the book i like best essay

English Compositions

Short Essay on the Book I Like the Most [100, 200, 400 Words] With PDF 

Our today’s session is going to be focused on writing short essays on the topic of ‘The Book I Like The Most.’ There will be three sets of short essays on the same topic covering different word limits. 

Short Essay on the Book I Like the Most in 100 Words

Out of all the books that I have read, the one I like the most is Ramayana. Ramayana is a Hindu epic that tells the story of Lord Rama. The story starts with Rama’s father, Dasharatha, who was the King of Ayodhya and his three wives. Later Lord Rama is born and the story follows him as he grows up, gets married, is exiled and has to fight various demons and evil creatures.

The main part of the story is where Lord Rama fights the Demon King, Ravana and defeats him. He then returns to his kingdom and rules over the people as a moral and just ruler. This sacred epic written in ancient times teaches us a lot about life. 

Short Essay on the Book I Like the Most in 200 Words

Books have the power to fuel our imagination, provide us with knowledge about the outside world and improve our intellect. I love to read books. Reading books also boosts our memory and improves our reading, writing and speaking skills. I have read many fictional and non-fictional books, but the book I like the most is our former president, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam’s autobiography, ‘Wings of fire’. The book covers his life story before he became the president of India.

In the book, Dr Kalam talks about his childhood, his early life, his family and the struggles they had to go through to make ends meet. He talks about his journey from being a small village boy in Tamil Nadu to becoming a leading scientist in Indian space research, nuclear and missile development programs.

His story is indeed inspiring and proves that one can achieve all their dreams if one is sincere and are determined to work hard and persevere. The book also highlights the importance of family in the life of a person and how their support can help one realize even their seemingly impossible dreams. 

I have read the book multiple times and it has always left me feeling motivated and filled with determination to chase my dreams. It is indeed an amazing book. 

Short Essay on the Book I Like the Most in 400 Words

Books are often referred to as a man’s best friend. They are loyal companions capable of uplifting our moods and providing us with a safe space. Books contain a vast amount of knowledge and information and have helped us evolve in many ways.

Books have the power to fuel our imagination, provide us with knowledge about almost everything and improve our intellect. Reading books also boosts our memory and improves our reading, writing and speaking skills. That is why children are always encouraged to read from a young age. 

I love to read books and I grew up reading a variety of books, some fiction and others non-fictional. Fairy tales were my favourite. Reading about the different types of fairies, fairy godmothers, kind princesses, evil queens, witches and wizards was magical in itself. I also liked to read mythological books and found the tales from Greek and Roman mythologies pretty interesting.

As I grew up, my interest shifted to non-fictional books like biographies and autobiographies of famous people as well as memoirs and scientific journals. However, throughout the years, there is one series of books that has remained my favourite and that is the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling. 

When I was eight years old, I received the first book of the Harry Potter series, ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone’, as a birthday present from my aunt. I was delighted. That book introduced me to a whole new world – a world full of magical beings. As I read the book, my mind conjured up images of what that world might look like and my imagination exploded.

The book made me feel a range of emotions. I cried reading about Harry’s suffering. I smiled when Hagrid saved Harry. I felt so happy when Harry, Ron and Hermione became friends and I sat there holding my breath as the end approached. 

After I finished the first book, I couldn’t wait to buy the following ones. However, even to this day, the first book holds a special place in my heart. Harry Potter books introduced us to the wizarding world and its workings. They taught us about friendship, about having fun as well as working hard. They also taught us that no matter how strong the evil force is, the good always wins in the end. 

I also have many other books that I like. Some of them are ‘Wings of fire’ and ‘Ignited minds’ by Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, ‘Gitanjali’ by Rabindranath Tagore, “To kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee and ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Emily Bronte.

 I have adopted a very simplistic approach to writing these essays for a better understanding of all kinds of students. If you still have any doubts regarding this session, post them in the comment section below. Join our Telegram channel to get the latest updates on our upcoming sessions. Thank you for being with us, 

Essay on The Book I Like Most

Students are often asked to write an essay on The Book I Like Most in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on The Book I Like Most

Introduction.

The book I like most is “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” by J.K. Rowling.

Why I Like It

This book takes me into a magical world. It’s full of adventure, friendship, and courage.

Harry, Hermione, and Ron are my favorite characters. They’re brave and kind.

Reading this book is always a joy. It’s my most cherished book.

250 Words Essay on The Book I Like Most

Conceptual brilliance.

Orwell’s dystopian world, where Big Brother incessantly watches over citizens, is a chilling exploration of totalitarianism. The book’s conceptual brilliance lies in its depiction of a society where individuality is obliterated, and conformity is enforced through psychological manipulation. The concept of “Newspeak” – a language designed to limit free thought – is a stark reminder of the power of language in shaping perceptions.

Characterization

The protagonist, Winston Smith, is an embodiment of rebellion in the face of oppression. His futile resistance against the Party’s tyranny is both heartbreaking and inspiring. His relationship with Julia serves as a beacon of hope amidst the pervasive gloom, further underscoring the human spirit’s resilience.

Relevance Today

“1984” is not just a work of fiction; it’s a prophetic commentary on the dangers of absolute power and the erosion of privacy. In today’s digital age, where surveillance is ubiquitous, Orwell’s vision seems eerily prescient. The book urges us to safeguard our freedom and be vigilant against any form of totalitarian control.

In conclusion, “1984” is a book I cherish for its profound insights into human nature, society, and power dynamics. It’s a timeless masterpiece that has not only enriched my understanding of literature but also shaped my perspective on the world around me.

500 Words Essay on The Book I Like Most

The realm of literature is vast, encompassing countless books that have shaped minds, influenced cultures, and altered perceptions. Among such a diverse range, the book I appreciate most is George Orwell’s “1984.” This dystopian novel is a profound exploration of totalitarianism, individuality, and the power of language, which resonates deeply with me.

The Resonance of Dystopia

The struggle for individuality.

The protagonist, Winston Smith, is a cog in the machine of this oppressive regime, yet he yearns for individuality and personal freedom. His struggle against the system, his pursuit of truth, and his yearning for love, all represent the human spirit’s resilience in the face of adversity. Winston’s journey is a testament to the indomitable human spirit, a theme that resonates with me. It encourages introspection about the value we place on our individuality and freedom, and the lengths we are willing to go to preserve them.

The Power of Language

Orwell’s “1984” also delves into the power of language and its manipulation for political ends. The concept of “Newspeak,” a language designed by the regime to limit free thought, is a potent symbol of linguistic control. This exploration of language and its potential for manipulation is particularly relevant in today’s era of misinformation and propaganda. It encourages critical thinking about the information we consume and the importance of linguistic precision.

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Essay on My Favourite Book for Students and Children

500+ Words Essay on My Favourite Book

Essay on My Favourite Book: Books are friends who never leave your side. I find this saying to be very true as books have always been there for me. I enjoy reading books . They have the power to help us travel through worlds without moving from our places. In addition, books also enhance our imagination. Growing up, my parents and teachers always encouraged me to read. They taught me the importance of reading. Subsequently, I have read several books. However, one boom that will always be my favourite is Harry Potter. It is one of the most intriguing reads of my life. I have read all the books of this series, yet I read them again as I never get bored of it.

Harry Potter Series

Harry Potter was a series of books authored by one of the most eminent writers of our generation, J.K. Rowling. These books showcase the wizarding world and its workings. J.K. Rowling has been so successful at weaving a picture of this world, that it feels real. Although the series contains seven books, I have a particular favourite. My favourite book from the series is The Goblet of fire.

When I started reading the book, it caught my attention instantly. Even though I had read all the previous parts, none of the books caught my attention as this one did. It gave a larger perspective into the wizarding world. One of the things which excite me the most about this book is the introduction of the other wizard schools. The concept of the Tri-wizard tournament is one of the most brilliant pieces I have come across in the Harry Potter series.

In addition, this book also contains some of my favourite characters. The moment I read about Victor Krum’s entry, I was star struck. The aura and personality of that character described by Rowling are simply brilliant. Further, it made me become a greater fan of the series.

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What Harry Potter Series Taught Me?

Even though the books are about the world of wizards and magic, the Harry Potter series contains a lot of lessons for young people to learn. Firstly, it teaches us the importance of friendship. I have read many books but never come across a friendship like that of Harry, Hermoine, and Ron. These three musketeers stuck together throughout the books and never gave up. It taught me the value of a good friend.

Further, the series of Harry Potter taught me that no one is perfect. Everyone has good and evil inside them. We are the ones who choose what we wish to be. This helped me in making better choices and becoming a better human being. We see how the most flawed characters like Snape had goodness inside them. Similarly, how the nicest ones like Dumbledore had some bad traits. This changed my perspective towards people and made me more considerate.

Finally, these books gave me hope. They taught me the meaning of hope and how there is light at the end of the tunnel. It gave me the strength to cling on to hope in the most desperate times just like Harry did all his life. These are some of the most essential things I learned from Harry Potter.

In conclusion, while there were many movies made in the books. Nothing beats the essence and originality of the books. The details and inclusiveness of books cannot be replaced by any form of media. Therefore, the Goblet of Fire remains to be my favourite book.

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How to Write an Essay About My Favourite Book

When you are preparing to write, your first question should be ‘what is my favorite book?’ Picking your favorite book will give a very good chance of success. So, what is your favorite book? Think very carefully about this. The more knowledge you have going in, the better your work will be. The more you like the book, the more comfortable you will be when writing.

Research About Interesting Facts

Read author’s biography, how to get the best favorite book essay, what is the value of this book, check usual essay on favorite book examples, create writing plan, start writing, write from your heart, talk about things which you liked, list book advantages, write like you want to sell this book, write a small part every day, finalizing essay, check your essay, proofread it three times, ask a friend to proofread, short example of essay about your favorite book.

When you have decided what book to focus on, start doing research. The essay on an interesting book you read will have some interesting facts surrounding it. Find them out. You can use them to make your work better! Interesting facts will make your work stand out in a crowd. At this point, it doesn’t matter what the interesting facts are. Collect as many important facts as you can. You can decide whether or not they are important later on.

If there is an author biography, then you should read it. It will give you insights into the book you love. It may also help you to write your favorite book essay, by giving you more ideas!

The author’s biography will give some ideas about themes, inspirations, and more. You may not learn about the book specifically, but you will learn about the circumstances around it. This can give your writing some depth in its ideas

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Any good short essay on your favorite book will ask how valuable it is. You need to justify it, and why it was important enough to write about. When writing about a book’s value, you are writing about its topic. What is it teaching people? What merits the focus it has? You need to justify your choice according to these questions.

Remember that there is always value in books. You only need to show people what that book means to you.

When you are preparing to write, look at some essay samples. Model your essay on your favorite book on a previously written sample, and you stand a good chance of writing a good essay.

Samples are good for a few reasons:

• They show you what is expected in an essay
• They can show different writing styles
• They can give you ideas
• They can inspire you to try new ways of writing
• They show how different people approach the essays

Your first step in writing should be to create a writing plan. The essay on the book you like the most will involve a lot of separate elements. A writing plan will help you remember everything.

First of all, write a plan that has simply the basics in it. Put in paragraph headings. Put in your quotes. Now, look at it. What else do you want in there? Do you want your thesis statement? Do you want notes about what to put in each paragraph? Put in what you think will be helpful.

Anybody reading an essay entitled ‘my favorite book’ will want to hear writing from the heart. Don‘t just write a generic essay. Make it clear what this book means to you, specifically. This is the way to make your essay stand out in a crowd. This is what gets you noticed.

A key to good writing is actually wanting to do it. Write from the heart, and you will find the act of writing much easier.

There are many ways you can go about writing an essay about books. But whatever their focus, try and spend at least some time talking about what you liked. You will attract people’s attention by talking about what you like. Spend at least one paragraph on your favorite book in talking about how much you like it. It will make your essay even better. Talk about what you like, and people will remember it after they finish reading.

When writing, try and list any advantages a book has. People might be reading your favorite book essay for class and wondering why it is your favorite. Let them know. List the advantages the book has over other books.

Every book has something in it to make it worthwhile. You just need to show other people what that is. This is what will make your essay stand. Your essay will tell people what it means to you, rather than be generic.

The key to writing your favorite book essay is to act like you are trying to sell the book. The point of an essay is to keep people reading to the very end. Try and think beyond this point. What do you want people to do when they finish reading an essay about your favorite book? Do you want them to move on with their lives, or do you want them to read the book?

Obviously, you want them to read the book.

Don’t attempt to tackle the entire essay at once. When writing about your favorite book essay in English, try and do it in bite-sized chunks instead. Try and tackle one paragraph a day. This will give you mental space and physical time to handle it all. A lot goes into writing these essays. Doing it a bit at a time will keep you from being overwhelmed. This will also mean you can focus totally on one single element. Themes one day, character the next, and so on.

When you have finished writing, it is time to check your essay. An essay about the book you like most needs to stand by itself. Imagine that the person reading it knows nothing about you or your abilities. If they see spelling and grammar problems, they will react negatively. Make sure you have included everything you need to! The worst thing you can do is hand in an unfinished essay. Check that everything you want to include is there.

Your favorite book essay should not have any spelling or grammar mistakes. Spelling and grammar are the fundamentals of any writing. If you slip upon them, then people have a negative reaction to it. Proofread your work more than once. You would be amazed at how much you can miss. For your last proof, try and step away from the work for a while. You can then come back to it with fresh eyes.

Ask a friend to proofread your favorite storybook essay. Quite often people find themselves too close to their work. They honestly can’t see mistakes or inaccuracies. To avoid leaving any mistakes, ask a friend to help you. They have fresh eyes, and so will be able to see mistakes much more easily. Getting a friend to proofread means that you will catch any mistakes you might simply have glossed over automatically. You can dramatically improve your work this way.

This is an essay on my favorite book. My favorite book is Hogfather , by Terry Pratchett. The overarching story follows an Assassin called Teatime as he tries to kill the Hogfather (the Discworld’s version of Santa), and the people who are trying to stop him.

The major theme of the book is the nature of belief. This is explicitly shown by Teatime stealing teeth, and implicitly by Susan when she helps Death defeats the Auditors. The nature of belief in this book is such that, with no one to believe in the smaller things, the bigger issues, such as Hope, would eventually disappear.

What I love best about this book is the way it shows both sides of a conflict. Even if it does skew in supporting one particular angel, it still shows both sides. I appreciate that the motivations of everyone involved are laid out.

This book is a wonderful read. It combines humor with sincerity to an amazing degree. Even when people are having difficult and dangerous conversations, there is always a feeling that everything will be alright. Pratchett has managed to bring all of his characters to life in the book. Even the characters created solely for this book feel real and lived-in. This makes the themes of the story all the more touching and sincere.

Buy Pre-written Essays, Use it as an Example

How do you get the best essays? Simple. Go to Essay Zoo, and buy one of their sample essays on the same subject. You can use this work to inspire your own writing! This works particularly well if you are new to this particular style of writing. Having something to learn from, something to compare your own work to is a huge help. Make sure not to copy the sample absolutely. Put your own stamp on the work. Maybe try and reverse engineer the sample paper – try and break it down to see how it all fits together. Samples can be helpful.

Use Edu Jungles to Buy a Custom Essay

Alternatively, if you are running out of time, look at US essay writing companies from EduJungles.com. We will write your essay in 24 hours . Our team guarantees to give you a good paper. We hire the best writers for the job. You can be sure that they will give you the best essay. All you need to do is give us your instructions. Ordering an essay is very easy – you can trust your writer.

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Essay on the Book I Like Most

Of all the books I have read the Ramayana influenced me most. This is my favourite book. I love it most.

The book has many charms of its own. It is more interesting than any other book. It is more philosophic than any other book on philosophy. It is a complete moral code. Hence, it has influenced me most.

It contains the life story of Rama who is thought to be an incarnation of God. Hence it is a religious book which helps us to make us good and pious.

Image Source: upload.wikimedia.org

The book is full of ideals. It presents every situation of life. From the examples given in the book, we learn how we should behave with our parents, brothers, sisters, friends, enemies, teachers, learned per­sons, strangers, husbands, wives, sons and even the low caste people.

It teaches us to be brave and cheerful in all circumstances. Thus we may call it the best book for character-building in the world.

Rama was the son of King Dashrath of Ayodhya. He was a won­derful man. He was preached by his Guru Vashistha.

Then Vishvamitraji sought his assistance to finish demons in the jungle and near his Ashram. Shri Ram was married to ‘Janaki’ known as Sita’ the princess of Mithila. To obey the orders of his father, he went into exile for 14 years.

His wife sita and brother Lakshmana went with him. Ravana the King of Lanka was stole away Sita. Lord Rama invaded Lanka and defeated Ravana.

It was a defeat of wrong by the right. It was a Dharam Yudh, which LordRama won. He got his wife back.

Rama protected Rishis and killed demons. Sita as an ideal wife was the follower of Rama in all his joys and sorrows. Rama’s father Dashratha, died of grief without Rama but kept his word.

Rama obeyed his father’s wish and his brother, Lakshmana went with him to serve him with heart and soul. Bharat too did not accept crown but ruled over Ayodhya as Rama’s steward. ‘

Rama loved the people of Ayodhya and the people respected him. He treated the low caste boatman as his own brother. In the forest of Chitra Koot, he treated the Bhils as his own men. He became a true protector of’ all sages in trouble.

His friendship with Sugreeva is an example for us. Hanuman proved his true follower. Sita lived the life of purity and devotion in Lanka.

Thus we see that victory comes to the good people. The wicked people suffer in the end. Ramayana gives us consolation when we are in trouble.

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The 10 Best Essay Collections of the Decade

Ever tried. ever failed. no matter..

Friends, it’s true: the end of the decade approaches. It’s been a difficult, anxiety-provoking, morally compromised decade, but at least it’s been populated by some damn fine literature. We’ll take our silver linings where we can.

So, as is our hallowed duty as a literary and culture website—though with full awareness of the potentially fruitless and endlessly contestable nature of the task—in the coming weeks, we’ll be taking a look at the best and most important (these being not always the same) books of the decade that was. We will do this, of course, by means of a variety of lists. We began with the best debut novels , the best short story collections , the best poetry collections , and the best memoirs of the decade , and we have now reached the fifth list in our series: the best essay collections published in English between 2010 and 2019.

The following books were chosen after much debate (and several rounds of voting) by the Literary Hub staff. Tears were spilled, feelings were hurt, books were re-read. And as you’ll shortly see, we had a hard time choosing just ten—so we’ve also included a list of dissenting opinions, and an even longer list of also-rans. As ever, free to add any of your own favorites that we’ve missed in the comments below.

The Top Ten

Oliver sacks, the mind’s eye (2010).

Toward the end of his life, maybe suspecting or sensing that it was coming to a close, Dr. Oliver Sacks tended to focus his efforts on sweeping intellectual projects like On the Move (a memoir), The River of Consciousness (a hybrid intellectual history), and Hallucinations (a book-length meditation on, what else, hallucinations). But in 2010, he gave us one more classic in the style that first made him famous, a form he revolutionized and brought into the contemporary literary canon: the medical case study as essay. In The Mind’s Eye , Sacks focuses on vision, expanding the notion to embrace not only how we see the world, but also how we map that world onto our brains when our eyes are closed and we’re communing with the deeper recesses of consciousness. Relaying histories of patients and public figures, as well as his own history of ocular cancer (the condition that would eventually spread and contribute to his death), Sacks uses vision as a lens through which to see all of what makes us human, what binds us together, and what keeps us painfully apart. The essays that make up this collection are quintessential Sacks: sensitive, searching, with an expertise that conveys scientific information and experimentation in terms we can not only comprehend, but which also expand how we see life carrying on around us. The case studies of “Stereo Sue,” of the concert pianist Lillian Kalir, and of Howard, the mystery novelist who can no longer read, are highlights of the collection, but each essay is a kind of gem, mined and polished by one of the great storytellers of our era.  –Dwyer Murphy, CrimeReads Managing Editor

John Jeremiah Sullivan, Pulphead (2011)

The American essay was having a moment at the beginning of the decade, and Pulphead was smack in the middle. Without any hard data, I can tell you that this collection of John Jeremiah Sullivan’s magazine features—published primarily in GQ , but also in The Paris Review , and Harper’s —was the only full book of essays most of my literary friends had read since Slouching Towards Bethlehem , and probably one of the only full books of essays they had even heard of.

Well, we all picked a good one. Every essay in Pulphead is brilliant and entertaining, and illuminates some small corner of the American experience—even if it’s just one house, with Sullivan and an aging writer inside (“Mr. Lytle” is in fact a standout in a collection with no filler; fittingly, it won a National Magazine Award and a Pushcart Prize). But what are they about? Oh, Axl Rose, Christian Rock festivals, living around the filming of One Tree Hill , the Tea Party movement, Michael Jackson, Bunny Wailer, the influence of animals, and by god, the Miz (of Real World/Road Rules Challenge fame).

But as Dan Kois has pointed out , what connects these essays, apart from their general tone and excellence, is “their author’s essential curiosity about the world, his eye for the perfect detail, and his great good humor in revealing both his subjects’ and his own foibles.” They are also extremely well written, drawing much from fictional techniques and sentence craft, their literary pleasures so acute and remarkable that James Wood began his review of the collection in The New Yorker with a quiz: “Are the following sentences the beginnings of essays or of short stories?” (It was not a hard quiz, considering the context.)

It’s hard not to feel, reading this collection, like someone reached into your brain, took out the half-baked stuff you talk about with your friends, researched it, lived it, and represented it to you smarter and better and more thoroughly than you ever could. So read it in awe if you must, but read it.  –Emily Temple, Senior Editor

Aleksandar Hemon, The Book of My Lives (2013)

Such is the sentence-level virtuosity of Aleksandar Hemon—the Bosnian-American writer, essayist, and critic—that throughout his career he has frequently been compared to the granddaddy of borrowed language prose stylists: Vladimir Nabokov. While it is, of course, objectively remarkable that anyone could write so beautifully in a language they learned in their twenties, what I admire most about Hemon’s work is the way in which he infuses every essay and story and novel with both a deep humanity and a controlled (but never subdued) fury. He can also be damn funny. Hemon grew up in Sarajevo and left in 1992 to study in Chicago, where he almost immediately found himself stranded, forced to watch from afar as his beloved home city was subjected to a relentless four-year bombardment, the longest siege of a capital in the history of modern warfare. This extraordinary memoir-in-essays is many things: it’s a love letter to both the family that raised him and the family he built in exile; it’s a rich, joyous, and complex portrait of a place the 90s made synonymous with war and devastation; and it’s an elegy for the wrenching loss of precious things. There’s an essay about coming of age in Sarajevo and another about why he can’t bring himself to leave Chicago. There are stories about relationships forged and maintained on the soccer pitch or over the chessboard, and stories about neighbors and mentors turned monstrous by ethnic prejudice. As a chorus they sing with insight, wry humor, and unimaginable sorrow. I am not exaggerating when I say that the collection’s devastating final piece, “The Aquarium”—which details his infant daughter’s brain tumor and the agonizing months which led up to her death—remains the most painful essay I have ever read.  –Dan Sheehan, Book Marks Editor

Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass (2013)

Of every essay in my relentlessly earmarked copy of Braiding Sweetgrass , Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer’s gorgeously rendered argument for why and how we should keep going, there’s one that especially hits home: her account of professor-turned-forester Franz Dolp. When Dolp, several decades ago, revisited the farm that he had once shared with his ex-wife, he found a scene of destruction: The farm’s new owners had razed the land where he had tried to build a life. “I sat among the stumps and the swirling red dust and I cried,” he wrote in his journal.

So many in my generation (and younger) feel this kind of helplessness–and considerable rage–at finding ourselves newly adult in a world where those in power seem determined to abandon or destroy everything that human bodies have always needed to survive: air, water, land. Asking any single book to speak to this helplessness feels unfair, somehow; yet, Braiding Sweetgrass does, by weaving descriptions of indigenous tradition with the environmental sciences in order to show what survival has looked like over the course of many millennia. Kimmerer’s essays describe her personal experience as a Potawotami woman, plant ecologist, and teacher alongside stories of the many ways that humans have lived in relationship to other species. Whether describing Dolp’s work–he left the stumps for a life of forest restoration on the Oregon coast–or the work of others in maple sugar harvesting, creating black ash baskets, or planting a Three Sisters garden of corn, beans, and squash, she brings hope. “In ripe ears and swelling fruit, they counsel us that all gifts are multiplied in relationship,” she writes of the Three Sisters, which all sustain one another as they grow. “This is how the world keeps going.”  –Corinne Segal, Senior Editor

Hilton Als, White Girls (2013)

In a world where we are so often reduced to one essential self, Hilton Als’ breathtaking book of critical essays, White Girls , which meditates on the ways he and other subjects read, project and absorb parts of white femininity, is a radically liberating book. It’s one of the only works of critical thinking that doesn’t ask the reader, its author or anyone he writes about to stoop before the doorframe of complete legibility before entering. Something he also permitted the subjects and readers of his first book, the glorious book-length essay, The Women , a series of riffs and psychological portraits of Dorothy Dean, Owen Dodson, and the author’s own mother, among others. One of the shifts of that book, uncommon at the time, was how it acknowledges the way we inhabit bodies made up of variously gendered influences. To read White Girls now is to experience the utter freedom of this gift and to marvel at Als’ tremendous versatility and intelligence.

He is easily the most diversely talented American critic alive. He can write into genres like pop music and film where being part of an audience is a fantasy happening in the dark. He’s also wired enough to know how the art world builds reputations on the nod of rich white patrons, a significant collision in a time when Jean-Michel Basquiat is America’s most expensive modern artist. Als’ swerving and always moving grip on performance means he’s especially good on describing the effect of art which is volatile and unstable and built on the mingling of made-up concepts and the hard fact of their effect on behavior, such as race. Writing on Flannery O’Connor for instance he alone puts a finger on her “uneasy and unavoidable union between black and white, the sacred and the profane, the shit and the stars.” From Eminem to Richard Pryor, André Leon Talley to Michael Jackson, Als enters the life and work of numerous artists here who turn the fascinations of race and with whiteness into fury and song and describes the complexity of their beauty like his life depended upon it. There are also brief memoirs here that will stop your heart. This is an essential work to understanding American culture.  –John Freeman, Executive Editor

Eula Biss, On Immunity (2014)

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 2014 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.  –Jonny Diamond, Editor-in-Chief 

Rebecca Solnit, The Mother of All Questions (2016)

When Rebecca Solnit’s essay, “Men Explain Things to Me,” was published in 2008, it quickly became a cultural phenomenon unlike almost any other in recent memory, assigning language to a behavior that almost every woman has witnessed—mansplaining—and, in the course of identifying that behavior, spurring a movement, online and offline, to share the ways in which patriarchal arrogance has intersected all our lives. (It would also come to be the titular essay in her collection published in 2014.) 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 2014 and 2016, 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. Solnit also acknowledges that labels like “woman,” and other gendered labels, are identities that are fluid in reality; in reviewing the book for The New Yorker , Moira Donegan suggested that, “One useful working definition of a woman might be ‘someone who experiences misogyny.'” Whichever words we use, Solnit writes in the introduction to the book that “when words break through unspeakability, what was tolerated by a society sometimes becomes intolerable.” This storytelling work has always been vital; it continues to be vital, and in this book, it is brilliantly done.  –Corinne Segal, Senior Editor

Valeria Luiselli, Tell Me How It Ends (2017)

The newly minted MacArthur fellow Valeria Luiselli’s four-part (but really six-part) essay  Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions  was inspired by her time spent volunteering at the federal immigration court in New York City, working as an interpreter for undocumented, unaccompanied migrant children who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border. Written concurrently with her novel  Lost Children Archive  (a fictional exploration of the same topic), Luiselli’s essay offers a fascinating conceit, the fashioning of an argument from the questions on the government intake form given to these children to process their arrivals. (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. But the real point of the essay is to actually delve into the real stories of some of these children, which are agonizing, as well as to gravely, clearly expose what literally happens, procedural, when they do arrive—from forms to courts, as they’re swallowed by a bureaucratic vortex. 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-than-100-pages-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.  –Olivia Rutigliano, CrimeReads Editorial Fellow

Zadie Smith, Feel Free (2018)

In the essay “Meet Justin Bieber!” in Feel Free , Zadie Smith writes that her interest in Justin Bieber is not an interest in the interiority of the singer himself, but in “the idea of the love object”. This essay—in which Smith imagines a meeting between Bieber and the late philosopher Martin Buber (“Bieber and Buber are alternative spellings of the same German surname,” she explains in one of many winning footnotes. “Who am I to ignore these hints from the universe?”). Smith allows that this premise is a bit premise -y: “I know, I know.” Still, the resulting essay is a very funny, very smart, and un-tricky exploration of individuality and true “meeting,” with a dash of late capitalism thrown in for good measure. The melding of high and low culture is the bread and butter of pretty much every prestige publication on the internet these days (and certainly of the Twitter feeds of all “public intellectuals”), but the essays in Smith’s collection don’t feel familiar—perhaps because hers is, as we’ve long known, an uncommon skill. 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. “She contains multitudes, but her point is we all do,” writes Hermione Hoby in her review of the collection in The New Republic . “At the same time, we are, in our endless difference, nobody but ourselves.”  –Jessie Gaynor, Social Media Editor

Tressie McMillan Cottom, Thick: And Other Essays (2019)

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. Her collection of essays reflects this duality, blending scholarly work with memoir to create a collection on the black female experience in postmodern America that’s “intersectional analysis with a side of pop culture.” The essays range from an analysis of sexual violence, to populist politics, to social media, but in centering her own experiences throughout, the collection becomes something unlike other pieces of criticism of contemporary culture. In explaining the title, she reflects on what an editor had said about her work: “I was too readable to be academic, too deep to be popular, too country black to be literary, and too naïve to show the rigor of my thinking in the complexity of my prose. I had wanted to create something meaningful that sounded not only like me, but like all of me. It was too thick.” One of the most powerful essays in the book is “Dying to be Competent” which begins with her unpacking the idiocy of LinkedIn (and the myth of meritocracy) and ends with a description of her miscarriage, the mishandling of black woman’s pain, and a condemnation of healthcare bureaucracy. A finalist for the 2019 National Book Award for Nonfiction, Thick confirms McMillan Cottom as one of our most fearless public intellectuals and one of the most vital.  –Emily Firetog, Deputy Editor

Dissenting Opinions

The following books were just barely nudged out of the top ten, but we (or at least one of us) couldn’t let them pass without comment.

Elif Batuman, The Possessed (2010)

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. There’s the time a “well-known 20th-centuryist” gave a graduate student the finger; and the time when Batuman ended up living in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, for a summer; and the time that she convinced herself Tolstoy was murdered and spent the length of the Tolstoy Conference in Yasnaya Polyana considering clues and motives. 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. Central also to the collection are Batuman’s intellectual asides where she entertains a theory—like the “problem of the person”: the inability to ever wholly capture one’s character—that ultimately layer the book’s themes. “You are certainly my most entertaining student,” a professor said to Batuman. 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. –Eleni Theodoropoulos, Editorial Fellow

Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist (2014)

Roxane Gay’s now-classic essay collection is a book that will make you laugh, think, cry, and then wonder, how can cultural criticism be this fun? My favorite essays in the book include Gay’s musings on competitive Scrabble, her stranded-in-academia dispatches, and her joyous film and television criticism, but given the breadth of topics Roxane Gay can discuss in an entertaining manner, there’s something for everyone in this one. This book is accessible because feminism itself should be accessible – Roxane Gay is as likely to draw inspiration from YA novels, or middle-brow shows about friendship, as she is to introduce concepts from the academic world, and if there’s anyone I trust to bridge the gap between high culture, low culture, and pop culture, it’s the Goddess of Twitter. I used to host a book club dedicated to radical reads, and this was one of the first picks for the club; a week after the book club met, I spied a few of the attendees meeting in the café of the bookstore, and found out that they had bonded so much over discussing  Bad Feminist  that they couldn’t wait for the next meeting of the book club to keep discussing politics and intersectionality, and that, in a nutshell, is the power of Roxane. –Molly Odintz, CrimeReads Associate Editor

Rivka Galchen, Little Labors (2016)

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). But Little Labors is not simply an essay collection about motherhood, perhaps because Galchen initially “didn’t want to write about” her new baby—mostly, she writes, “because I had never been interested in babies, or mothers; in fact, those subjects had seemed perfectly not interesting to me.” Like many new mothers, though, Galchen soon discovered her baby—which she refers to sometimes as “the puma”—to be a preoccupying thought, demanding to be written about. Galchen’s interest isn’t just in her own progeny, but in babies in literature (“Literature has more dogs than babies, and also more abortions”), The Pillow Book , the eleventh-century collection of musings by Sei Shōnagon, and writers who are mothers. There are sections that made me laugh out loud, like when Galchen continually finds herself in an elevator with a neighbor who never fails to remark on the puma’s size. There are also deeper, darker musings, like the realization that the baby means “that it’s not permissible to die. There are days when this does not feel good.” It is a slim collection that I happened to read at the perfect time, and it remains one of my favorites of the decade. –Emily Firetog, Deputy Editor

Charlie Fox, This Young Monster (2017)

On social media as in his writing, British art critic Charlie Fox rejects lucidity for allusion and doesn’t quite answer the Twitter textbox’s persistent question: “What’s happening?” These days, it’s hard to tell.  This Young Monster  (2017), Fox’s first book,was published a few months after Donald Trump’s election, and at one point Fox takes a swipe at a man he judges “direct from a nightmare and just a repulsive fucking goon.” Fox doesn’t linger on politics, though, since most of the monsters he looks at “embody otherness and make it into art, ripping any conventional idea of beauty to shreds and replacing it with something weird and troubling of their own invention.”

If clichés are loathed because they conform to what philosopher Georges Bataille called “the common measure,” then monsters are rebellious non-sequiturs, comedic or horrific derailments from a classical ideal. Perverts in the most literal sense, monsters have gone astray from some “proper” course. The book’s nine chapters, which are about a specific monster or type of monster, are full of callbacks to familiar and lesser-known media. Fox cites visual art, film, songs, and books with the screwy buoyancy of a savant. Take one of his essays, “Spook House,” framed as a stage play with two principal characters, Klaus (“an intoxicated young skinhead vampire”) and Hermione (“a teen sorceress with green skin and jet-black hair” who looks more like The Wicked Witch than her namesake). The chorus is a troupe of trick-or-treaters. Using the filmmaker Cameron Jamie as a starting point, the rest is free association on gothic decadence and Detroit and L.A. as cities of the dead. All the while, Klaus quotes from  Artforum ,  Dazed & Confused , and  Time Out. It’s a technical feat that makes fictionalized dialogue a conveyor belt for cultural criticism.

In Fox’s imagination, David Bowie and the Hydra coexist alongside Peter Pan, Dennis Hopper, and the maenads. Fox’s book reaches for the monster’s mask, not really to peel it off but to feel and smell the rubber schnoz, to know how it’s made before making sure it’s still snugly set. With a stylistic blend of arthouse suavity and B-movie chic,  This Young Monster considers how monsters in culture are made. Aren’t the scariest things made in post-production? Isn’t the creature just duplicity, like a looping choir or a dubbed scream? –Aaron Robertson, Assistant Editor

Elena Passarello, Animals Strike Curious Poses (2017)

Elena Passarello’s collection of essays Animals Strike Curious Poses picks out infamous animals and grants them the voice, narrative, and history they deserve. Not only is a collection like this relevant during the sixth extinction but it is an ambitious historical and anthropological undertaking, which Passarello has tackled with thorough research and a playful tone that rather than compromise her subject, complicates and humanizes it. Passarello’s intention is to investigate the role of animals across the span of human civilization and in doing so, to construct a timeline of humanity as told through people’s interactions with said animals. “Of all the images that make our world, animal images are particularly buried inside us,” Passarello writes in her first essay, to introduce us to the object of the book and also to the oldest of her chosen characters: Yuka, a 39,000-year-old mummified woolly mammoth discovered in the Siberian permafrost in 2010. It was an occasion so remarkable and so unfathomable given the span of human civilization that Passarello says of Yuka: “Since language is epically younger than both thought and experience, ‘woolly mammoth’ means, to a human brain, something more like time.” The essay ends with a character placing a hand on a cave drawing of a woolly mammoth, accompanied by a phrase which encapsulates the author’s vision for the book: “And he becomes the mammoth so he can envision the mammoth.” In Passarello’s hands the imagined boundaries between the animal, natural, and human world disintegrate and what emerges is a cohesive if baffling integrated history of life. With the accuracy and tenacity of a journalist and the spirit of a storyteller, Elena Passarello has assembled a modern bestiary worthy of contemplation and awe. –Eleni Theodoropoulos, Editorial Fellow

Esmé Weijun Wang, The Collected Schizophrenias (2019)

Esmé Weijun Wang’s collection of essays is a kaleidoscopic look at mental health and the lives affected by the schizophrenias. Each essay takes on a different aspect of the topic, but you’ll want to read them together for a holistic perspective. Esmé Weijun Wang generously begins The Collected Schizophrenias by acknowledging the stereotype, “Schizophrenia terrifies. It is the archetypal disorder of lunacy.” From there, she walks us through the technical language, breaks down the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual ( DSM-5 )’s clinical definition. And then she gets very personal, telling us about how she came to her own diagnosis and the way it’s touched her daily life (her relationships, her ideas about motherhood). Esmé Weijun Wang is uniquely situated to write about this topic. As a former lab researcher at Stanford, she turns a precise, analytical eye to her experience while simultaneously unfolding everything with great patience for her reader. Throughout, she brilliantly dissects the language around mental health. (On saying “a person living with bipolar disorder” instead of using “bipolar” as the sole subject: “…we are not our diseases. We are instead individuals with disorders and malfunctions. Our conditions lie over us like smallpox blankets; we are one thing and the illness is another.”) She pinpoints the ways she arms herself against anticipated reactions to the schizophrenias: high fashion, having attended an Ivy League institution. In a particularly piercing essay, she traces mental illness back through her family tree. She also places her story within more mainstream cultural contexts, calling on groundbreaking exposés about the dangerous of institutionalization and depictions of mental illness in television and film (like the infamous Slender Man case, in which two young girls stab their best friend because an invented Internet figure told them to). At once intimate and far-reaching, The Collected Schizophrenias is an informative and important (and let’s not forget artful) work. I’ve never read a collection quite so beautifully-written and laid-bare as this. –Katie Yee, Book Marks Assistant Editor

Ross Gay, The Book of Delights (2019)

When Ross Gay began writing what would become The Book of Delights, he envisioned it as a project of daily essays, each focused on a moment or point of delight in his day. This plan quickly disintegrated; on day four, he skipped his self-imposed assignment and decided to “in honor and love, delight in blowing it off.” (Clearly, “blowing it off” is a relative term here, as he still produced the book.) Ross Gay is a generous teacher of how to live, and this moment of reveling in self-compassion is one lesson among many in The Book of Delights , which wanders from moments of connection with strangers to a shade of “red I don’t think I actually have words for,” a text from a friend reading “I love you breadfruit,” and “the sun like a guiding hand on my back, saying everything is possible. Everything .”

Gay does not linger on any one subject for long, creating the sense that delight is a product not of extenuating circumstances, but of our attention; his attunement to the possibilities of a single day, and awareness of all the small moments that produce delight, are a model for life amid the warring factions of the attention economy. These small moments range from the physical–hugging a stranger, transplanting fig cuttings–to the spiritual and philosophical, giving the impression of sitting beside Gay in his garden as he thinks out loud in real time. It’s a privilege to listen. –Corinne Segal, Senior Editor

Honorable Mentions

A selection of other books that we seriously considered for both lists—just to be extra about it (and because decisions are hard).

Terry Castle, The Professor and Other Writings (2010) · Joyce Carol Oates, In Rough Country (2010) · Geoff Dyer, Otherwise Known as the Human Condition (2011) · Christopher Hitchens, Arguably (2011) ·  Roberto Bolaño, tr. Natasha Wimmer, Between Parentheses (2011) · Dubravka Ugresic, tr. David Williams, Karaoke Culture (2011) · Tom Bissell, Magic Hours (2012)  · Kevin Young, The Grey Album (2012) · William H. Gass, Life Sentences: Literary Judgments and Accounts (2012) · Mary Ruefle, Madness, Rack, and Honey (2012) · Herta Müller, tr. Geoffrey Mulligan, Cristina and Her Double (2013) · Leslie Jamison, The Empathy Exams (2014)  · Meghan Daum, The Unspeakable (2014)  · Daphne Merkin, The Fame Lunches (2014)  · Charles D’Ambrosio, Loitering (2015) · Wendy Walters, Multiply/Divide (2015) · Colm Tóibín, On Elizabeth Bishop (2015) ·  Renee Gladman, Calamities (2016)  · Jesmyn Ward, ed. The Fire This Time (2016)  · Lindy West, Shrill (2016)  · Mary Oliver, Upstream (2016)  · Emily Witt, Future Sex (2016)  · Olivia Laing, The Lonely City (2016)  · Mark Greif, Against Everything (2016)  · Durga Chew-Bose, Too Much and Not the Mood (2017)  · Sarah Gerard, Sunshine State (2017)  · Jim Harrison, A Really Big Lunch (2017)  · J.M. Coetzee, Late Essays: 2006-2017 (2017) · Melissa Febos, Abandon Me (2017)  · Louise Glück, American Originality (2017)  · Joan Didion, South and West (2017)  · Tom McCarthy, Typewriters, Bombs, Jellyfish (2017)  · Hanif Abdurraqib, They Can’t Kill Us Until they Kill Us (2017)  · Ta-Nehisi Coates, We Were Eight Years in Power (2017)  ·  Samantha Irby, We Are Never Meeting in Real Life (2017)  · Alexander Chee, How to Write an Autobiographical Novel (2018)  · Alice Bolin, Dead Girls (2018)  · Marilynne Robinson, What Are We Doing Here? (2018)  · Lorrie Moore, See What Can Be Done (2018)  · Maggie O’Farrell, I Am I Am I Am (2018)  · Ijeoma Oluo, So You Want to Talk About Race (2018)  · Rachel Cusk, Coventry (2019)  · Jia Tolentino, Trick Mirror (2019)  · Emily Bernard, Black is the Body (2019)  · Toni Morrison, The Source of Self-Regard (2019)  · Margaret Renkl, Late Migrations (2019)  ·  Rachel Munroe, Savage Appetites (2019)  · Robert A. Caro,  Working  (2019) · Arundhati Roy, My Seditious Heart (2019).

Emily Temple

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The 25 Greatest Essay Collections of All Time

Today marks the release of Aleksandar Hemon’s excellent book of personal essays, The Book of My Lives , which we loved, and which we’re convinced deserves a place in the literary canon. To that end, we were inspired to put together our list of the greatest essay collections of all time, from the classic to the contemporary, from the personal to the critical. In making our choices, we’ve steered away from posthumous omnibuses (Michel de Montaigne’s Complete Essays , the collected Orwell, etc.) and multi-author compilations, and given what might be undue weight to our favorite writers (as one does). After the jump, our picks for the 25 greatest essay collections of all time. Feel free to disagree with us, praise our intellect, or create an entirely new list in the comments.

The Book of My Lives , Aleksandar Hemon

Hemon’s memoir in essays is in turns wryly hilarious, intellectually searching, and deeply troubling. It’s the life story of a fascinating, quietly brilliant man, and it reads as such. For fans of chess and ill-advised theme parties and growing up more than once.

Slouching Towards Bethlehem , Joan Didion

Well, obviously. Didion’s extraordinary book of essays, expertly surveying both her native California in the 1960s and her own internal landscape with clear eyes and one eyebrow raised ever so slightly. This collection, her first, helped establish the idea of journalism as art, and continues to put wind in the sails of many writers after her, hoping to move in that Didion direction.

Pulphead , John Jeremiah Sullivan

This was one of those books that this writer deemed required reading for all immediate family and friends. Sullivan’s sharply observed essays take us from Christian rock festivals to underground caves to his own home, and introduce us to 19-century geniuses, imagined professors and Axl Rose. Smart, curious, and humane, this is everything an essay collection should be.

The Boys of My Youth , Jo Ann Beard

Another memoir-in-essays, or perhaps just a collection of personal narratives, Jo Ann Beard’s award-winning volume is a masterpiece. Not only does it include the luminous, emotionally destructive “The Fourth State of the Matter,” which we’ve already implored you to read , but also the incredible “Bulldozing the Baby,” which takes on a smaller tragedy: a three-year-old Beard’s separation from her doll Hal. “The gorgeous thing about Hal,” she tells us, “was that not only was he my friend, he was also my slave. I made the majority of our decisions, including the bathtub one, which in retrospect was the beginning of the end.”

Consider the Lobster , David Foster Wallace

This one’s another “duh” moment, at least if you’re a fan of the literary essay. One of the most brilliant essayists of all time, Wallace pushes the boundaries (of the form, of our patience, of his own brain) and comes back with a classic collection of writing on everything from John Updike to, well, lobsters. You’ll laugh out loud right before you rethink your whole life. And then repeat.

Notes of a Native Son , James Baldwin

Baldwin’s most influential work is a witty, passionate portrait of black life and social change in America in the 1940s and early 1950s. His essays, like so many of the greats’, are both incisive social critiques and rigorous investigations into the self, told with a perfect tension between humor and righteous fury.

Naked , David Sedaris

His essays often read more like short stories than they do social criticism (though there’s a healthy, if perhaps implied, dose of that slippery subject), but no one makes us laugh harder or longer. A genius of the form.

Against Interpretation , Susan Sontag

This collection, Sontag’s first, is a dazzling feat of intellectualism. Her essays dissect not only art but the way we think about art, imploring us to “reveal the sensuous surface of art without mucking about in it.” It also contains the brilliant “Notes on ‘Camp,'” one of our all-time favorites.

The Common Reader , Virginia Woolf

Woolf is a literary giant for a reason — she was as incisive and brilliant a critic as she was a novelist. These witty essays, written for the common reader (“He is worse educated, and nature has not gifted him so generously. He reads for his own pleasure rather than to impart knowledge or correct the opinions of others. Above all, he is guided by an instinct to create for himself, out of whatever odds and ends he can come by, some kind of whole- a portrait of a man, a sketch of an age, a theory of the art of writing”), are as illuminating and engrossing as they were when they were written.

Teaching a Stone to Talk , Annie Dillard

This is Dillard’s only book of essays, but boy is it a blazingly good one. The slender volume, filled with examinations of nature both human and not, is deft of thought and tongue, and well worth anyone’s time. As the Chicago Sun-Times ‘s Edward Abbey gushed, “This little book is haloed and informed throughout by Dillard’s distinctive passion and intensity, a sort of intellectual radiance that reminds me both Thoreau and Emily Dickinson.”

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man , Henry Louis Gates Jr.

In this eloquent volume of essays, all but one of which were originally published in the New Yorker , Gates argues against the notion of the singularly representable “black man,” preferring to represent him in a myriad of diverse profiles, from James Baldwin to Colin Powell. Humane, incisive, and satisfyingly journalistic, Gates cobbles together the ultimate portrait of the 20th-century African-American male by refusing to cobble it together, and raises important questions about race and identity even as he entertains.

Otherwise Known As the Human Condition , Geoff Dyer

This book of essays, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award in the year of its publication, covers 25 years of the uncategorizable, inimitable Geoff Dyer’s work — casually erudite and yet liable to fascinate anyone wandering in the door, witty and breathing and full of truth. As Sam Lipsyte said, “You read Dyer for his caustic wit, of course, his exquisite and perceptive crankiness, and his deep and exciting intellectual connections, but from these enthralling rants and cultural investigations there finally emerges another Dyer, a generous seeker of human feeling and experience, a man perhaps closer than he thinks to what he believes his hero Camus achieved: ‘a heart free of bitterness.'”

Art and Ardor , Cynthia Ozick

Look, Cynthia Ozick is a genius. One of David Foster Wallace’s favorite writers, and one of ours, Ozick has no less than seven essay collections to her name, and we could have chosen any one of them, each sharper and more perfectly self-conscious than the last. This one, however, includes her stunner “A Drugstore in Winter,” which was chosen by Joyce Carol Oates for The Best American Essays of the Century , so we’ll go with it.

No More Nice Girls , Ellen Willis

The venerable Ellen Willis was the first pop music critic for The New Yorker , and a rollicking anti-authoritarian, feminist, all-around bad-ass woman who had a hell of a way with words. This collection examines the women’s movement, the plight of the aging radical, race relations, cultural politics, drugs, and Picasso. Among other things.

The War Against Cliché , Martin Amis

As you know if you’ve ever heard him talk , Martin Amis is not only a notorious grouch but a sharp critical mind, particularly when it comes to literature. That quality is on full display in this collection, which spans nearly 30 years and twice as many subjects, from Vladimir Nabokov (his hero) to chess to writing about sex. Love him or hate him, there’s no denying that he’s a brilliant old grump.

Cultural Amnesia: Necessary Memories From History and the Arts , Clive James

James’s collection is a strange beast, not like any other essay collection on this list but its own breed. An encyclopedia of modern culture, the book collects 110 new biographical essays, which provide more than enough room for James to flex his formidable intellect and curiosity, as he wanders off on tangents, anecdotes, and cultural criticism. It’s not the only who’s who you need, but it’s a who’s who you need.

I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman , Nora Ephron

Oh Nora, we miss you. Again, we could have picked any of her collections here — candid, hilarious, and willing to give it to you straight, she’s like a best friend and mentor in one, only much more interesting than any of either you’ve ever had.

Arguably , Christopher Hitchens

No matter what you think of his politics (or his rhetorical strategies), there’s no denying that Christopher Hitchens was one of the most brilliant minds — and one of the most brilliant debaters — of the century. In this collection, packed with cultural commentary, literary journalism, and political writing, he is at his liveliest, his funniest, his exactingly wittiest. He’s also just as caustic as ever.

The Solace of Open Spaces , Gretel Ehrlich

Gretel Ehrlich is a poet, and in this collection, you’ll know it. In 1976, she moved to Wyoming and became a cowherd, and nearly a decade later, she published this lovely, funny set of essays about rural life in the American West.”Keenly observed the world is transformed,” she writes. “The landscape is engorged with detail, every movement on it chillingly sharp. The air between people is charged. Days unfold, bathed in their own music. Nights become hallucinatory; dreams, prescient.”

The Braindead Megaphone , George Saunders

Saunders may be the man of the moment, but he’s been at work for a long while, and not only on his celebrated short stories. His single collection of essays applies the same humor and deliciously slant view to the real world — which manages to display nearly as much absurdity as one of his trademark stories.

Against Joie de Vivre , Phillip Lopate

“Over the years,” the title essay begins, “I have developed a distaste for the spectacle of joie de vivre , the knack of knowing how to live.” Lopate goes on to dissect, in pleasantly sardonic terms, the modern dinner party. Smart and thought-provoking throughout (and not as crotchety as all that), this collection is conversational but weighty, something to be discussed at length with friends at your next — oh well, you know.

Sex and the River Styx , Edward Hoagland

Edward Hoagland, who John Updike deemed “the best essayist of my generation,” has a long and storied career and a fat bibliography, so we hesitate to choose such a recent installment in the writer’s canon. Then again, Garrison Keillor thinks it’s his best yet , so perhaps we’re not far off. Hoagland is a great nature writer (name checked by many as the modern Thoreau) but in truth, he’s just as fascinated by humanity, musing that “human nature is interstitial with nature, and not to be shunned by a naturalist.” Elegant and thoughtful, Hoagland may warn us that he’s heading towards the River Styx, but we’ll hang on to him a while longer.

Changing My Mind , Zadie Smith

Smith may be best known for her novels (and she should be), but to our eyes she is also emerging as an excellent essayist in her own right, passionate and thoughtful. Plus, any essay collection that talks about Barack Obama via Pygmalion is a winner in our book.

My Misspent Youth , Meghan Daum

Like so many other writers on this list, Daum dives head first into the culture and comes up with meat in her mouth. Her voice is fresh and her narratives daring, honest and endlessly entertaining.

The White Album , Joan Didion

Yes, Joan Didion is on this list twice, because Joan Didion is the master of the modern essay, tearing at our assumptions and building our world in brisk, clever strokes. Deal.

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The Old Man and the Sea' and the Timeless Bond with Books

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Introduction

The virtues of constant company with books.

Diverse Reading Experience

Favorite book: "the old man and the sea" by ernest hemingway, resilience and determination, appreciation of style and language, conclusion: a journey through literature.

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• Ernest Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea" Pages: 3 (700 words)
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Express Your Book Love: A Simple Guide on Writing an Essay About Your Favorite Reads

Writing an essay about your favorite books can be a delightful journey into the world of literature. Whether you’re a student tasked with this assignment or simply an avid reader looking to share your passion, expressing your love for books through words is a rewarding endeavor. In this guide, we’ll explore how to craft an engaging essay that captures the essence of your beloved reads and allows others to appreciate them as much as you do.

Table of Contents

Choose your favorite book, capture the essence, craft a compelling introduction, explore the plot and characters, discuss themes and messages, share personal connections, highlight the author’s style, compare and contrast, address potential criticisms, encourage others to read, proofread and edit, share your essay, in conclusion.

The first step in writing an essay about your favorite reads is selecting the book with a special place in your heart. It could be a classic novel, a contemporary bestseller, or a hidden gem you believe deserves more recognition. Choose a book you’re genuinely passionate about, as your enthusiasm will shine through in your writing. However, if you feel your imagination or motivation failing you, contact Grabmyessay . This service has paper writers for hire who can help you create a stellar essay.

Before diving into the essay, take some time to reflect on what makes your chosen book special. What themes, characters, or moments resonate with you? Is there a particular message or life lesson you’ve drawn from it? Jot down your thoughts and feelings to create a roadmap for your essay.

Begin your essay with a captivating introduction that grabs the reader’s attention. You might start with a thought-provoking quote from the book, an intriguing anecdote, or a brief overview of why this book is significant to you. Your introduction should set the tone for the rest of the essay. If you need help with writing your introduction, go to Topwritersreview . This platform shares a list of trustworthy writing services that can aid you in academic writing.

Delve into the plot of the book and introduce the main characters. Share the key events, conflicts, and turning points that make the story memorable. Highlight the character development and relationships that contribute to the book’s appeal. Use descriptive language to paint a vivid picture for your readers.

Books often convey important themes and messages. Explore the underlying themes of your chosen book and explain how they resonate with you. Discuss the lessons or insights you’ve gained from the story. This is an opportunity to showcase your analytical skills and critical thinking.

An essay about your favorite book should include personal anecdotes and connections. Share moments when you strongly responded to the story or characters. Explain how the book has influenced your perspective on life, relationships, or society. While we’re on the topic, if you want to read some books that will have a positive influence on you, check out these best self-help books .

Give credit to the author’s writing style. Discuss their use of language, narrative techniques, and storytelling devices. Explain how the author’s unique approach contributes to the book’s impact. Whether it’s vivid descriptions, witty dialogue, or poetic prose, emphasize what sets the author apart.

To provide a well-rounded view, consider comparing your favorite book to other works in the same genre or by the same author. Highlight similarities and differences. This comparative analysis can help readers understand what makes your chosen book stand out.

No book is perfect, and addressing potential criticisms demonstrates a balanced perspective. Acknowledge any flaws or weaknesses in the book, and explain why these aspects didn’t diminish your enjoyment. A thoughtful critique adds credibility to your essay.

Conclude your essay by encouraging others to read the book. The importance of reading can not be understated. Summarize the key reasons why it’s worth their time and how it can enrich their lives. You might also suggest discussion questions for book clubs or share your favorite quotes to pique interest.

Before finalizing your essay, proofread it carefully. Check for spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors. Ensure that your ideas flow logically and that your essay is well-organized. A polished essay is more likely to leave a lasting impression.

Once your essay is ready, consider sharing it with your classmates, friends, or fellow book enthusiasts . You can also publish it on a blog or social media platform to reach a wider audience. Sharing your love for books can inspire others to explore new literary adventures.

Expressing your love for your favorite books through an essay is a wonderful way to celebrate the joy of reading. By following this guide and infusing your passion into your writing, you can create an essay that showcases your favorite reads and inspires others to embark on their literary journeys. Happy writing!

Remember, the key to writing a compelling essay about your favorite books is to infuse your passion and insights into your writing. This guide will help you craft an engaging and meaningful essay that allows others to appreciate your beloved read as much as you do. Happy writing!

Author: Gregory Chapman

Gregory Chapman is an accomplished essay writer with a deep love for books. With a knack for crafting engaging and insightful essays, Gregory combines a passion for literature with the art of effective writing. Her work reflects a dedication to sharing the joys of reading through the written word.

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About the Author

Chhavi chauhan.

Chhavi always carries a book in her bag. She writes in the margins and underlines whatever speaks to her heart. She believes annotating is a way of having a heartfelt conversation with a book. If not reading, you will find her talking to her plants or painting in a corner. She loves classic literature, bougenvellias, and coffee. You can connect with her on Instagram @thedecayofareader where she documents her love for literature.

Check latest articles from this author:

Strange weather in tokyo | hiromi kawakami | book review, with the fire on high | elizabeth acevedo | book review, related articles, bhutan’s drukyul’s literature & arts festival to be back this august, kozhikode becomes india’s first unesco ‘city of literature’, spiritual novels: 7 best spiritual fiction books, swami vivekananda books | a list of 28 best books.

Home — Essay Samples — Life — Reading Books — My Personal Passion: Favorite Books & Authors

Why I Like Reading Books: a Narrative

• Categories: Reading Books

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Words: 1014 |

Published: Mar 14, 2019

Words: 1014 | Pages: 2 | 6 min read

Table of contents

Why i like reading (essay), my favorite type of books, works cited.

• Coleridge, S. T. (1817). Biographia Literaria: Or Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions. Restless Books.
• Lawrence, D. H. (2000). Lady Chatterley's Lover. Wordsworth Editions.
• Maas, S. J. (2012). Throne of Glass. Bloomsbury Publishing.
• Orwell, G. (1949). 1984. Secker & Warburg.
• Shakespeare, W. (2008). The Merchant's Tale. In The Canterbury Tales (2nd ed., pp. 121-134). Penguin Classics.
• Stowe, H. B. (1852). Uncle Tom's Cabin. J. P. Jewett and Company.
• Tolkein, J. R. R. (2012). The Lord of the Rings. HarperCollins.
• Tonnard, M., & Van Kesteren, E. (2007). Reading Ed Ruscha: Novels. Ludion.
• Wells, H. G. (1932). Brave New World. Chatto & Windus.
• Wood, J. (2014). The Theatre of Absurd. Bloomsbury Publishing.

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The Book I Enjoyed The Most (Essay Sample)

Table of Contents

The Book I enjoyed the most

Introduction.

Reading your favorite book promotes a relaxation method to overcome stress and anxiety. The reason behind is that it seeks to make you calmer as you read the details of the book’s content that satisfies your interest. The chosen book that I enjoy reading is Cinderella, which is a fairy tale themed book that presents about a person who met her love interest that changed her life permanently. This is the book that I enjoyed the most that has been able to ensure that it significantly fulfill one’s desire to allow their dreams to have a temporary relief. This is because every person has the tendency to utilize their fantasy in order to satisfy their dreams in a temporary way. This is the reason why I enjoy reading the book that seeks to measure my interest as well as to improve the way I perceive things in life.

I love the book, which is why I consider enjoying it because there is significance from the plot of the story that can relate to my personal life. There is a reflective interest applied by the book that enhances my knowledge and belief that I will be able to relate my personal issues with the book’s scenes. This is because the context is focused on a person’s childhood interest wherein it presents who a child struggles with their childhood challenges. It reflects the chance to know the logical way of improving your cognition in order to accomplish a certain task. All throughout the book’s storyline, it seeks to enhance the advantage of measuring the way that you could cope up with several stressful activities that makes your life better (Rowling, 1997).

One thing that is interesting is when you are going to establish friendship with your enemies. With the combination of fantasies through magical presentation, the context stimulates your senses and promotes your intellectual understanding. The reason behind for this action is to know the strengths and weaknesses as you are learning more about their behavior and character. This is comparable in real life when a person engages a relationship with other individuals to know their real character. Discovering your real friends is important because you will know who will you trust and cooperate. However, the thing that seems inappropriate is the issue regarding violent crashes between the main character and the antagonist of the film. This is the reason why the movie version restricted the audiences by preventing children aged 13 and below not to watch it because it stimulates violence against other individuals.

Why I enjoyed reading it? This is because it helps me bring back my childhood memories and learn new things. The lesson learned from the book I enjoyed reading the most is all about knowing you should choose as your company. The reason behind is that trust is very valuable to every relationship that you establish with other individual or group. When trust is broken, your friendship or relationship could no longer make sense towards a certain individual who betrayed you while establishing friendship. The book I enjoyed the most is recommended to other readers because they can learn more about balancing their friendships with other individuals. In addition, it is important to explore new things because learning helps a person to improve skills and knowledge whenever there are ideas that are fresh.

• Rowling, J.K. (1997). Harry Potter: The Philosopher’s Stone. London: Bloomsbury.

Essay on My Favourite Book in English for Children and Students

Table of Contents

Essay on My Favourite Book in English: Books are one of the most important inventions of humanity. They are our best friends and they can never be replaced by anything else. Books give us knowledge, pleasure and a deep insight into the world around us. They are the source of our inspiration and motivation.

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Mark Twain rightly said, “Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.” One must-read books to ensure a fulfilling and satisfying life. Reading books is as important for a person as making friends and also socializing. People have different tastes when it comes to books. While some may like the crime genre, others might love romance, while yet others might be hooked on science fiction. People tend to have personal favorites when it comes to books.

Books are the best friends, companions and teachers. They play an important role in our life. They give us an inner vision and a deeper insight. They enrich our experience and sharpen our intellect. They give us an opportunity to stand on other people’s shoulders and see the world from a higher perspective.

Long and Short Essays on My Favourite Book in English

Here are long and short essays on My Favourite Book to help you with the topic in your exam. Following My Favourite Book Essay is written very simply using easy words under different words limit to help you with the topic in your exams. We have covered different famous books under our five essays so that you can get your favorite one-book essay.

Essay on My Favourite Book 200 words – Essay 1

‘my favourite book – palace of illusions’.

I have read several books. However, none has captivated my interest as the Palace of Illusions. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni writes the book. Born in 1956, Chitra is a well-known Indian American author and poet. An alumnus of the University of Calcutta and the Wright State University, United States, Chitra received a Ph.D. in English from California.

Her book, The Palace of Illusions, narrates the story of Panchali from the epic story of Mahabharat. Chitra has given a feminist interpretation of this epic saga through her narrator, Panchali. The novel focuses on the life of Panchali. It covers those aspects of her life that were missed in the other adaptations of Mahabharat. It gives a detailed account of Panchaali’s life from when she was born. Her birth was no less than a miracle. She was born magically in the fire.

Panchali was the daughter of a wealthy king. She went on to marry the five Pandavas. After her marriage, her hardships have been written at length in the novel. The challenges of living in exile, her relationship with her husband and mother-in-law, and her equation with Lord Krishna have all been covered in the novel.

Panchali is a charismatic and daring character. I loved reading about her. Chitra has portrayed the character and also depicted the events very well.

Essay on My Favourite Subject

Essay on My Favourite Book 300 words – Essay 2

‘my favourite book – 2 states by chetan bhagat’.

Introduction

I love reading romance novels and one of the best I have read so far is 2 states by Chetan Bhagat. I love the central characters of this novel and how love evolves between them. The novel is said to be partly autobiographical. Bhagat’s own love story inspired him to write this book. The book was loved by the masses so much that it was even adapted into a movie.

The Interesting Story of 2 States

The story is about a young Punjabi boy, Krish, and a beautiful South Indian girl, Ananya. The two studies at IIM Ahmedabad. They become good friends and spend a lot of time together. Soon fall in love with each other. They want to get married but cannot foresee the difficulties ahead. The problem begins when they introduce their parents to each other.

The two families are from different cultural backgrounds and find it hard to get along. Krish and Ananya try hard to pacify the situation and establish a bond between the two. However, things go out of hand, and they decide to part ways. They begin to concentrate on their respective careers, but it is hard. It is difficult for them to forget each other. Finally, things take a turn for the good, and they reunite.

I love the deep bond between Krish and Ananya. Chetan Bhagat has brought these characters to life. They seem just meant for each other. Other characters in the story are also quite strong and opinionated. It is interesting to read about each one of them.

I love this book. I have read it thrice and can read it over and over again. The characters of this story seem so real that I start living with them every time I read this book. I have also seen the movie based on this book and enjoyed it thoroughly.

My Favourite Book Paragraph For Students

Essay on My Favourite Book 400 words – Essay 3

‘my favourite book – a suitable boy.

One of my all-time favourite books is Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy. The story is lengthy but doesn’t get boring at any point. It is one of the longest Indian novels ever published in the English language in a single volume. It contains as many as 1349 pages. I love the theme as well as the characters of this story. It took me almost two months to finish reading this novel.

The Interesting Storyline

The story is set in India, which recently attained independence from British Rule. It narrates the story of four families. The story set in the fictional town of Brahmpur focuses on the character of Mrs. Rupa Mehra, who is eagerly looking for a match for her younger daughter, Lata. As I began reading the book, it reminded me of Pride and also Prejudice.

The character of Mrs. Rupa Mehra resembled that of Elizabeth’s mother in the novel. The central theme seemed similar too. However, I like A Suitable Boy more as it is set in India and is more relatable. Seth shares that this work has largely been inspired by the Chinese novel, The Story of the Stone, authored by Cao Xuegin.

I particularly loved Lata’s character. She is a young girl who is daring and likes to make her decisions on her own. She does not conform to the rules set by her mother and the opinion of her brother. The difficulties she faces in due course of the story and the way she tries to overcome them are interesting. Her character inspires me to stand for what I feel is right.

The caste and class tension and the post-partition politics form the novel’s backdrop, making it more interesting.

About the Author – Vikram Seth

Vikram Seth, born in Calcutta in 1952, is an Indian author and poet. He belongs to a well-educated and respectable Indian family. His mother, Leila Seth, became the first Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court. Seth has written several exciting novels and poems.

His writings have been immensely appreciated. He has won some prestigious awards for his work. These include the Padma Shri, WH Smith Literary Award, Sahitya Academy Award, Crossword Book Award, and also the Pravasi Bhartiya Samman.

I love Seth’s portrayal of the changing family values and relationships in independent India. Therefore the social and political issues that the country was gripped with post-independence have been interwoven appropriately to set the novel’s tone.

Essay on Reading is a Good Habit

Essay on My Favourite Book 500 words – Essay 4

‘my favourite book – the room on the roof’.

I read a lot. It is my favourite hobby. I keep reading books from different authors, but my favourite ones are those written by the famous Indian author Ruskin Bond. Since my childhood, I have been reading his books and have always loved them. One of my favourite books is The Room on the Roof.

The Storyline

The Room on the Roof is the story of an orphaned Anglo-Indian boy, Rusty. He lives with Mr. Harrison. Therefore they reside in a European colony in Dehradun. Mr. Harrison wants Rusty to turn out into a sophisticated Englishman. However he tries to keep him away from the Indians living in their vicinity.

Rusty, on the other hand, loves playing with his Indian friends. He enjoys their company thoroughly. Unable to bear Mr. Harrison’s dominating attitude and rules, Rusty runs away to live with his friends. He starts living with his friends and becomes dependent on them for his routine needs.

Rusty explores so much about India and the Indian culture as he begins to live away from Mr. Harrison. He loves this newfound freedom. But soon realizes that he cannot go on this way for long. He understands that he needs to work to survive.

Soon, he begins to give English lessons to Kishen Kapoor, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Kapoor. They provide him with accommodation and food in return for his service. He starts living in a room on their roof. Eventually, he finds out that Mr. Kapoor is a drunkard. His wife, Meena, is 20 years younger than him. Rusty feels infatuated with Meena, and she reciprocates the feelings. The two grow quite close. For the first time in his life, Rusty feels elated.

However, his happiness is short-lived as Meena dies in a car accident. Rusty is devastated at the news, and so is Kishen. After this incident, Kishen goes to live with his aunt, and Rusty is left alone. To overcome the grief and start life afresh, Rusty decides to get settled in England. Before leaving for England, Rusty meets Kishen. He learns that Rusty has become a thief while Mr. Kapoor has remarried. He takes it as his responsibility to help Kishen come out of the dark world of crime. However he advises Kishen to lead a respectable life.

I love the Protagonist of the Book

I loved the character of Rusty. His journey took me through a roller coaster of emotions. I felt bad about his condition as a kid. The way Mr. Harrison treats him is heart-wrenching. I loved it when he ran away from Mr. Harrison’s house and experienced freedom. I also liked the equation between Meena and Rusty. However, the demise of Meena and the condition of Rusty towards the end saddened me yet again.

Ruskin Bond – The Famous Writer

Ruskin Bond is an Indian author of British descent. He resides in Mussoorie, India. Has written numerous books. He is known for writing some of the best children’s books. However has received a lot of appreciation for his work. He has been awarded the Sahitya Academy Award for his contribution to literature.

The story of Rusty has touched my heart. I have read this book many times. I love the various phases in Rusty’s life and also how he deals with the various challenges he faces.

Paragraph on Books

Essay on My Favourite Book 600 words – Essay 5

‘my favourite book – the god of small things.

The God of Small Things is one of the best books written by an Indian author. This was the first novel of Arundhati Roy. It won her the Booker Prize for Fiction in the year 1997. It also happens to be one of my favourite books. I love its plot, characters, and theme.

About the Author – Arundhati Roy

Arundhati Roy was born in Shillong, Meghalaya. Rajib Roy’s father was a tea plantation manager, and her mother, Mary Roy, was a women’s rights activist. Her parents divorced when she was two years old. She lived with her mother. They settled in Kerala, which was her mother’s hometown. She has studied architecture. She rose to fame with the release of her debut novel, The God of Small Things which became a best seller. It won her many accolades.

Roy is also a political activist. She has been working on environmental and also human rights issues.

The God of Small Things

The God of Small Things narrates the story of a family living in Kerela in the 1960s. It covers several issues, including the evil caste system and also communism. Is the story of Esthappen and Rahel. It shares the joys and sorrows they experienced during their childhood and how the turn of events during their early life evolved them as individuals.

The story moves to and fro, depicting the events occurring in the life of the twins when they were seven years old and as they turned 31. The story is about a dysfunctional family. The relationship between the characters is quite complicated. It is something that passed from generation to generation. Pappachi, the grandfather of Rahel and also Estha, could not do well professionally, and he takes out all his anger and frustration on his wife. He beats her throughout his life. The life of their kids, Ammu and Chako, also screwed up.

Chacko’s wife Margaret betrays him. She falls for another man and leaves Chacko for him. However, soon after, her lover dies. Chacko and Margaret have a daughter named Sophie, who dies a tragic death. Ammu marries a man named Baba, an incompetent and abusive person. Their marriage also falls apart soon. The two have twins, Rahel and Estha.

The main part of the story begins when Sophie, Rahel, and Estha meet. The twins are seven years old at that time. The plot gets interesting with several twists and turns. Ammu’s affair with a low caste man, Velutha, Sophie’s tragic death, Chacko’s hatred for Ammu, and also all that follows keep the readers hooked. It is sad to read how Estha and Rahel have to part ways. The twins who were so close to each other raised in different places and never get to see others for years. At last, they meet and realize how much they love and need each other.

The communist tension, the stress within the family, social issues, and the complicated relationships all written precisely and in a way that the interest is kept alive until the end.

I love the portrayal of the characters. They are all different from each other and have an interesting stories of their own. I especially love the twins. My heart goes out to them. They had a traumatic childhood because of their abusive father and frustrated mother. Their lives didn’t turn out to be great even as they grew up. Therefore only solace they found was in each other’s company which they realized as they reunited after years.

The novel touched my heart. It made me wonder how the rules made by society almost ruin people’s life. I experienced several feelings such as anger, disgust, joy, and love as I went through this book.

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Frequently Asked Questions on My Favourite Book

What is your favorite children's book.

My favorite children's book is 'Where the Wild Things Are' by Maurice Sendak.

What do you love about books?

I love books because they transport me to different worlds, spark my imagination, and offer knowledge and entertainment.

Why do you enjoy reading a book?

I enjoy reading books because they allow me to escape reality, learn new things, and experience a wide range of emotions.

Which is the most favorite book?

My most favorite book is 'To Kill a Mockingbird' by Harper Lee.

How do I talk about my book?

When talking about my favorite book, I usually mention the author, the plot, and what I found most compelling about it.

What should I say my favorite book is?

You should say your favorite book is one that has had a profound impact on you, whether through its story, characters, or themes.

Which is your favorite story book, and why?

My favorite storybook is 'The Little Prince' by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry because it beautifully explores the complexities of human nature and relationships.

How do I write about my favorite book?

When writing about my favorite book, I describe the plot, characters, and the emotions it evoked in me.

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• Essay on My Favourite Book

My Favourite Book

Books are friends who will never abandon you. This saying rings true for me because books have always been there for me. I like to read books. They have the ability to transport us through worlds without requiring us to leave our current location.  Books have the power to transport people all over the world without them having to leave their homes. My parents and teachers always encouraged me to read when I was younger.  Harry Potter, on the other hand, will always be my favourite book.

J.K. Rowling, one of our generation's most eminent writers, wrote the Harry Potter series. These books depict the wizarding world and its operations. J.K. Rowling has done such a good job of painting a picture of this world that it feels real. Despite the fact that the series consists of seven books, I have a personal favourite.  When I first started reading the book, it immediately piqued my interest. Despite having read all of the previous parts, none of the books piqued my interest as much as this one did. 

The introduction of the other wizard schools is one of the things about this book that most excites me. The Triwizard Tournament concept is one of the most brilliant ideas I've seen in the Harry Potter series. In addition, some of my favourite characters appear in this book. Rowling's description of that character's aura and personality is simply brilliant. Furthermore, it made me a bigger fan of the series.Despite the fact that the books are set in the world of wizards and magic, the Harry Potter series contains many lessons for young people to learn.

For starters, it teaches us the value of friendship. I've read a lot of books, but I've never come across a friendship like Harry, Hermoine, and Ron's. Throughout the books, these three musketeers stayed together and never gave up. It taught me the importance of having a good friend.Furthermore, the Harry Potter series taught me that no one is perfect. Everyone carries both good and evil within them. This aided me in making better decisions and becoming a better person. We see how even the most flawed characters, such as Snape, had goodness within them. Similarly, even the nicest characters, such as Dumbledore, had flaws. This altered my attitude toward people and made me more considerate.

Finally, these books provided me with hope. They taught me what hope is and that there is light at the end of the tunnel. It gave me the courage to hold on to hope even in the darkest of times, just as Harry had done his entire life. These are some of the most important lessons I took away from Harry Potter.In conclusion, while many films have been made based on the books. Nothing beats the essence and uniqueness of the books. The details and inclusiveness of books cannot be replaced by any other form of media. As a result, The Goblet of Fire is still my favourite book.

FAQs on Essay on My Favourite Book

1. Who are the Main Characters of Charlie in the Chocolate Factory?

The pivotal characters in the book are:

Willy Wonka: The enthusiastic owner of a chocolate factory. He is talkative, charming, friendly with quirky ideas. He had a painful childhood.

Charlie Bucket: A selfless, kind-hearted boy who is the second leading character.

Grandpa Joe: An ailing man in his nineties who accompanied Charlie in the chocolate factory.

Augustus Gloop: One of the four antagonists in the book. His mother is very proud of his gluttonous eating habit. He has always been a bully.

Violet Beauregarde: The second antagonist in the book. She is self-centred, rude, and addicted to chewing gum

Veruca Salt: The third antagonist who is demanding, spoiled, and greedy.

Mike Teevee: A bad-tempered young boy who is obsessed with television. He is the fourth antagonist in the book.

2. What Happens After Charlie Wins the Chocolate Factory?

There is a sequel to the book Charlie and the Chocolate factory. It is called Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. The Storyline begins right after where the first novel ends. Here Charlie, with his family, undergoes several incidents, including accidentally landing in the Earth's orbit. Also, an underdose and overdose of Wonka's formula led to surprising results. There was also a spin-off to this sequel. It was named Charlie in the White House. However, the work remained unfinished.

3. Can You Name Some Other Works of the Author of this Novel?

Roald Dahl was a celebrated author for children. Some of his best-known works include George's Marvellous Medicine, Fantastic Mr.Fox, Matilda, The BFG, The Witches, Danny the Champion of the World, and James and the Giant Peach. Many of his books have been adapted into movies, video games, and plays.

Essay on My Favourite Book in English for Children and Students

Reading a book is considered a leisure activity. In actuality, reading as a hobby has a transformative effect on the mind of the reader. Our mind’s horizon extends and the act of reading contributes to both personal and intellectual development. A good book can also allow the reader to escape the world of reality sometimes and also be a reason for developing his critical thinking abilities. Reading as a hobby can lead to an individual discovering his all-time favourite book. A favourite book which might have benefitted him/her in significant ways. So, here we present to you a few sample essays on the topic ‘My Favourite Book’.

150 Words English Essay on My Favourite Book

300 words essay on my favourite book in english, 500 words essay on my favourite book in english.

Essay About My Favourite Book

Reading my favourite book is like a magical journey into a world of exciting places and wonderful characters. I love my favourite book because it taught me the importance of friendship, adventures in life and some important life lessons. The protagonist in the story of my favourite book discovers special abilities while embarking on his journey of self-discovery. I aspire to do the same in my life. The story had lots of twists and turns and the protagonist had to show resilience and courage to sail through. I learnt about courage, loyalty, and friendship from this main character.

After reading my favourite book, my life changed a lot. I started seeing the world with a sense of wonder, and it influenced how I made my life choices. I became wiser at making important decisions in my everyday life. My favourite book and its main character served as an inspiration for me and turned me into someone who is now more open to welcoming life’s challenges and adventures.

My Favourite Book Essay in English for Class 10:

My favourite book is ‘Malgudi Days’ by R. K. Narayan. This literal masterpiece exhibits the simplistic rural life in India. Through the course of the 32 stories, it captures the essence of small-town life, where the ordinary becomes extraordinary through Narayan's keen observations. I find it wonderful that the stories, set against the backdrop of a fictional South Indian town, delve into the lives of its diverse inhabitants, showcasing the beauty found in the mundane.

The book iterates universal themes and is an absolute delight to read. It is like a reservoir of valuable life wisdom. The culture of India exhibited through the stories, and the complex characters with their mundane lives make this book worth reading. As I navigate through its stories, the beauty inherent in ordinary everyday life resonates with me deeply. The author, R. K. Narayan is adept at storytelling and emphasizes the profound lessons that could be learnt through the various characters of the story. The life’s intricacies are depicted through the rural lens and the diverse stories with different characters make it my all-time favourite book to read. Each time, when I want to get lost in the nuances of these beautiful fictional characters, the old societal dynamics, human relationships etc. I read this book.

In the present modern world, which is rapidly changing, my favourite book, ‘Malgudi Days’ serves as a poignant reminder of enduring human experiences which is the result of the simplistic life led by the characters. I believe his book will keep on resonating with its readers across generations. As modern society grapples with the challenges of complex lifestyles and fast-paced living, the narratives in ‘Malgudi Days’ encourage a pause to reflect on the significance of human connections, the value of simplicity, and the importance of embracing the ordinary joys of life.

My Favourite Book Essay Harry Potter:

My all-time favourite book to read is ‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone’ by J. K. Rowling. This book is considered one of the classics and captivates readers from all age groups around the globe. When I first read this enchanting book, I was lost in the intricate magical world of Hogwarts. The book stirs up my imagination and becomes like a timeless gateway into a world of wonder. I also love J. K. Rowling’s distinctive writing style. She weaves the themes of friendship, courage, and the battle between good and evil so effortlessly. My favourite character from the novel is ‘Harry Potter’ who is also the protagonist of the story. Whenever I sit alone to read this book, the transformative journey of Harry Potter gives me false hope of some magical world. I get completely absorbed in the world of wizards and magical creatures. In my opinion, the author has artistically fabricated the world of magic where everything is possible through the means of magical spells.

One of the most prominent themes that runs throughout the course of the book is the theme of friendship. I enjoyed reading about the friendship which is exhibited between Harry, Ron, and Hermione. These three characters share a genuine friendship and the importance of forming genuine connections is emphasized by the author. It is through means of genuine bonds, that we can hope to overcome difficulties in life.

There are several other themes which are highlighted in my favourite book. The theme of courage which is exhibited by my favourite character, ‘Harry’ instils confidence in my mind as well. When Harry fights the three-headed dog to save his friends. I learnt how controlling fear can help us triumph over anything. The book also teaches us that good always wins over evil. The protagonist Harry also has a face-to-face incident with Lord Voldemort who is projected as the lord of darkness and evil. The book traces the complexities of morality and also reiterates the fact that humans always stand on the winning side if they are able to make the right choices and decisions. I often related to this theme mentioned in the book strongly as I get reminded of how worthy it is to have a strong, resilient mind to make the right choices for oneself in everyday life. There is an intricate description of magical landscapes in my favourite book of Harry Potter. The author has elaborated on the rich details of Hogwarts Castle, Diagon Alley and the Forbidden Forest. The humour, mystery, wonder and suspense created throughout the book is enough to captivate the minds of the readers. The witty dialogues and clever wordplay contribute to the overall enjoyment of the book. Whenever I read this book, I instantly get engaged in the unfolding plot even though I have read this book many times. The charm and wit of the main characters can entertain the reader over and over again.

I love reading this book because it has taught me to love magic within the ordinary and to never stop believing in the extraordinary. In my opinion, the book, ‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone’ should be read by people who are deeply interested in learning core human values through the means of a magical world and its fictional characters.

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Nonfiction Books » Essays

Adam gopnik on his favourite essay collections.

In Mid-Air: Points of View from over a Decade by Adam Gopnik

What makes a great essayist? Who had it, who didn’t? And whose work left the biggest mark on the New Yorker ? Longtime writer for the magazine, Adam Gopnik , picks out five masters of the craft

And Even Now by Max Beerbohm

The Common Reader by Virginia Woolf

Essays of E.B. White by E.B. White

A Sad Heart At The Supermarket by Randall Jarrell

Visions Before Midnight by Clive James

1 And Even Now by Max Beerbohm

2 the common reader by virginia woolf, 3 essays of e.b. white by e.b. white, 4 a sad heart at the supermarket by randall jarrell, 5 visions before midnight by clive james.

B efore we get into the books, I wanted to ask you about essays generally. In your introduction to The Best American Essays of 2008 you have a rather nice phrase: “The essay is a classical form for short-winded Romantics.” What do you mean by that?

There are certain kinds of criticism that I think of as essentially essays – Clive James or Randall Jarrell’s criticism, for instance – whereas there are other critics whom I admire just as much – say [William] Empson and [WH] Auden – but whom I don’t think of as essayists. They’re superior literary critics.

Is the distinction to do with the presence of the “I” in their work?

The “I” need not appear in the piece, but it’s always implicit in the essay. Empson and Auden want to win you round to their point of view, Jarrell and James want to make their experience persuasive. Of course, one of the best ways of winning you round to a point of view is to make your experience persuasive, and one of the best ways to make your experience persuasive is to win you round to a point of view!

There are no absolute lines in this. But there does seem to me a real difference between the things Empson – who is an absolutely wonderful writer and an amazing companion – is trying to do in his critical articles and the things Jarrell is trying to do in his. Jarrell conceives of criticism poetically. That is, that it should have some of the surprise and delight of personal revelation: “ I felt this then, and I passed through the prism of a work of writing” rather than “this is a general truth of literature”.

With essayists, we feel we’re reading their first names rather than their honorifics. We’re reading Clive and Virginia and Randall rather than James and Woolf and Jarrell, in a way we never feel we’re reading William and Wystan rather than Empson and Auden.

You have written that the essay has an implicit politics to it, and that the job of the essay is “to drain the melodrama from overwrought debate and replace it with common sense and comedy”.

Did I say that? When you think [of essays] historically, beginning with Montaigne, one of the things Montaigne does – at a time of violent and feverish religious debate – is he makes the case for both and at once, for either and or, for the division within oneself. That there is no pure or certain state which we can be in in our mental lives.

Even someone as seemingly non-political as Max Beerbohm is placed at the intersection of all kinds of political passions – Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw’s socialism, Rudyard Kipling’s imperialism and so on – and he makes fun of them all. That’s one of the things that makes Beerbohm attractive. In a very decorous and mischievous way, he mocks that kind of ideological passion.

You mentioned Beerbohm. Let’s begin with his book And Even Now . You said his approach was to parody and make light of things. He was also a caricaturist. Do you see a link between his illustrations and his essays?

Yes, absolutely. He was a caricaturist with remarkable insight and relatively little malice in his parodies and cartoons. He found the pomposities of over-zealous ideology absurd. He also had a lovely vein of affection. One of my favourite of his picture-books is called Rossetti and H is Circle . It’s basically imaginary pictures of Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelites in their very complicated domestic life. The implicit theme of the whole book is that behind the Pre-Raphaelite dream of the perfect Botticelli nymph and the medieval romantic life is this very funny, furtive domestic life in Chelsea [London]. Constantly referring dream-life back to reality is another way Beerbohm works.

He’s an essayist who isn’t so widely read these days. Why do you think that is?

For me, Beerbohm has an almost dangerously perfect tone – a mixture of benign serenity and quiet intellectual authority that I think is the tone every essayist searches for. It’s not accidental that Beerbohm was influential on the first generation of The New Yorker writers, people like Wolcott Gibbs.

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One of the dangers of that tone, though, is that it can seem unduly complacent or self-satisfied. I suspect that the note of complacency in Beerbohm’s writing is kind of out of kilter with the times. It’s a note that was so hugely popular for 50 or 60 years that I guess it came to seem old-fashioned. If you ever read old collections of light editorials from The  London Times , they all strive for the Beerbohm sound. Inevitably, when a sound gets imitated for too long it becomes a little empty.

Beerbohm is also not a writer of fanatic passion or political certainty. You can’t consult him directly for the quote you might need about the topic of the day. For those reasons, he’s gone a bit out of fashion. But he remains a wonderful writer, and for me the best witness of that period – the end of the Victorian age and the beginning of the modern age.

What do you think he writes best about?

Literature. My favourite of his essays are ones like “A Clergyman”, which is a very close, loving analysis of an obscure passage of [James] Boswell’s The Life of Samuel Johnson . A clergyman, identified in no other way, squeaks out a little objection to something Dr Johnson has said, and Johnson crushes him with his rejoinder. Beerbohm reflects on the lost and hidden life of this clergyman, who made one brief bid for literary immortality and whose name even Boswell couldn’t recall.

Let’s go on to another English essayist, Virginia Woolf . She wrote a great deal of non-fiction. Why does her writing in The Common Reader qualify as essays rather than what they strictly appear to be – reviews or criticism?

Exactly because we read Woolf for her tone – her equanimity, her ability to weave together a detached and usually very severe critical judgement with a tone of ruminative engagement. That’s a tone, as much as Beerbohm’s is in another way, which seems to me particularly enviable.

Is it, along with Beerbohm, a particularly English tone? The next three essayists we’re going to talk about are American or Australian.

I think that’s true. There’s a sense in which both Woolf and Beerbohm come after the age of Victorian literary industry. They both take for granted this common pool of Dickens , [George] Eliot and Trollope – writers of huge industry, enormous achievement and vast social observation – and they both make a quiet case for the miniature, for the perfectly wrought. So there’s a kind of running commentary on Victorian fiction in both of their work.

I also think, without having illusions about the nature of the societies in which they worked, that there is a strong lure of a stable and secure literary society in their work. They both feel themselves to be at home with literature, not out of place in any way. Their tone – unlike certain American essayists – does not give a sense of having an uncertain or anxious relationship to literature.

That sense is certainly something you get from the title essay of Jarrell’s collection.

Next, you have gone with a collection of EB White ’s essays. He is one of the most iconic New Yorker writers.

White, for me, is the great maker of the New Yorker style. Though it seems self-serving for me to say it, I think that style was the next step in the creation of the essay tone. One of the things White does is use a lot of the habits of the American newspaper in his essays. He is a genuinely simple, spare, understated writer. In the presence of White, even writers as inspired as Woolf and Beerbohm suddenly look stuffy and literary. White has an amazing ability, which I still marvel at, to come very close to a faux-naïve simplicity that’s excessive and then pull it back.

I’m just picking up one of his collections. I’m going to open it up at random and look for a sentence that captures White. Here’s one from a piece called “The Trailer Park”:

“Before sitting down to draft a preamble to the constitution of a world federations of democracies uniting free people under one banner, I decided I would mosey over to the trailer park at the edge of town and ask some of the campers whether they favoured any such idea of this union.”

The virtue of White’s kind of writing is to start with something that sounds pompous and editorial and then use a verb like “mosey over” to make it work. He cleans up the prose of the essay. Both Beerbohm and Woolf are belle-lettrist sort of writers and they connect to that leisurely tradition. White is a much more urbane and American writer.

What is the key “if you haven’t read any White, read this essay” essay for you?

Next up is A Sad Heart At The Supermarket . Randall Jarrell is best known as a poet, rather than an essayist. Why are his essays worth reading?

Jarrell, for me, is the absolute master of what I like to think of as “cabaret criticism”. The man has endless wit. I think his novel Pictures From an Institution is the single wittiest book of the last century, even though I’ve read it 10 times and can never recall the story! He’s a very poor storyteller but an amazingly witty writer.

Jarrell is a comedian of a kind. He always finds something not just witty in a literary way but outright funny to say about extremely serious subjects – about Auden, [Robert] Graves, Laura Riding or Wallace Stevens. I admire that ability to turn straight, old-fashioned literary criticism into a constant performance in the best sense – into a form of entertainment in itself. He supplied a new tone of enormous, wonderful excitability. That’s one of the things I love about Jarrell, and one of the things I struggle to infuse my own work with – a sense of excitement and pleasure even in the driest texts. Most of all he’s just a wonderful joker.

Do you have any favourite lines of his?

Again, let me open the book and take a sentence at random. Here’s one. He’s writing about [Walt] Whitman:

“The interesting thing about Whitman’s worst language (for, just as few poets have ever written better, few poets have written worse) is how unusually absurd, how really ingeniously bad, such language is.”

It’s that tone of hyperbolic excitability in the presence of literature, which is a constant antidote to the solemnity and false seriousness of most literary study.

You mention that Jarrell is a model you seek to emulate. But in terms of taste, at least, you’re a very different kind of writer. In the title essay of A Sad Heart at the Supermarket Jarrell is very wary of popular culture, whereas in last week’s New Yorker you compare the Book of Revelations to Transformers. Love of popular culture runs through your work.

That’s very true. I think all the interesting writers of my generation drew the high brow-low brow line in a very different way to Jarrell’s generation. We all came of age – I’m thinking of Louis Menand or Martin Amis or Clive James – when there seemed to be more genuine artistic energy in popular culture, movies and rock music in particular, than there was in high culture. The experience of The Beatles or Fellini or the Godfather films illuminated our understanding of high culture, rather than the other way around. I think that is a true fault line in the history of modern writing – you’re either on one side of it or the other.

Do you think for Jarrell and his contemporaries it was a lack of genuinely great pop culture in their time that put them off? Or was it a generational thing where they couldn’t get on board with the idea that pop culture, even if very good, is something you can consider seriously alongside high culture?

A little of both. Jarrell writes wonderfully about race cars and American football . He was no snob. But as far as I remember he never references jazz – which is a kind of in-between form of pop culture, more culture than pop in lots of ways. You have to remember too that for Jarrell’s generation, the GI generation, they were in the process of recognising and discovering what we now think of as high culture.

My own father was one of that generation. For him, each piece of high culture he achieved, understood, enjoyed – whether it was Bach or Milton – was part of a mountain climbed. We all, in a sense, started too easily – somewhere up on the mountain – because of their work, and therefore had a different view of it.

Do you have a favourite Jarrell essay?

Your last choice is Visions Before Midnight by Clive James. How did you come across his work? He’s well known in Britain, especially for his TV career, but not so much in America.

In 1980, Knopf did an anthology of his essays called First Reactions . In a curious way it was an advantage to read him flat-out as a writer. All of my friends in England read him as an entanglement of personal presence and prose style. I read him simply as prose style, without any knowledge of what his personal presence was like.

What was it you liked about his writing?

He has some of Jarrell’s excitability in the presence of creative energy. He has the ability to bring you into his writing, even when he’s writing about things that are in some ways utterly trivial and often completely forgotten, like British TV of the 1970s. He has a way of turning each of those subjects into a wonderful essay – an exercise in cabaret criticism – about values.

Values, I think, are his real subject. The overriding lesson of his work is that categories – high art, low art, television, theatre – are misleading guides to value. That even runs at a deeper, moral level in James’s work about the larger categories – provincial and metropolitan, for instance. He’s a provincial guy who comes to the city, but his provincial experience is in lots of ways richer than his metropolitan experience. It’s the rejection of categories in place of values that is the Montaigne-like takeaway in all his work.

Did he have an influence on your writing, or were you far enough in your writing career to find him as a friend and ally rather than a mentor figure?

Whereas Jarrell, Beerbohm and White were in different ways direct elements in the long-simmering braise that produced my prose style, for whatever it’s worth, Clive came along when I was already, in some sense, a formed writer.

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But I did learn one very specific thing from his writing. He’s a very linear writer. His essays are always organised around sharp, direct and forward-pushing sentences. Whereas with Virginia Woolf your first response to one of her paragraphs, in the best way, is to read it again. Your first response to a Clive James piece is to keep on reading. I learned a great deal about how to make a piece propulsive from reading him.

And can you pick a favourite Clive James essay?

As with Woolf, the joy is cumulative – it’s the pleasure of reading all of his work. But here’s a good one. It’s a television column from December 3rd 1972 which goes from an argument between the philosophers Isaiah Berlin and Stuart Hampshire, to a documentary on “Bomber” Harris and the morality of area bombing, to a production of Oedipus Rex , to a new David Mercer play. In the midst of it, this comes up:

“Why, then, with all this talent [in the production of Oedipus], including a sumptuous lighting design that covers the décor with spiced gloom, does the production have so little sting? The answer, I think, is that there’s not much point in trying to supply a binding image to a play whose author was so intent on leaving imagery out. It’s difficult to think of Sophocles looking with favour on any attempt to pin his universalised theme to mere political instability.”

That’s a deep and original thought, perfectly expressed, which rises out of the normal eddies of TV journalism. That combination of range, ease and aphoristic subtlety is what I love in Clive’s work.

March 7, 2012

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©Brigitte Lacombe

Adam Gopnik

Adam Gopnik has been a staff writer at the New Yorker since 1986. His many books include A Thousand Small Sanities: The Moral Adventure of Liberalism . He is a three time winner of the National Magazine Award for Essays & Criticism, and in 2021 was made a chevalier of the Legion d'Honneur by the French Republic.

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