articles to Audio.

[https://articulu.com](https://articulu.com)

I basically built it exactly for these sorts of reasons I found that I had all
this dead time. On my commutes and in between running errands, or biking, and
I wanted to maximize my learning and staying informed.

~~~
e1g

      > uses some beautiful sounding Machine Learning AI models to convert articles to Audio

This sounds great. I'm a big fan of audiobooks and podcasts, and would love an
app like Pocket but that narrates the articles for me. However, downloading &
trying a new app is a big friction point. Your landing page would be a lot
more persuasive if it provided an example of the unique value proposition -
e.g. several example of audios as generated by the app, or ability to take a
URL and provide a narrated version of it.

------
jurassic
George Orwell is best known for 1984 but he was a prolific essayist. The
collection of his narrative essays "Facing Unpleasant Facts" was one of my
more interesting reads last year.

------
godelmachine
My favorite essayists ->

1) Bertrand Russell. Read "The Conquest of Happiness" and you shall never know
unhappiness.

2) Henry David Thoreau. Read "Walden"

These two chaps have a tranquillizing effect on me.

------
billfruit
I would have included more of the English greats in essay writing: Charles
Lamb (Whose 'Essays of Elia' might perhaps be be the finest collection of
essays in the English language, Macaulay( whose essay on Warren Hastings is a
masterpiece of English prose), William Hazlitt, even Dr Johnson (His 'Lives of
the poets' is essentially a large collection of brilliant essays) and Joseph
Addison.

~~~
yesenadam
I did mention Hazlitt several times on the page. He's in my pantheon (Emerson,
Chesterton, Stevenson, Hazlitt). I do have a page dedicated to Johnson
[http://www.adamponting.com/sayings-of-
johnson/](http://www.adamponting.com/sayings-of-johnson/) , he's a favourite
of mine who I frequently return to. I had a period of enthusiasm for the
_Rambler_ etc, but his Latinate essay style is, let's face it, awful compared
with the Johnson of Boswell's _Life_ , Mrs Thrale's book about him etc. I
don't know most of his writing about poets or Shakespeare so well, I should
have another look. Lamb and Addison I tried long ago, they seemed
too..literary, too fictional, or style-focused. I prefer those (who tend to be
on the philosophy/essays boundary) who have something to say, and just
incidentally say it well.

Could you mention some particular essays that would be at the top of your
list? Thanks.

~~~
billfruit
Of Lamb; "The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple" and "The Praise of Chimney-
Sweepers".Lamb tries to express his awe and wonder and curiousity to the
reader very effectively.

Johnson of the Lives, is much, different, much more lively than the Johnson of
the Rambler, esp his sense of humor is on full display. I greatly recommend
the "Life of Savage" and "Life of Addison" from the lives.

I think Macaulay is exceptional, his essays like "Warren Hastings", "Samuel
Johnson" (Which he wrote for Encyclopedia Britannica), "Ranke's History of the
Pope's", etc are such stunning works, the reader shall find it very difficult
to put them down once they start.

------
ttonkytonk
Of the list I read Paul Graham's "How to do Philosophy".

Btw I don't think Goodjoke's comment deserved to get killed off, but I will
dare to say to Goodjoke that maybe "a little more carrot and less stick" is in
order: what's the best essay of the group of authors you mentioned?

~~~
theoh
GoodJokes's "stick" was a mild call for more diversity. I don't see how naming
a favourite would counteract that or add "carrot". Maybe one or more links
would have done the trick?

The fact that the original list is (almost?) all white men is the kind of
thing (like all male panels) which will attract negative attention these days.
There are people on HN who think conceptualizing diversity on the basis of
gender or ethnicity is a dangerous distraction from what they claim is the
really important form of diversity, which is intellectual diversity. It's that
kind of Thielian position that GoodJokes is challenging, quite rightly.

------
HNLurker2
I wonder how many modern bloggers where inspired by pg (me included)? E.g:
SSCodex

~~~
lukifer
Meditations on Moloch undoubtedly deserves to make the list:
[https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-
moloch/](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/)

------
0_gravitas
As much as the author has expressed displeasure with it, I really liked CGP
Grey's older essay (from when he actually wrote essays) "I Have Died Many
Times"

------
GavinMcG
Are no women great essayists?

~~~
jonjacky
Joan Didion, Annie Dillard, Marilyn Robinson. Somebody upthread mentioned
Camille Paglia. If you include journalism, politics, criticism, and humor in a
recognizable voice that reveals the author's personal take on life, there are
many more: Oriana Fallaci, Katha Pollitt, even Nora Ephron and Pauline Kael
...

~~~
GavinMcG
Wonder why none of them made the list.

~~~
meruru
If there are fewer female essayists the chance of any given one making into
any given list is reduced. I'm not saying there are fewer female essayists,
but if there is that's a reasonable alternative explanation to the (implied?)
default one of "sexism".

------
mcguire
No Borges? Or E. B. White?

------
yesenadam
"Author" here. Well, this was a nice surprise! I'd love to see suggestions for
the list, peoples' favourite essays that I might love too. Sometimes it's hard
to choose one - so maybe then please mention one or a few essays that would be
a good introduction to that writer's work. Thanks!

I put a huge collection of my favourite quotes/bits from my readings online
here[0]. (with reliable sources, I hope, please let me know if any are
fake/wrongly attributed)

This list (especially the top 3/4) are essays that I've read many times and
loved and lived with. Some writers (e.g. Emerson, Hazlitt, Chesterton,
Stevenson, James, Mencken, Russell) have _so many_ essays I love and have read
many times that it's hard to single out just one. It's been more like living
with them than 'reading' them. With them (and most of all, Emerson), even
trying to single out one or a few essays would be strange, like trying to pick
a favourite Miles Davis album - there are dozens; it's the air I breathe, it's
who I am.

Yes, I toyed with removing the "Great" from the headings (also I have pages on
great musicians, great writers etc). But what the hell, that's what the word
means I suppose, "things _I_ think are great". I do believe that "instead of
there being no disputing about tastes, they are the one thing worth disputing
about".

I was surprised that so many comments are like "Why aren't there women/non-
white/etc' people on the list. I don't know. They're also concentrated in a
certain time period (see timeline diagram on this page[1] ), no-one complained
about that. I seem to feel more at home with 19th C writers! (also 16-17th C
e.g. La Bruyere, and ancient stuff e.g. Plutarch) I'm white and male, I don't
know if those writers resonated more with me for that reason; I guess that had
something to do with it. Most of what I came across wasn't by female or non-
Anglo writers, I think.

I don't care what someone's sex, colour, country, sexuality etc is, in art,
music, writing or anything. To expect or insist on proportional representation
of each sub-section of humanity in someone's list of their favourites - or
even a list of the greatest, the classics - seems to utterly miss the point.
Why focus on the creator, not their creation? If some superior works aren't
read for whatever reason, ok great, bringing them to attention is a very
worthy task. But to insist they be read _because_ they're female, black or
whatever, which people sometimes seem to be doing, seems misguided to me. It
would be strange, for example, if someone suggest I should listen to more
white or female musicians.[2] They just say "Listen to this!" if they'd heard
something they love, and if I love it too, I'll keep listening, and seek out
more of their work.

I was reading about "the essay canon" recently. There was a paper that
analysed the school essay readers and found that only one writer was added to
the essay canon in the 1990s - Deborah Tannen: chapters from _You Just Don 't
Understand_. It so happens that I've been a huge fan of that book for decades,
recommend it to everyone, have lent the book to many people, rarely go a week
in life without understanding something in life better with some insight I
learnt from it (or her previous book _That 's Not What I Meant!_). I just
don't think of it as an essay.

Same with SARK, probably the female writer dearest to me, who was a close
companion and friend, particularly when I was in my 20s. I've read and re-read
her first 1/2 dozen books countless times. I lived with, by and from them.
Plus they're colourful, hand-written and hand-drawn, and in that way superior
to any other books I know of.

re Virginia Woolf: I read a lot of her essays decades ago, and while I really
liked them, I haven't returned since.

Some feminist street cred: Harriet Martineau's wiki page says "Martineau wrote
many books". Before I changed that a couple of years ago, it said, bizarrely,
that she wrote only one book. On Emerson's wiki page, first in the list of
influences in the sidebar is his aunt (and, effectively, father) Mary Moody
Emerson. She wasn't even on there until I added her recently. I only recently
learned about what an overwhelmingly huge influence she was on him - he's in
many ways her project, her creation - his voice is recognizably hers, speaking
through him.

[0] [http://www.adamponting.com/quotes/](http://www.adamponting.com/quotes/)

[1] [http://www.adamponting.com/great-
writers/](http://www.adamponting.com/great-writers/)

[2] My "great musicians" list [http://www.adamponting.com/great-
musicians/](http://www.adamponting.com/great-musicians/) is overwhelmingly
black, and my "youtube favourites" [http://www.adamponting.com/youtube-
favourites/](http://www.adamponting.com/youtube-favourites/) are
overwhelmingly black _and_ female. I'm not sure why!

------
claudiawerner
I take some issue with David Stove's essay on idealism being in the list;
while it might be a "good essay" it is philosophically weak[0]. I'm
disappointed that some big names like Adorno, Marcuse and even Marx didn't
make the cut.

[0] [http://jgalis-menendez.blogspot.com/2009/05/david-stoves-
cri...](http://jgalis-menendez.blogspot.com/2009/05/david-stoves-critique-of-
idealism.html)

------
GoodJokes
We can do better. We must do better. Here are some of my favorite essayists
that don’t identify as white and male:

James Baldwin Amy Henkel Mary Ruefle Maggie Nelson (more prose) Audre Lorde
Susan Sontag Roxanne Gay

