A couple others mentioned it, but Barbara Kingsolver's essays (start with Small Wonder) will always have my heart. Rebecca Solnit. Terry Tempest Williams. Wendell Berry. Annie Dillard. Margaret Renkyl. Basically anyone writing about the natural world thoughtfully.
Ann Patchett - "How you ride says everything about how you see the world. In the winnebago, we see the world from inside our house. We watch it as it rolls sedately past our living room window. But on the back of Rhonda's bike, leaning from side to side, I am the jutting purple mountains. I am the asphalt and the birds in the sky. I remember everything about the twenty minutes spent in the blow back cloud of Rhonda's hair. People are more that willing to die on motorcycles because for that moment in the Badlands of South Dakota they are truly and deeply alive." - from the story of a happy marriage. unspeakably good.
Jenny Diski, Jia Tolnetino, Deborah Levy (probably my favorite essayist), Natalia Ginsburg, Sara Maitland… I’m sure I’m leaving out a lot! Another favorite is Rebecca Solnit. Most of you have probably read one of her classics: “Men Explain Things to Me.”
It will tell you something about how I feel about essays that I have just upgraded to a paid sub in order to address the URGENT need to comment on this. (Yes OK, I do work somewhere that publishes a lot of them so I have a certain amount of bias.)
Ann Patchett, especially the long piece first published in Harper's as ‘These Precious Days’, which is just, um, precious.
You already mentioned Zadie Smith, but her ‘Some Notes on Attunement’, on learning to love Joni Mitchell, is just the BEST.
Patricia Lockwood: loads of people love her personal essays but I think her literary criticism is even better, achieving the seemingly impossible task of close engagement with how a book works and why while simultaneously being extremely funny.
Hilary Mantel: perhaps controversially, I love her essays way more than her novels
Marian Keyes: Under the Duvet & Further Under the Duvet both just delicious, the pieces about the fear of running out of bread while on holiday and trying to get a new passport made me howl with laughter *while in labour*, so.
New Yorker writers, obviously: Adam Gopnik, Rebecca Mead
Ashleigh Young's volume of essays Can You Tolerate This? was utterly splendid
Leslie Jamison and Rebecca Solnit others have already mentioned, but I further endorse.
Joanna Biggs - former colleague, but I love the way she writes. The LRB piece she wrote about her mother's dementia will stay with me for a long time; I've got an NYRB essay of hers about Madonna open in my browser for later this evening.
Anything from Barbara Kingsolver's book 'High Tide in Tucson - Essays from Now or Never' but particularly Somebody's Baby and Careful What You Let in the Door. Despite loving many of her other books, both fiction and non-fiction, this one remains my favourite.
Katherine, I love this invitation — and what immediately comes to mind is a literary travel essay by Simon Winchester called “Ascension in the Moonlight.” It’s been 15 years since I first read it, but I’ve never forgotten this passage, especially the phrase “astonishing grand conjunction”:
“And it was in that instant I realized something: that in this astonishing grand conjunction — of new friendship, of tropical warmth, of strawberries and cream and cool white wine, of white sand and sea swimming, and of Brazilian turtles, an eclipse of the moon and the rising of a comet — was perhaps the greatest wealth of experience that any one individual could ever know in one moment. I was at that instant blessed beyond belief, beyond all understanding.”
I’ll definitely be returning to this thread for more inspiration, and can’t wait to read your post tomorrow as well ✨
Just today I have bought Afua Hirsch's decolonising my body...can I call it a collection of essays? Perhaps... or maybe I just want everyone to know about this piece of work! I do love an essay- Helen Garner is a favourite.
I love Brian Doyle - and was just talking with a coworker about him yesterday! He's quirky and eccentric (he *loves* a good run-on sentence!), but he really was tuned in to the (sometimes painful) beauty and tenderness of life. He could look at all the hard things, but still be hopeful and grateful. Sometimes I really need to read some of his "proems" for a pick-me-up!
Oh, you are in for a treat. He explores a lot of similar themes that I love in your writing as well - joy and family and faith, mixed with the realities of life as well. I read Enchantment and his book in close proximity and it was a beautiful few weeks of reading! I love this thread and can't wait to discover other suggestions.
yes! love Brian Doyle. and he lived in my neck of the woods (his wife is a local artist and just as delightful). the day he died, i was driving and began to weep. he had such a tender heart for all. Mink River, while not an essay is one of my favorite books of his.
About This Life - I’d start there if you want essays. But Arctic Dreams (a book) is excellent, as are many of his short story collections. I re-read Arctic Dreams regularly.
How did I miss Barry Lopez and Kathleen Jamie?! Barry Lopez’s Arctic Dreams taught me how to think in a different way, and that there are equally valid ways to think about nearly everything.
The writer Michael Paterniti wrote something a decade ago that I love for its sheer weirdness: https://www.gq.com/story/hiromitsu-shinkawa-japan-tsunami-rescue-story It's a meticulously researched non-fiction story presented as some kind of hybrid modern first-person Japanese folk tale. I have journo friends who love it and others who hate it, because it is just so unconventional and such a frank attempt at doing something different with narrative non-fiction. Beautiful and challenging.
A couple others mentioned it, but Barbara Kingsolver's essays (start with Small Wonder) will always have my heart. Rebecca Solnit. Terry Tempest Williams. Wendell Berry. Annie Dillard. Margaret Renkyl. Basically anyone writing about the natural world thoughtfully.
oh yes, you named many of my favorites!
I really need to get my hands on some of Wendell Berry's work!
Ann Patchett - "How you ride says everything about how you see the world. In the winnebago, we see the world from inside our house. We watch it as it rolls sedately past our living room window. But on the back of Rhonda's bike, leaning from side to side, I am the jutting purple mountains. I am the asphalt and the birds in the sky. I remember everything about the twenty minutes spent in the blow back cloud of Rhonda's hair. People are more that willing to die on motorcycles because for that moment in the Badlands of South Dakota they are truly and deeply alive." - from the story of a happy marriage. unspeakably good.
I love her essays
Love Ann Patchett!
Jenny Diski, Jia Tolnetino, Deborah Levy (probably my favorite essayist), Natalia Ginsburg, Sara Maitland… I’m sure I’m leaving out a lot! Another favorite is Rebecca Solnit. Most of you have probably read one of her classics: “Men Explain Things to Me.”
Oh goodness, how did I miss out Rebecca Solnit! And Jia Tolentino! I am ashamed.
Her recent novel Orwell's Roses is a total delight
So many great suggestions here.
It will tell you something about how I feel about essays that I have just upgraded to a paid sub in order to address the URGENT need to comment on this. (Yes OK, I do work somewhere that publishes a lot of them so I have a certain amount of bias.)
Ann Patchett, especially the long piece first published in Harper's as ‘These Precious Days’, which is just, um, precious.
You already mentioned Zadie Smith, but her ‘Some Notes on Attunement’, on learning to love Joni Mitchell, is just the BEST.
Patricia Lockwood: loads of people love her personal essays but I think her literary criticism is even better, achieving the seemingly impossible task of close engagement with how a book works and why while simultaneously being extremely funny.
Hilary Mantel: perhaps controversially, I love her essays way more than her novels
Marian Keyes: Under the Duvet & Further Under the Duvet both just delicious, the pieces about the fear of running out of bread while on holiday and trying to get a new passport made me howl with laughter *while in labour*, so.
New Yorker writers, obviously: Adam Gopnik, Rebecca Mead
Ashleigh Young's volume of essays Can You Tolerate This? was utterly splendid
Leslie Jamison and Rebecca Solnit others have already mentioned, but I further endorse.
Joanna Biggs - former colleague, but I love the way she writes. The LRB piece she wrote about her mother's dementia will stay with me for a long time; I've got an NYRB essay of hers about Madonna open in my browser for later this evening.
Anne Helen Petersen (who coincidentally posted a Culture Study Thread on a very closely related question recently: https://annehelen.substack.com/p/tuesday-thread-the-article-profile/)
Marina Warner
I probably have loads more.... sorry.
I should really pay you for this list! PATRICIA LOCKWOOD 🤍
Her piece on Elena Ferrante... honestly, I finished that and thought it is just _unfair_ that someone can write like this.
I would like to roam around in her mind, if that isn’t too weird
Sounds exactly like the kind of thing she might enjoy TBF
Anything from Barbara Kingsolver's book 'High Tide in Tucson - Essays from Now or Never' but particularly Somebody's Baby and Careful What You Let in the Door. Despite loving many of her other books, both fiction and non-fiction, this one remains my favourite.
Years ago Jeanette Winterson wrote this article which I regard as an essay and I read every year in the winter https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/oct/31/jeanette-winterson-night-guide
Katherine, I love this invitation — and what immediately comes to mind is a literary travel essay by Simon Winchester called “Ascension in the Moonlight.” It’s been 15 years since I first read it, but I’ve never forgotten this passage, especially the phrase “astonishing grand conjunction”:
“And it was in that instant I realized something: that in this astonishing grand conjunction — of new friendship, of tropical warmth, of strawberries and cream and cool white wine, of white sand and sea swimming, and of Brazilian turtles, an eclipse of the moon and the rising of a comet — was perhaps the greatest wealth of experience that any one individual could ever know in one moment. I was at that instant blessed beyond belief, beyond all understanding.”
I’ll definitely be returning to this thread for more inspiration, and can’t wait to read your post tomorrow as well ✨
Gorgeous quote!
Oh boy - hell yes on Kathleen Jamie. Every essay she writes glitters with wonder.
Just today I have bought Afua Hirsch's decolonising my body...can I call it a collection of essays? Perhaps... or maybe I just want everyone to know about this piece of work! I do love an essay- Helen Garner is a favourite.
I was thinking about that too - books that feel like very long essays. Do they count. Let's say yes :)
Wow, this sounds amazing. I'll be looking into it!
I love Brian Doyle! A Long River of Song
I love Brian Doyle - and was just talking with a coworker about him yesterday! He's quirky and eccentric (he *loves* a good run-on sentence!), but he really was tuned in to the (sometimes painful) beauty and tenderness of life. He could look at all the hard things, but still be hopeful and grateful. Sometimes I really need to read some of his "proems" for a pick-me-up!
Just looked this up - it seems it never got published in the UK! We have clearly missed out.
Oh, you are in for a treat. He explores a lot of similar themes that I love in your writing as well - joy and family and faith, mixed with the realities of life as well. I read Enchantment and his book in close proximity and it was a beautiful few weeks of reading! I love this thread and can't wait to discover other suggestions.
yes! love Brian Doyle. and he lived in my neck of the woods (his wife is a local artist and just as delightful). the day he died, i was driving and began to weep. he had such a tender heart for all. Mink River, while not an essay is one of my favorite books of his.
The Crane Wife CJ Hauser is a great essay and her follow on book. https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/07/16/the-crane-wife/
Perfect
You already mentioned Ross Gay, who is probably my favorite. Scott Russell Sanders and Susan Neville are other essayists I love.
Representing Indiana here! Holla! 💚
Fellow Hoosier, hello! I run a book club that reads only authors with a tie to Indiana, so that's how I discovered all of these lovely essayists! :D
Joan Didion, James Baldwin, Phillip Lopate, Virginia Woolf, Rachel Cusk, Alice Walker, Rebecca Solnit.
James Baldwin is the finest essay writer I've read. And "Letter from a Region in My Mind" is my favorite.
YES to all of these!
Kathleen Jamie (Sightlines, Surfacing), Barry Lopez, Leslie Jamieson, and Sarah Menkedick (here on Substack @ Terms of Endearment)!
How did I miss Kathleen Jamie and Barry Lopez!
I've been meaning to read Barry Lopez - any particular essay or book I should start with?
About This Life - I’d start there if you want essays. But Arctic Dreams (a book) is excellent, as are many of his short story collections. I re-read Arctic Dreams regularly.
How did I miss Barry Lopez and Kathleen Jamie?! Barry Lopez’s Arctic Dreams taught me how to think in a different way, and that there are equally valid ways to think about nearly everything.
Yes!
The writer Michael Paterniti wrote something a decade ago that I love for its sheer weirdness: https://www.gq.com/story/hiromitsu-shinkawa-japan-tsunami-rescue-story It's a meticulously researched non-fiction story presented as some kind of hybrid modern first-person Japanese folk tale. I have journo friends who love it and others who hate it, because it is just so unconventional and such a frank attempt at doing something different with narrative non-fiction. Beautiful and challenging.
So he'd be my pick. Here's another terrific example of his work: https://www.gq.com/story/suicide-catchers-nanjing-bridge-yangtze-river-mr-chen
I have never heard of this, but I can tell already that I’m absolutely here for it.
After all this talk about essays, one found its way to me today and it’s a fabulous read - Audre Lorde’s Uses Of the Erotic: The Erotic As Power.