essay about the books

Essay on Books for Students and Children

500 Words Essay on Books

Books are referred to as a man’s best friend . They are very beneficial for mankind and have helped it evolve. There is a powerhouse of information and knowledge. Books offer us so many things without asking for anything in return. Books leave a deep impact on us and are responsible for uplifting our mood.

This is why we suggest children read books from an early age to gain knowledge. The best part about books is that there are various types of books. One can read any type to gain different types of knowledge. Reading must be done by people of all ages. It not only widens our thinking but also enhances our vocabulary.

Different Genres of Books

There are different genres of books available for book readers. Every day, thousands of books are released in the market ranging from travel books to fictional books. We can pick any book of our interest to expand our knowledge and enjoy the reading experience.

Firstly, we have travel books, which tell us about the experience of various travelers. They introduce us to different places in the world without moving from our place. It gives us traveling tips which we can use in the future. Then, we have history books which state historical events. They teach about the eras and how people lived in times gone by.

Furthermore, we have technology books that teach us about technological developments and different equipment. You can also read fashion and lifestyle books to get up to date with the latest trends in the fashion industry.

Most importantly, there are self-help books and motivational books . These books help in the personality development of an individual. They inspire us to do well in life and also bring a positive change in ourselves. Finally, we have fictional books. They are based on the writer’s imagination and help us in enhancing our imagination too. They are very entertaining and keep us intrigued until the very end.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Benefits of Reading Books

There are not one but various advantages of reading books. To begin with, it improves our knowledge on a variety of subjects. Moreover, it makes us wiser. When we learn different things, we learn to deal with them differently too. Similarly, books also keep us entertained. They kill our boredom and give us great company when we are alone.

Furthermore, books help us to recognize our areas of interest. They also determine our career choice to a great extent. Most importantly, books improve our vocabulary . We learn new words from it and that widens our vocabulary. In addition, books boost our creativity. They help us discover a completely new side.

In other words, books make us more fluent in languages. They enhance our writing skills too. Plus, we become more confident after the knowledge of books. They help us in debating, public speaking , quizzes and more.

In short, books give us a newer perspective and gives us a deeper understanding of things. It impacts our personality positively as well. Thus, we see how books provide us with so many benefits. We should encourage everyone to read more books and useless phones.

FAQs on Books

Q.1 State the different genres of books.

A.1 Books come in different genres. Some of them are travel books, history books, technology books, fashion and lifestyle books, self-help books, motivational books, and fictional books.

Q.2 Why are books important?

A.2 Books are of great importance to mankind. They enhance our knowledge and vocabulary. They keep us entertained and also widen our perspective. This, in turn, makes us more confident and wise.

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Essays About Books: Top 5 Examples and Writing Prompts

Books open portals to new worlds and display new knowledge inspired from the old to the new. Here are some published essays about books and prompts you can use.

Books are a way for the past to teach the present and preserve the present for the future. Books come in all shapes and sizes. In addition, technology has improved the way books can be accessed with eBooks and audiobooks that are more accessible and hassle-free to use. 

No matter what genre, a book aids its readers in gaining valuable knowledge, improving vocabulary, and many more. Following are 5 essays with books as their subject:

1. Why Are Books So Important in Our Life by Ankita Yadav

2. essay on books for students by kanak mishra, 3. listening to books by maggie gram, 4. short essay on books and reading by sastry, 5. long essay on books by ram, 1. do we still need libraries, 2. the names an author gives to their characters, 3. do you read or write, 4. your favorite book, 5. books and inspirations, 6. the book cover, 7. paper books vs. digital copies, 8. why read the book you hate, 9. the book is better than the movie.

“Books are the best companions in our life. They never leave us alone and are like our best friends.”

For Yadav, a book is someone’s best friend, guide, all-time teacher, and keeper of various information. The essay talks about how reading a physical book is better than watching movies or using modern technologies for entertainment and learning purposes. The author also believes that autobiography books of great people inspire students and motivate them to work hard to achieve their goals in life.

“Though the technology has so much changed that we can take information about anything through internet… importance of books has not decreased…”

The writer describes books as the best option for self-learners. They don’t only note an issue, topic, or story but also put effort and emotions into their writing. Next, she discusses the types of books and their subcategories. Finally, she gives tips about finding a good book to read.

“The possibility of reading while also doing something else produces one of the stranger phenomenological characteristics of audio book reading: you can have a whole set of unrelated and real (if only partially attended) experiences while simultaneously experiencing a book.”

Gram’s primary focus in this essay is audiobooks, discussing their history and how audiobooks started. She also mentions how audiobooks help blind people who find it challenging to read braille books. The author also compares physical books and audiobooks to help the reader choose better for a long drive, house cleaning, or simply doing anything other than reading. 

“Books are standing counsellors and preachers, always at hand and always neutral.”

Sastry considers novels the best option when one is tired and looking for healthy recreational activity. Still, the author didn’t forget the fact that reading history, science, religion, and other more “serious” books can also bring gratification to their readers. Books offer unlimited benefits if well used, but not when abused, and as the writer said, “no book can be good if studied negligently.”

“Books are important because they provide a few things that are key to an open and intelligent society.”

The essay is best to be read by students from classes 7 to 10, as it gives the simplest explanation of why it is vital to read a book during their spare time or extended holidays. Ram says people get inspired and receive life lessons by reading books. Reading classic and newer books with lots of words of wisdom and new ideas are better than wasting time and learning nothing.

Are you looking for writing applications to help you improve your essay? See the seven best essay writing apps to use.

Top 10 Writing Prompts on Essays About Books

Writing essays about books can be easy as many subtopics exist. However, it can also be challenging to pick a specific subcategory. To help you narrow it down, here are ten easy writing prompts that you can use.

Libraries help many people – from bibliophiles to job seekers and students. They offer free access to books, newspapers, and computers. But with modern devices making it easier to get information, are libraries still needed? Use this prompt to discuss the importance of libraries and the consequences if all of them close down.

Some authors like to give their characters very unusual names, such as “America Singer” from the book The Selection by Keira Cass. Do you think characters having strange names take away the reader’s attention to the plot? Does it make the book more interesting or odd? Suppose you are writing a story; how do you name the characters and why?

They say writers need readers and vice versa, but which role do you find more challenging? Is writing harder than finding the best book, story, and poetry to read? 

Use this prompt to describe their roles and explain how readers and writers hold each other up.

There is always a unique book that one will never forget. What is your favorite book of all time, and why? Write an essay about why you consider that book your favorite. You can also persuade others to try to read it. 

If you have more than one preference, describe them and tell the readers why you can’t choose between your favorite books. Check out these essays about literature .

Authors inspiring their readers to try something new by reading their book are not always intentional but usually happens. Have you ever experienced wanting to move to a new place or change career paths after reading something? 

Use this prompt to share your experience and opinion on readers who make significant life changes because books and characters influence them in a story.

Have you ever gone to a book shop to find a book recommended to you but didn’t buy or read it because of the cover? They said never judge a book by its cover. In this prompt, you can.

Share what you think the book is all about based on its cover. Then, make a follow-up writing if you were right or wrong after reading the book’s contents.

Studies confirmed more benefits to reading physical books than digital books, such as retaining information longer if read from a printed copy. Are you more of a traditional or modern reader? Use this prompt to explain your answer and briefly discuss the pros and cons of each type of book in your opinion.

Are you ever tasked to read a book you don’t like? Share your experience and tell the reader if you finished the book, learned anything from it, and what it feels like to force yourself to read a book you hate. You can also add if you come to like it in the end.

J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter is undisputedly one of the most popular books turned into movies. However, avid readers consider books better than movies because they can echo the main protagonist’s thoughts.

Do you have a favorite book adapted into a film? Did you like it? Write about what makes the movie version better or underwhelming. You can also include why movies are more limited than books. 

Do you still feel like there is something wrong with your essay? Here is a guide about grammar and punctuation to help you.

If you still need help, our guide to grammar and syntax explains more.

Maria Caballero is a freelance writer who has been writing since high school. She believes that to be a writer doesn't only refer to excellent syntax and semantics but also knowing how to weave words together to communicate to any reader effectively.

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Importance Of Books Essay in English - 100, 200, 500 Words

• Essay on Importance of Books

Books play a vital role in our lives. They are an infinite source of knowledge, entertainment, and new ideas, that help to make the reader’s mind sharp, and develop creativity. Reading books can also stimulate our imagination and creativity faculty of brain. As we read, we are transported to different worlds and experiences, which can spark our own ideas and inspire us to think in new ways. Here are a few sample essays on importance of books .

100 Words Essay on Importance of Books

200 words essay on importance of books, 500 words essay on importance of books.

Books are a really an important part of everyone’s life in some way or the other. Books have a high significance in our lives because they provide knowledge, information, and entertainment to the reader. They can broaden our horizons and deepen our understanding of the world around us. Books can also help us develop our critical thinking skills by exposing us to different ideas and perspectives. Additionally, books can help us escape from the stresses of everyday life and provide us with a temporary relief from our daily routine. Overall, books are a valuable resource that can enrich our lives in countless ways.

Books are an essential part of our lives. They provide us with knowledge, entertainment, and the opportunity to escape from the stresses of everyday life. Books can open up new worlds and experiences, and allow us to learn about different cultures and perspectives. They can also help us to develop our critical thinking skills and broaden our understanding of the world around us.

Books have the power to inspire and motivate us, and can provide us with the tools and knowledge we need to overcome challenges and achieve our goals. They can also serve as a source of comfort and solace, providing us with a sense of connection and understanding during difficult times. Additionally, books are an important tool for preserving knowledge and history. They allow us to learn from the past and gain insight into the experiences and thoughts of those who came before us. This can help us to better understand our own place in the world and the challenges and opportunities that we face.

In short, books play a vital role in our lives. They provide us with knowledge, entertainment, and the opportunity to expand our minds and explore new ideas. They are a valuable resource that we should continue to cherish and support.

Books are an invaluable part of our lives. They are the inevitable tool for knowledge, and entertainment and have been proven to be stress relievers. Books can help us experience new worlds, explore deep insights into the world and help us form a wider perspective. Books have the power to inspire and motivate us, and can provide us with the tools and knowledge we need to overcome challenges and achieve our goals . For example, a biography of a successful person can inspire us to pursue our dreams and work towards our goals. A self-help book can provide us with the tools and strategies we need to overcome a personal challenge or improve an aspect of our lives.

Books are a powerful tool for preserving knowledge and history. They allow us to learn from the past and gain insight into the experiences and thoughts of those who came before us. This can help us to better understand our own place in the world and the challenges and opportunities that we face. Books can also serve as a source of comfort and solace, providing us with a sense of connection and understanding during difficult times.

How the book “The Alchemist” helped me

One of the books that have had a profound impact on my life is ' The Alchemist' by Paulo Coelho . I first read this book when I was going through a difficult time in my life, feeling lost and unsure of my direction. The story of the main character, Santiago, who embarks on a journey to find his "Personal Legend," resonated with me deeply.

As I read the book, I was struck by the idea that each of us has a unique purpose in life, and that it is up to us to pursue it with determination and passion. The book also emphasized the importance of following our hearts and listening to our inner guidance, even when it goes against the norms and expectations of society. The message of ' The Alchemist' gave me the courage and inspiration to follow my own dreams and pursue my own ' Personal Legend' . It also helped me to let go of my fears and doubts, and trust in the power of the universe to support me on my journey

In short, "The Alchemist" has been a guiding light in my life, providing me with wisdom, guidance, and motivation to pursue my dreams. It is a book that I have re-read many times, and one that I will continue to turn to whenever I need guidance and inspiration.

In conclusion, books are an essential part of our lives in one way or the other. They provide us with knowledge, entertainment, and the opportunity to expand our minds and explore new ideas. They are a valuable resource that we should continue to cherish and support. Whether we are reading for personal growth, to learn about the world, or to escape from the stresses of everyday life, books have the power to enrich and enhance our lives in countless ways.

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Welding Engineer Job Description: A Welding Engineer work involves managing welding projects and supervising welding teams. He or she is responsible for reviewing welding procedures, processes and documentation. A career as Welding Engineer involves conducting failure analyses and causes on welding issues. 

Transportation Planner

A career as Transportation Planner requires technical application of science and technology in engineering, particularly the concepts, equipment and technologies involved in the production of products and services. In fields like land use, infrastructure review, ecological standards and street design, he or she considers issues of health, environment and performance. A Transportation Planner assigns resources for implementing and designing programmes. He or she is responsible for assessing needs, preparing plans and forecasts and compliance with regulations.

Environmental Engineer

Individuals who opt for a career as an environmental engineer are construction professionals who utilise the skills and knowledge of biology, soil science, chemistry and the concept of engineering to design and develop projects that serve as solutions to various environmental problems. 

Safety Manager

A Safety Manager is a professional responsible for employee’s safety at work. He or she plans, implements and oversees the company’s employee safety. A Safety Manager ensures compliance and adherence to Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) guidelines.

Conservation Architect

A Conservation Architect is a professional responsible for conserving and restoring buildings or monuments having a historic value. He or she applies techniques to document and stabilise the object’s state without any further damage. A Conservation Architect restores the monuments and heritage buildings to bring them back to their original state.

Structural Engineer

A Structural Engineer designs buildings, bridges, and other related structures. He or she analyzes the structures and makes sure the structures are strong enough to be used by the people. A career as a Structural Engineer requires working in the construction process. It comes under the civil engineering discipline. A Structure Engineer creates structural models with the help of computer-aided design software. 

Highway Engineer

Highway Engineer Job Description:  A Highway Engineer is a civil engineer who specialises in planning and building thousands of miles of roads that support connectivity and allow transportation across the country. He or she ensures that traffic management schemes are effectively planned concerning economic sustainability and successful implementation.

Field Surveyor

Are you searching for a Field Surveyor Job Description? A Field Surveyor is a professional responsible for conducting field surveys for various places or geographical conditions. He or she collects the required data and information as per the instructions given by senior officials. 

Orthotist and Prosthetist

Orthotists and Prosthetists are professionals who provide aid to patients with disabilities. They fix them to artificial limbs (prosthetics) and help them to regain stability. There are times when people lose their limbs in an accident. In some other occasions, they are born without a limb or orthopaedic impairment. Orthotists and prosthetists play a crucial role in their lives with fixing them to assistive devices and provide mobility.

Pathologist

A career in pathology in India is filled with several responsibilities as it is a medical branch and affects human lives. The demand for pathologists has been increasing over the past few years as people are getting more aware of different diseases. Not only that, but an increase in population and lifestyle changes have also contributed to the increase in a pathologist’s demand. The pathology careers provide an extremely huge number of opportunities and if you want to be a part of the medical field you can consider being a pathologist. If you want to know more about a career in pathology in India then continue reading this article.

Veterinary Doctor

Speech therapist, gynaecologist.

Gynaecology can be defined as the study of the female body. The job outlook for gynaecology is excellent since there is evergreen demand for one because of their responsibility of dealing with not only women’s health but also fertility and pregnancy issues. Although most women prefer to have a women obstetrician gynaecologist as their doctor, men also explore a career as a gynaecologist and there are ample amounts of male doctors in the field who are gynaecologists and aid women during delivery and childbirth. 

Audiologist

The audiologist career involves audiology professionals who are responsible to treat hearing loss and proactively preventing the relevant damage. Individuals who opt for a career as an audiologist use various testing strategies with the aim to determine if someone has a normal sensitivity to sounds or not. After the identification of hearing loss, a hearing doctor is required to determine which sections of the hearing are affected, to what extent they are affected, and where the wound causing the hearing loss is found. As soon as the hearing loss is identified, the patients are provided with recommendations for interventions and rehabilitation such as hearing aids, cochlear implants, and appropriate medical referrals. While audiology is a branch of science that studies and researches hearing, balance, and related disorders.

An oncologist is a specialised doctor responsible for providing medical care to patients diagnosed with cancer. He or she uses several therapies to control the cancer and its effect on the human body such as chemotherapy, immunotherapy, radiation therapy and biopsy. An oncologist designs a treatment plan based on a pathology report after diagnosing the type of cancer and where it is spreading inside the body.

Are you searching for an ‘Anatomist job description’? An Anatomist is a research professional who applies the laws of biological science to determine the ability of bodies of various living organisms including animals and humans to regenerate the damaged or destroyed organs. If you want to know what does an anatomist do, then read the entire article, where we will answer all your questions.

For an individual who opts for a career as an actor, the primary responsibility is to completely speak to the character he or she is playing and to persuade the crowd that the character is genuine by connecting with them and bringing them into the story. This applies to significant roles and littler parts, as all roles join to make an effective creation. Here in this article, we will discuss how to become an actor in India, actor exams, actor salary in India, and actor jobs. 

Individuals who opt for a career as acrobats create and direct original routines for themselves, in addition to developing interpretations of existing routines. The work of circus acrobats can be seen in a variety of performance settings, including circus, reality shows, sports events like the Olympics, movies and commercials. Individuals who opt for a career as acrobats must be prepared to face rejections and intermittent periods of work. The creativity of acrobats may extend to other aspects of the performance. For example, acrobats in the circus may work with gym trainers, celebrities or collaborate with other professionals to enhance such performance elements as costume and or maybe at the teaching end of the career.

Video Game Designer

Career as a video game designer is filled with excitement as well as responsibilities. A video game designer is someone who is involved in the process of creating a game from day one. He or she is responsible for fulfilling duties like designing the character of the game, the several levels involved, plot, art and similar other elements. Individuals who opt for a career as a video game designer may also write the codes for the game using different programming languages.

Depending on the video game designer job description and experience they may also have to lead a team and do the early testing of the game in order to suggest changes and find loopholes.

Radio Jockey

Radio Jockey is an exciting, promising career and a great challenge for music lovers. If you are really interested in a career as radio jockey, then it is very important for an RJ to have an automatic, fun, and friendly personality. If you want to get a job done in this field, a strong command of the language and a good voice are always good things. Apart from this, in order to be a good radio jockey, you will also listen to good radio jockeys so that you can understand their style and later make your own by practicing.

A career as radio jockey has a lot to offer to deserving candidates. If you want to know more about a career as radio jockey, and how to become a radio jockey then continue reading the article.

Choreographer

The word “choreography" actually comes from Greek words that mean “dance writing." Individuals who opt for a career as a choreographer create and direct original dances, in addition to developing interpretations of existing dances. A Choreographer dances and utilises his or her creativity in other aspects of dance performance. For example, he or she may work with the music director to select music or collaborate with other famous choreographers to enhance such performance elements as lighting, costume and set design.

Social Media Manager

A career as social media manager involves implementing the company’s or brand’s marketing plan across all social media channels. Social media managers help in building or improving a brand’s or a company’s website traffic, build brand awareness, create and implement marketing and brand strategy. Social media managers are key to important social communication as well.

Photographer

Photography is considered both a science and an art, an artistic means of expression in which the camera replaces the pen. In a career as a photographer, an individual is hired to capture the moments of public and private events, such as press conferences or weddings, or may also work inside a studio, where people go to get their picture clicked. Photography is divided into many streams each generating numerous career opportunities in photography. With the boom in advertising, media, and the fashion industry, photography has emerged as a lucrative and thrilling career option for many Indian youths.

An individual who is pursuing a career as a producer is responsible for managing the business aspects of production. They are involved in each aspect of production from its inception to deception. Famous movie producers review the script, recommend changes and visualise the story. 

They are responsible for overseeing the finance involved in the project and distributing the film for broadcasting on various platforms. A career as a producer is quite fulfilling as well as exhaustive in terms of playing different roles in order for a production to be successful. Famous movie producers are responsible for hiring creative and technical personnel on contract basis.

Copy Writer

In a career as a copywriter, one has to consult with the client and understand the brief well. A career as a copywriter has a lot to offer to deserving candidates. Several new mediums of advertising are opening therefore making it a lucrative career choice. Students can pursue various copywriter courses such as Journalism , Advertising , Marketing Management . Here, we have discussed how to become a freelance copywriter, copywriter career path, how to become a copywriter in India, and copywriting career outlook. 

In a career as a vlogger, one generally works for himself or herself. However, once an individual has gained viewership there are several brands and companies that approach them for paid collaboration. It is one of those fields where an individual can earn well while following his or her passion. 

Ever since internet costs got reduced the viewership for these types of content has increased on a large scale. Therefore, a career as a vlogger has a lot to offer. If you want to know more about the Vlogger eligibility, roles and responsibilities then continue reading the article. 

For publishing books, newspapers, magazines and digital material, editorial and commercial strategies are set by publishers. Individuals in publishing career paths make choices about the markets their businesses will reach and the type of content that their audience will be served. Individuals in book publisher careers collaborate with editorial staff, designers, authors, and freelance contributors who develop and manage the creation of content.

Careers in journalism are filled with excitement as well as responsibilities. One cannot afford to miss out on the details. As it is the small details that provide insights into a story. Depending on those insights a journalist goes about writing a news article. A journalism career can be stressful at times but if you are someone who is passionate about it then it is the right choice for you. If you want to know more about the media field and journalist career then continue reading this article.

Individuals in the editor career path is an unsung hero of the news industry who polishes the language of the news stories provided by stringers, reporters, copywriters and content writers and also news agencies. Individuals who opt for a career as an editor make it more persuasive, concise and clear for readers. In this article, we will discuss the details of the editor's career path such as how to become an editor in India, editor salary in India and editor skills and qualities.

Individuals who opt for a career as a reporter may often be at work on national holidays and festivities. He or she pitches various story ideas and covers news stories in risky situations. Students can pursue a BMC (Bachelor of Mass Communication) , B.M.M. (Bachelor of Mass Media) , or  MAJMC (MA in Journalism and Mass Communication) to become a reporter. While we sit at home reporters travel to locations to collect information that carries a news value.  

Corporate Executive

Are you searching for a Corporate Executive job description? A Corporate Executive role comes with administrative duties. He or she provides support to the leadership of the organisation. A Corporate Executive fulfils the business purpose and ensures its financial stability. In this article, we are going to discuss how to become corporate executive.

Multimedia Specialist

A multimedia specialist is a media professional who creates, audio, videos, graphic image files, computer animations for multimedia applications. He or she is responsible for planning, producing, and maintaining websites and applications. 

Quality Controller

A quality controller plays a crucial role in an organisation. He or she is responsible for performing quality checks on manufactured products. He or she identifies the defects in a product and rejects the product. 

A quality controller records detailed information about products with defects and sends it to the supervisor or plant manager to take necessary actions to improve the production process.

Production Manager

A QA Lead is in charge of the QA Team. The role of QA Lead comes with the responsibility of assessing services and products in order to determine that he or she meets the quality standards. He or she develops, implements and manages test plans. 

Process Development Engineer

The Process Development Engineers design, implement, manufacture, mine, and other production systems using technical knowledge and expertise in the industry. They use computer modeling software to test technologies and machinery. An individual who is opting career as Process Development Engineer is responsible for developing cost-effective and efficient processes. They also monitor the production process and ensure it functions smoothly and efficiently.

AWS Solution Architect

An AWS Solution Architect is someone who specializes in developing and implementing cloud computing systems. He or she has a good understanding of the various aspects of cloud computing and can confidently deploy and manage their systems. He or she troubleshoots the issues and evaluates the risk from the third party. 

Azure Administrator

An Azure Administrator is a professional responsible for implementing, monitoring, and maintaining Azure Solutions. He or she manages cloud infrastructure service instances and various cloud servers as well as sets up public and private cloud systems. 

Computer Programmer

Careers in computer programming primarily refer to the systematic act of writing code and moreover include wider computer science areas. The word 'programmer' or 'coder' has entered into practice with the growing number of newly self-taught tech enthusiasts. Computer programming careers involve the use of designs created by software developers and engineers and transforming them into commands that can be implemented by computers. These commands result in regular usage of social media sites, word-processing applications and browsers.

Information Security Manager

Individuals in the information security manager career path involves in overseeing and controlling all aspects of computer security. The IT security manager job description includes planning and carrying out security measures to protect the business data and information from corruption, theft, unauthorised access, and deliberate attack 

ITSM Manager

Automation test engineer.

An Automation Test Engineer job involves executing automated test scripts. He or she identifies the project’s problems and troubleshoots them. The role involves documenting the defect using management tools. He or she works with the application team in order to resolve any issues arising during the testing process. 

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• Books Essay

Essay on Books

Books are an important resource for many people who have a keen interest in gaining knowledge on a variety of subjects. There are certain bibliophile‘s who love the smell of old books. They find that the smell of an old book is similar to that of dust and they can smell a whole lot of culture and history in those pages. There is a word in the dictionary for loving the smell of old books and that is - Bibliosmia. Books are meant to get a quick escape from ourselves and our surroundings which might feel troublesome at times. Books help in enriching the brain with various kinds of information and it imparts the kind of knowledge that becomes useful in our day to day lives. 

Reading extensively makes a person an intellectual, it enables him/her to view society and the things happening within the society in an intellectual manner. People who read books have an excellent character and other people find them attractive and easy to talk to as they can talk about any topic given the situation and circumstances. Reading books helps in the overall development of the brain as well as the character.

History of Books

Books introduce us to a world of wisdom and knowledge. Nowadays knowledge can be gained from anywhere as books have gone through years of evolution. The first book that was ever printed was the Gutenberg bible, it was printed in 1455. In primitive times, men learned how to read and write, they saw the need for writing which helped them to record transactions, send messages to their loved ones who lived afar, they made certain discoveries and wrote about them on various manuscripts. 

Manuscripts are the most ancient form of paper that was used to write important information, it was made of the papyrus plant. They were introduced in Egypt and many kings and queens hired writers to write about their glorious Egyptian empires and about the wars that they had won. These manuscripts also contain information about various transactions that were made in the court and this depicts their trading lifestyle, Egyptian economy and their religion, after doing analysis we can find that Egyptians were very similar to Roman beliefs. All the little information that we know today about ancient times is because of these manuscripts, they are the only source for knowing our past closely. 

Then came the 1900s when people started hand stitching books, this process made the books extremely expensive to purchase. In the 1930s some publishers like the Penguin publishers started to glue their books together which helped in reducing the cost of production, which then made the books affordable for everybody. 

Now as we are moving towards a digitalised era, we can now download any book that we want to read through the Internet, the books are available in PDF and other various versions, With the coming up of Kindle, people started reading books on the Kindle tablet, enabling readers to reach a wide range of genres all while sitting at the comfort of their home. Books occupy a significant meaning in our lives and people should share their books with others or the information that they gathered while reading a particular book as such knowledge can become an inspiration for others and they might start reading as well.

More About Books

If one has enough books, then the person can never be friendless. Books are one of the biggest friends that one can ever ask for. It has helped to evolve mankind since time immemorial. Books which are good in subject matter and quality can be a storehouse of wisdom and information. They enrich our hearts and souls. Some books can leave a permanent mark in our lives. Yet, they are unbelievably inexpensive. So, everyone can afford at least some good books. Those who cannot afford too many books can always visit the library.

Starting Early

My parents have always encouraged me to read books ever since I learnt to read. There are books to suit readers of all age groups. Also, there are books on various subjects. No matter what interests you, there is going to be a book in that subject. So, once we pick a book that interests us, we can get hours with it.

Advantages of Reading Books

A regular reader can enhance his or her knowledge on an array of subjects. It helps us to learn a lot of new things about the subjects that interest us. And it is a fun way to explore a new world in a fun way. So learning with entertainment is a perk of reading regularly. They can be a very powerful answer to boredom. Whenever I am alone, a book can be the only companion that we might be needing.

Moreover, the fact that different books deal with different subjects has an advantage. It allows us to explore different subject matters. It can help to identify our different aspects of interest. Our choice of books can also go a long way to decide on our career in the future.

Another important benefit of reading books is that it helps to improve our word power. We can read the works of different authors. This will make us come across different new words. By learning new words, we can nurture our vocabulary. When we use the newly learned works in day to day conversation, people do appreciate that. Also, it helps to improve our writing skills, as well.

With new words and new expressions empowering us, we can also participate in the debates, public speaking competitors, and the quiz sessions with more confidence than ever.

Different Types of Books

There seems to be a book for almost every subject under the sky. There are creations of literature, as well as academic books and travelogues. There are books on historical events, mythology, cookery, mechanics, astronomy, astrology, fashion, and whatnot. Though I love reading different genres of books, I have my own selection and favourites. Here's a lowdown on the different genres of books that I find interesting.

Folklore: Almost every country in the world has its bounty of rich folklore. They are evidence of the heritage of a country. Folklores are all about songs from the bygone days, ballads dedicated to the ancient kings, queens, princes and princesses, legends, myths, and traditional tales. In most cases, there is no known author of these folklores.

Fantasies: These are the fascinating takes of an imaginative world. Often, fantasies come with references to make-believe places. There are charming stories with beautiful yet imaginary countries in the background. We come across interesting characters and intriguing creatures. But none of them exist in the real world.

Science Fiction: The sci-fi tales are primarily based on real-life scientific facts and principles. Though the plots might be imaginary, the stories often have some true references to what might happen in the future.

Realistic Fiction: These are my favourite set of "what if" novels and stories. This genre comprises imaginary situations that might occur just anytime. The characters seem to be real, as well.

Biography: The themes of biographies revolve around the life of famous people. A biography comes with a person's memoirs, letters, journals, and the like.

FAQs on Books Essay

1. When is World Book Day? What is its Purpose?

The 5th March of every year is celebrated as the international day of books and copyrights. The day is observed to celebrate the works of various authors and books. Also, it aims at encouraging new readers to read more books and discover the joy of studying. Booklovers also try different ways to promote reading as a fun hobby.

2. Which are the Most Read and Printed Books in the World?

After several surveys across the world, it has appeared that the Holy Bible is the most widely read book in the world. In the last 50 years, more than 3.9 million copies of the Bible have been sold. If we consider the translated versions and the Bibles that have been distributed, then the number of prints and sales of this book goes over 6 million! And it is also the most widely read book on this planet.

3. How to Start Our Reading Habit?

Even if you are not much into reading, you can start the habit with some simple steps:

Start reading for at least 5-10 minutes a day.

Carry a book everywhere you go, even if you don't have the time to read outside.

Find a quiet place while reading books.

Regularly visit the old bookstalls. You will be tempted to explore the wonderful world.

Research and make your list of books that you want to read. 

4. Give some pointers to include while writing about an essay on books.

Some pointers that can be included while forming an essay on books are-

It is important to inculcate reading habits at an early age as the knowledge gained as it aids in the overall development of the brain and builds character.

Children who are avid readers can never have difficulty reading academic textbooks as opposed to children who don’t read on a daily basis.

Children should read books that are advised by their elders or teachers as they can help you get a good experience at reading and gaining knowledge.

Books never run out of trends, one of the best ways to get a good experience at book reading is to read classics written by great writers such as – Animal Farm by Arthur Blair, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, jane eyre by charlotte Bronte, little women by Louisa May Alcott.

5. Where can I find an essay on books?

Essays on books can be easily accessed by visiting Vedantu's website . This website provides essays on various topics so that students can get a hint on how to form their essays and what important points they can include. After reading a wide range of essays given on Vedantu's website, students will be able to construct their own essays in a much easier and efficient manner. Students can find relatable pointers and can get a good look at effective essay writing techniques.

6. List some advantages of reading books.

Reading books makes a person wiser, it is a journey from the unknown to the known.

Most importantly it increases the vocabulary. A good vocabulary is key to having a good conversation. A good vocabulary can also fetch you good marks in academics and help you get ahead of everyone.

Reading books helps to increase fluency in any language. Students who are learning a foreign language should read books written In that particular language to get a good grasp of it.

7. What are the different types of books?

The different types of books are as follows- folklore, fantasies, science fiction, realistic fiction, biography etc.

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• Knowledge Base
• How to write a literary analysis essay | A step-by-step guide

How to Write a Literary Analysis Essay | A Step-by-Step Guide

Published on January 30, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on August 14, 2023.

Literary analysis means closely studying a text, interpreting its meanings, and exploring why the author made certain choices. It can be applied to novels, short stories, plays, poems, or any other form of literary writing.

A literary analysis essay is not a rhetorical analysis , nor is it just a summary of the plot or a book review. Instead, it is a type of argumentative essay where you need to analyze elements such as the language, perspective, and structure of the text, and explain how the author uses literary devices to create effects and convey ideas.

Before beginning a literary analysis essay, it’s essential to carefully read the text and c ome up with a thesis statement to keep your essay focused. As you write, follow the standard structure of an academic essay :

• An introduction that tells the reader what your essay will focus on.
• A main body, divided into paragraphs , that builds an argument using evidence from the text.
• A conclusion that clearly states the main point that you have shown with your analysis.

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Table of contents

Step 1: reading the text and identifying literary devices, step 2: coming up with a thesis, step 3: writing a title and introduction, step 4: writing the body of the essay, step 5: writing a conclusion, other interesting articles.

The first step is to carefully read the text(s) and take initial notes. As you read, pay attention to the things that are most intriguing, surprising, or even confusing in the writing—these are things you can dig into in your analysis.

Your goal in literary analysis is not simply to explain the events described in the text, but to analyze the writing itself and discuss how the text works on a deeper level. Primarily, you’re looking out for literary devices —textual elements that writers use to convey meaning and create effects. If you’re comparing and contrasting multiple texts, you can also look for connections between different texts.

To get started with your analysis, there are several key areas that you can focus on. As you analyze each aspect of the text, try to think about how they all relate to each other. You can use highlights or notes to keep track of important passages and quotes.

Language choices

Consider what style of language the author uses. Are the sentences short and simple or more complex and poetic?

What word choices stand out as interesting or unusual? Are words used figuratively to mean something other than their literal definition? Figurative language includes things like metaphor (e.g. “her eyes were oceans”) and simile (e.g. “her eyes were like oceans”).

Also keep an eye out for imagery in the text—recurring images that create a certain atmosphere or symbolize something important. Remember that language is used in literary texts to say more than it means on the surface.

Narrative voice

Ask yourself:

• Who is telling the story?
• How are they telling it?

Is it a first-person narrator (“I”) who is personally involved in the story, or a third-person narrator who tells us about the characters from a distance?

Consider the narrator’s perspective . Is the narrator omniscient (where they know everything about all the characters and events), or do they only have partial knowledge? Are they an unreliable narrator who we are not supposed to take at face value? Authors often hint that their narrator might be giving us a distorted or dishonest version of events.

The tone of the text is also worth considering. Is the story intended to be comic, tragic, or something else? Are usually serious topics treated as funny, or vice versa ? Is the story realistic or fantastical (or somewhere in between)?

Consider how the text is structured, and how the structure relates to the story being told.

• Novels are often divided into chapters and parts.
• Poems are divided into lines, stanzas, and sometime cantos.
• Plays are divided into scenes and acts.

Think about why the author chose to divide the different parts of the text in the way they did.

There are also less formal structural elements to take into account. Does the story unfold in chronological order, or does it jump back and forth in time? Does it begin in medias res —in the middle of the action? Does the plot advance towards a clearly defined climax?

With poetry, consider how the rhyme and meter shape your understanding of the text and your impression of the tone. Try reading the poem aloud to get a sense of this.

In a play, you might consider how relationships between characters are built up through different scenes, and how the setting relates to the action. Watch out for  dramatic irony , where the audience knows some detail that the characters don’t, creating a double meaning in their words, thoughts, or actions.

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Your thesis in a literary analysis essay is the point you want to make about the text. It’s the core argument that gives your essay direction and prevents it from just being a collection of random observations about a text.

If you’re given a prompt for your essay, your thesis must answer or relate to the prompt. For example:

Essay question example

Is Franz Kafka’s “Before the Law” a religious parable?

Your thesis statement should be an answer to this question—not a simple yes or no, but a statement of why this is or isn’t the case:

Thesis statement example

Franz Kafka’s “Before the Law” is not a religious parable, but a story about bureaucratic alienation.

Sometimes you’ll be given freedom to choose your own topic; in this case, you’ll have to come up with an original thesis. Consider what stood out to you in the text; ask yourself questions about the elements that interested you, and consider how you might answer them.

Your thesis should be something arguable—that is, something that you think is true about the text, but which is not a simple matter of fact. It must be complex enough to develop through evidence and arguments across the course of your essay.

Say you’re analyzing the novel Frankenstein . You could start by asking yourself:

Your initial answer might be a surface-level description:

The character Frankenstein is portrayed negatively in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein .

However, this statement is too simple to be an interesting thesis. After reading the text and analyzing its narrative voice and structure, you can develop the answer into a more nuanced and arguable thesis statement:

Mary Shelley uses shifting narrative perspectives to portray Frankenstein in an increasingly negative light as the novel goes on. While he initially appears to be a naive but sympathetic idealist, after the creature’s narrative Frankenstein begins to resemble—even in his own telling—the thoughtlessly cruel figure the creature represents him as.

Remember that you can revise your thesis statement throughout the writing process , so it doesn’t need to be perfectly formulated at this stage. The aim is to keep you focused as you analyze the text.

Finding textual evidence

To support your thesis statement, your essay will build an argument using textual evidence —specific parts of the text that demonstrate your point. This evidence is quoted and analyzed throughout your essay to explain your argument to the reader.

It can be useful to comb through the text in search of relevant quotations before you start writing. You might not end up using everything you find, and you may have to return to the text for more evidence as you write, but collecting textual evidence from the beginning will help you to structure your arguments and assess whether they’re convincing.

To start your literary analysis paper, you’ll need two things: a good title, and an introduction.

Your title should clearly indicate what your analysis will focus on. It usually contains the name of the author and text(s) you’re analyzing. Keep it as concise and engaging as possible.

A common approach to the title is to use a relevant quote from the text, followed by a colon and then the rest of your title.

If you struggle to come up with a good title at first, don’t worry—this will be easier once you’ve begun writing the essay and have a better sense of your arguments.

“Fearful symmetry” : The violence of creation in William Blake’s “The Tyger”

The introduction

The essay introduction provides a quick overview of where your argument is going. It should include your thesis statement and a summary of the essay’s structure.

A typical structure for an introduction is to begin with a general statement about the text and author, using this to lead into your thesis statement. You might refer to a commonly held idea about the text and show how your thesis will contradict it, or zoom in on a particular device you intend to focus on.

Then you can end with a brief indication of what’s coming up in the main body of the essay. This is called signposting. It will be more elaborate in longer essays, but in a short five-paragraph essay structure, it shouldn’t be more than one sentence.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is often read as a crude cautionary tale about the dangers of scientific advancement unrestrained by ethical considerations. In this reading, protagonist Victor Frankenstein is a stable representation of the callous ambition of modern science throughout the novel. This essay, however, argues that far from providing a stable image of the character, Shelley uses shifting narrative perspectives to portray Frankenstein in an increasingly negative light as the novel goes on. While he initially appears to be a naive but sympathetic idealist, after the creature’s narrative Frankenstein begins to resemble—even in his own telling—the thoughtlessly cruel figure the creature represents him as. This essay begins by exploring the positive portrayal of Frankenstein in the first volume, then moves on to the creature’s perception of him, and finally discusses the third volume’s narrative shift toward viewing Frankenstein as the creature views him.

Some students prefer to write the introduction later in the process, and it’s not a bad idea. After all, you’ll have a clearer idea of the overall shape of your arguments once you’ve begun writing them!

If you do write the introduction first, you should still return to it later to make sure it lines up with what you ended up writing, and edit as necessary.

The body of your essay is everything between the introduction and conclusion. It contains your arguments and the textual evidence that supports them.

Paragraph structure

A typical structure for a high school literary analysis essay consists of five paragraphs : the three paragraphs of the body, plus the introduction and conclusion.

Each paragraph in the main body should focus on one topic. In the five-paragraph model, try to divide your argument into three main areas of analysis, all linked to your thesis. Don’t try to include everything you can think of to say about the text—only analysis that drives your argument.

In longer essays, the same principle applies on a broader scale. For example, you might have two or three sections in your main body, each with multiple paragraphs. Within these sections, you still want to begin new paragraphs at logical moments—a turn in the argument or the introduction of a new idea.

Robert’s first encounter with Gil-Martin suggests something of his sinister power. Robert feels “a sort of invisible power that drew me towards him.” He identifies the moment of their meeting as “the beginning of a series of adventures which has puzzled myself, and will puzzle the world when I am no more in it” (p. 89). Gil-Martin’s “invisible power” seems to be at work even at this distance from the moment described; before continuing the story, Robert feels compelled to anticipate at length what readers will make of his narrative after his approaching death. With this interjection, Hogg emphasizes the fatal influence Gil-Martin exercises from his first appearance.

Topic sentences

To keep your points focused, it’s important to use a topic sentence at the beginning of each paragraph.

A good topic sentence allows a reader to see at a glance what the paragraph is about. It can introduce a new line of argument and connect or contrast it with the previous paragraph. Transition words like “however” or “moreover” are useful for creating smooth transitions:

… The story’s focus, therefore, is not upon the divine revelation that may be waiting beyond the door, but upon the mundane process of aging undergone by the man as he waits.

Nevertheless, the “radiance” that appears to stream from the door is typically treated as religious symbolism.

This topic sentence signals that the paragraph will address the question of religious symbolism, while the linking word “nevertheless” points out a contrast with the previous paragraph’s conclusion.

Using textual evidence

A key part of literary analysis is backing up your arguments with relevant evidence from the text. This involves introducing quotes from the text and explaining their significance to your point.

It’s important to contextualize quotes and explain why you’re using them; they should be properly introduced and analyzed, not treated as self-explanatory:

It isn’t always necessary to use a quote. Quoting is useful when you’re discussing the author’s language, but sometimes you’ll have to refer to plot points or structural elements that can’t be captured in a short quote.

In these cases, it’s more appropriate to paraphrase or summarize parts of the text—that is, to describe the relevant part in your own words:

The conclusion of your analysis shouldn’t introduce any new quotations or arguments. Instead, it’s about wrapping up the essay. Here, you summarize your key points and try to emphasize their significance to the reader.

A good way to approach this is to briefly summarize your key arguments, and then stress the conclusion they’ve led you to, highlighting the new perspective your thesis provides on the text as a whole:

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

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By tracing the depiction of Frankenstein through the novel’s three volumes, I have demonstrated how the narrative structure shifts our perception of the character. While the Frankenstein of the first volume is depicted as having innocent intentions, the second and third volumes—first in the creature’s accusatory voice, and then in his own voice—increasingly undermine him, causing him to appear alternately ridiculous and vindictive. Far from the one-dimensional villain he is often taken to be, the character of Frankenstein is compelling because of the dynamic narrative frame in which he is placed. In this frame, Frankenstein’s narrative self-presentation responds to the images of him we see from others’ perspectives. This conclusion sheds new light on the novel, foregrounding Shelley’s unique layering of narrative perspectives and its importance for the depiction of character.

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How to Start an Essay About a Book: A Comprehensive Guide

Starting an essay about a book might seem like an uphill endeavor, but with the right approach, you can create an engaging introduction that sets the tone for your entire paper. Whether you’re a student or an aspiring writer, this guide will provide you with practical insights, creative ideas, and actionable steps on how to start an essay about a book that leaves a lasting impression on your readers.

Introduction: Setting the Stage for Literary Analysis

Writing an essay about a book is an opportunity to delve into the world of literature, explore themes, characters, and narratives, and express your unique perspective. The introduction serves as the gateway to your essay, inviting readers to join you on your literary journey. Let’s explore the art of crafting captivating introductions for essays about books.

Related: Can I Start My College Essay with a Quote? Tips and Insights

How to Start an Essay About a Book

Embarking on the journey of writing an essay about a book requires careful consideration and strategic planning. Here are essential steps to guide you through the process:

1. Understand the Book’s Context and Significance

To create an impactful introduction, begin by understanding the book’s historical context, the author’s background, and the broader significance of the work. This contextual knowledge will help you establish the relevance of the book and its themes to your readers.

2. Choose an Intriguing Angle

Diving into the vast sea of literary elements, select an angle that piques readers’ curiosity. Whether it’s a thematic exploration, character analysis, or a critical review, a unique angle sets the stage for an engaging introduction.

3. Craft a Compelling Thesis Statement

Your thesis statement is the backbone of your essay. It should succinctly convey your main argument and guide your readers on what to expect. A well-crafted thesis statement is both thought-provoking and informative.

4. Open with a Captivating Hook

Draw readers in with a captivating hook that sparks their interest. This could be a thought-provoking question, a surprising fact, a relevant quote, or a vivid description. A compelling hook sets the tone for an engaging essay.

5. Provide Brief Contextual Background

Offer a concise overview of the book’s plot, main characters, and central themes. Provide enough information to orient readers without giving away too much. Leave them curious and eager to explore further.

6. Introduce Your Approach

Outline the approach you’ll take in your essay. Briefly explain the key points you’ll be discussing and the insights you aim to uncover. This gives readers a roadmap for what’s to come.

7. Use LSI Keywords for Depth

Incorporate Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) keywords related to the book and its themes. This not only boosts SEO but also enhances the depth and relevance of your introduction.

8. Incorporate Relevant Quotes

Weave in relevant quotes from the book that supports your thesis. Quotes add credibility and allow readers to connect with the text on a deeper level.

9. Highlight the Book’s Impact

Discuss the book’s impact on literature, society, or culture. Explain why it remains relevant and worth discussing. This shows your awareness of the book’s broader implications.

10. Pose Thought-Provoking Questions

Engage readers by posing thought-provoking questions related to the book’s themes. Encourage them to reflect on their own interpretations and viewpoints.

11. Share Personal Connections

If applicable, share personal anecdotes or connections you have with the book. This personal touch adds authenticity to your introduction.

12. Offer a Glimpse of Analysis

Give readers a glimpse of the analytical journey ahead. Mention the key aspects you’ll delve into and the critical lenses you’ll apply.

13. Address Counterarguments

Acknowledge potential counterarguments or differing interpretations of the book. Demonstrating a balanced perspective strengthens your credibility as an essay writer.

14. Build Anticipation

Create anticipation for the rest of your essay. Tease the insights and revelations readers can expect in the subsequent sections.

15. Power Keywords for Impact

Incorporate power keywords that evoke emotion and create impact. Words like “profound,” “intriguing,” or “riveting” add a dynamic flair to your introduction.

16. Incorporate a Compelling Anecdote

Share a brief and relevant anecdote that relates to the book’s themes. Anecdotes humanize the topic and engage readers on a personal level.

17. Outline Structure and Flow

Provide a brief overview of the essay’s structure and how you’ll navigate through different sections. A clear roadmap enhances readability.

18. Address the Reader Directly

Speak directly to the reader, inviting them to explore the book alongside you. This creates a sense of connection and involvement.

19. Utilize Rich Formatting

Enhance readability by using rich formatting such as bold, italics, and bullet points. These elements visually break up the text and highlight key information.

20. Reference Credible Sources

When discussing the book’s significance or impact, reference credible sources such as literary critics, scholars, or reputable articles. This adds depth to your introduction.

21. Transition to the Main Body

Conclude your introduction with a seamless transition to the main body of the essay. Create a logical bridge that encourages readers to continue reading.

Related: What Brings You Joy College Essay Example

Step-by-Step Guide on How to Start an Essay About a Book

Step 1: Choose the Book

Select a book that you want to write about. Ensure that the book is relevant to your essay’s topic and aligns with your thesis or main argument.

Step 2: Understand the Assignment

Read the essay assignment or prompt carefully. Understand the specific requirements, such as the length, format, and any guidelines provided by your instructor.

Step 3: Read and Analyze the Book

Read the book thoroughly, taking notes on key plot points, characters, themes, and any literary devices used by the author. Analyze the book’s significance and consider why it’s worth writing about.

Step 4: Determine Your Approach

Decide how you want to approach the essay. Will you be analyzing a specific theme, character, or literary technique? Clarify your main focus and identify the key points you want to discuss.

Step 5: Craft Your Thesis Statement

Develop a clear and concise thesis statement that outlines your main argument or purpose for writing the essay. This thesis will guide the direction of your essay.

Step 6: Choose an Engaging Opening Strategy

Now, let’s delve into different strategies for starting your essay about the book:

1. Quotation: Begin with a relevant and impactful quote from the book. Explain its significance and how it relates to the themes you’ll be discussing.

2. Anecdote: Share a short anecdote or personal story that connects to the book’s themes. This can help create an emotional or relatable entry point.

3. Question: Pose a thought-provoking question related to the book’s themes or characters. Invite the reader to think critically about the topic.

4. Contrast: Highlight a sharp contrast between elements in the book or between the book and real-world situations. This can create intrigue and set the stage for your analysis.

5. Shocking Fact: Present a surprising or shocking fact related to the book’s content, themes, or impact. This can capture the reader’s attention immediately.

Step 7: Provide Context

After your engaging opening, briefly introduce the book by mentioning its title, author, and publication date. Provide a concise overview of the book’s plot or central idea.

Step 8: Preview Main Points

Give the reader a preview of the main points you’ll be discussing in the essay. This helps them understand the structure and flow of your analysis.

Step 9: Transition to Your Thesis

Smoothly transition from the introduction to your thesis statement. Explain how the opening strategy you chose connects to your main argument.

Step 10: Revise and Edit

Review your introduction for clarity, coherence, and grammar. Make sure it effectively introduces the book and sets the tone for your essay.

Remember, a well-crafted introduction can captivate your readers and set the stage for a compelling essay. Experiment with different opening strategies to find the one that best suits your writing style and the content of your essay.

FAQs on How to Start an Essay About a Book

How do i choose the right book for my essay.

Select a book that resonates with you personally or aligns with the theme of your course. Consider books that offer rich material for analysis and discussion.

Can I start my essay with a question?

Absolutely! Starting with a thought-provoking question can be an effective way to engage readers and introduce your essay’s central ideas.

What if I haven’t read the entire book?

While it’s ideal to read the entire book, you can still write a compelling essay by focusing on specific sections or chapters that relate to your chosen angle.

Should I provide a detailed summary in the introduction?

Avoid excessive summarization in the introduction. Instead, provide a concise overview that leaves room for an in-depth exploration of the main body.

How can I make my introduction stand out?

Infuse your introduction with your unique voice and perspective. Be creative, bold, and authentic in your approach.

Is it okay to share personal emotions in the introduction?

Sharing personal emotions or connections to the book can add depth to your introduction, but ensure it aligns with the tone and purpose of your essay.

Final Verdict

Crafting the perfect introduction for your essay about a book is an art that requires a combination of creativity, analysis, and strategic thinking. By following these steps and incorporating engaging elements, you can start your essay on a strong note, capturing your reader’s attention and setting the stage for a captivating exploration of literature.

Remember, the introduction is just the beginning of your essay-writing journey. As you delve into the main body, keep the momentum going with insightful analysis, well-supported arguments, and a cohesive structure.

So, go ahead and embark on your literary adventure. Start your essay about a book with confidence, and watch as your words transport readers into the fascinating world of literature.

Related: How Do You Write a Book Title in an Essay

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The Best Reviewed Essay Collections of 2022

Featuring bob dylan, elena ferrante, zora neale hurston, jhumpa lahiri, melissa febos, and more.

We’ve come to the end of another bountiful literary year, and for all of us review rabbits here at Book Marks, that can mean only one thing: basic math, and lots of it.

Yes, using reviews drawn from more than 150 publications, over the next two weeks we’ll be calculating and revealing the most critically-acclaimed books of 2022, in the categories of (deep breath): Fiction ; Nonfiction ; Memoir and Biography ; Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror ; Short Story Collections ; Essay Collections; Poetry; Mystery and Crime ; Graphic Literature ; and Literature in Translation .

Today’s installment: Essay Collections .

Brought to you by Book Marks , Lit Hub’s “Rotten Tomatoes for books.”

1. In the Margins: On the Pleasures of Reading and Writing  by Elena Ferrante (Europa)

12 Rave • 12 Positive • 4 Mixed

“The lucid, well-formed essays that make up In the Margins  are written in an equally captivating voice … Although a slim collection, there is more than enough meat here to nourish both the common reader and the Ferrante aficionado … Every essay here is a blend of deep thought, rigorous analysis and graceful prose. We occasionally get the odd glimpse of the author…but mainly the focus is on the nuts and bolts of writing and Ferrante’s practice of her craft. The essays are at their most rewarding when Ferrante discusses the origins of her books, in particular the celebrated Neapolitan Novels, and the multifaceted heroines that power them … These essays might not bring us any closer to finding out who Ferrante really is. Instead, though, they provide valuable insight into how she developed as a writer and how she works her magic.”

–Malcolm Forbes ( The Star Tribune )

2. Translating Myself and Others by Jhumpa Lahiri (Princeton University Press)

8 Rave • 14 Positive • 1 Mixed

“Lahiri mixes detailed explorations of craft with broader reflections on her own artistic life, as well as the ‘essential aesthetic and political mission’ of translation. She is excellent in all three modes—so excellent, in fact, that I, a translator myself, could barely read this book. I kept putting it aside, compelled by Lahiri’s writing to go sit at my desk and translate … One of Lahiri’s great gifts as an essayist is her ability to braid multiple ways of thinking together, often in startling ways … a reminder, no matter your relationship to translation, of how alive language itself can be. In her essays as in her fiction, Lahiri is a writer of great, quiet elegance; her sentences seem simple even when they’re complex. Their beauty and clarity alone would be enough to wake readers up. ‘Look,’ her essays seem to say: Look how much there is for us to wake up to.”

–Lily Meyer ( NPR )

3. The Philosophy of Modern Song by Bob Dylan (Simon & Schuster)

10 Rave • 15 Positive • 7 Mixed • 4 Pan

“It is filled with songs and hyperbole and views on love and lust even darker than Blood on the Tracks … There are 66 songs discussed here … Only four are by women, which is ridiculous, but he never asked us … Nothing is proved, but everything is experienced—one really weird and brilliant person’s experience, someone who changed the world many times … Part of the pleasure of the book, even exceeding the delectable Chronicles: Volume One , is that you feel liberated from Being Bob Dylan. He’s not telling you what you got wrong about him. The prose is so vivid and fecund, it was useless to underline, because I just would have underlined the whole book. Dylan’s pulpy, noir imagination is not always for the squeamish. If your idea of art is affirmation of acceptable values, Bob Dylan doesn’t need you … The writing here is at turns vivid, hilarious, and will awaken you to songs you thought you knew … The prose brims everywhere you turn. It is almost disturbing. Bob Dylan got his Nobel and all the other accolades, and now he’s doing my job, and he’s so damn good at it.”

–David Yaffe ( AirMail )

4.  Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative by Melissa Febos (Catapult)

13 Rave • 2 Positive • 2 Mixed Read an excerpt from Body Work here

“In her new book, Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative , memoirist Melissa Febos handily recuperates the art of writing the self from some of the most common biases against it: that the memoir is a lesser form than the novel. That trauma narratives should somehow be over—we’ve had our fill … Febos rejects these belittlements with eloquence … In its hybridity, this book formalizes one of Febos’s central tenets within it: that there is no disentangling craft from the personal, just as there is no disentangling the personal from the political. It’s a memoir of a life indelibly changed by literary practice and the rigorous integrity demanded of it …

Febos is an essayist of grace and terrific precision, her sentences meticulously sculpted, her paragraphs shapely and compressed … what’s fresh, of course, is Febos herself, remapping this terrain through her context, her life and writing, her unusual combinations of sources (William H. Gass meets Elissa Washuta, for example), her painstaking exactitude and unflappable sureness—and the new readers she will reach with all of this.”

–Megan Milks ( 4Columns )

5. You Don’t Know Us Negroes by Zora Neale Hurston (Amistad)

12 Rave • 3 Positive • 1 Mixed

“… a dazzling collection of her work … You Don’t Know Us Negroes reveals Hurston at the top of her game as an essayist, cultural critic, anthropologist and beat reporter … Hurston is, by turn, provocative, funny, bawdy, informative and outrageous … Hurston will make you laugh but also make you remember the bitter divide in Black America around performance, language, education and class … But the surprising page turner is at the back of the book, a compilation of Hurston’s coverage of the Ruby McCollom murder trial …

Some of Hurston’s writing is sensationalistic, to be sure, but it’s also a riveting take of gender and race relations at the time … Gates and West have put together a comprehensive collection that lets Hurston shine as a writer, a storyteller and an American iconoclast.”

–Lisa Page ( The Washington Post )

6. Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us by Rachel Aviv (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

11 Rave • 4 Positive • 2 Mixed Listen to an interview with Rachel Aviv here

“… written with an astonishing amount of attention and care … Aviv’s triumphs in relating these journeys are many: her unerring narrative instinct, the breadth of context brought to each story, her meticulous reporting. Chief among these is her empathy, which never gives way to pity or sentimentality. She respects her subjects, and so centers their dignity without indulging in the geeky, condescending tone of fascination that can characterize psychologists’ accounts of their patients’ troubles. Though deeply curious about each subject, Aviv doesn’t treat them as anomalous or strange … Aviv’s daunted respect for uncertainty is what makes Strangers to Ourselves distinctive. She is hyperaware of just how sensitive the scale of the self can be.”

–Charlotte Shane ( Bookforum )

7. A Line in the World: A Year on the North Sea Coast by Dorthe Nors (Graywolf)

11 Rave • 1 Positive Read an excerpt from A Line in the World here

“Nors, known primarily as a fiction writer, here embarks on a languorous and evocative tour of her native Denmark … The dramas of the past are evoked not so much through individual characters as through their traces—buildings, ruins, shipwrecks—and this westerly Denmark is less the land of Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales and sleek Georg Jensen designs than a place of ancient landscapes steeped in myth … People aren’t wholly incidental to the narrative. Nors introduces us to a variety of colorful characters, and shares vivid memories of her family’s time in a cabin on the coast south of Thyborøn. But in a way that recalls the work of Barry Lopez, nature is at the heart of this beautiful book, framed in essay-like chapters, superbly translated by Caroline Waight.”

–Claire Messud ( Harper’s )

8. Raising Raffi: The First Five Years by Keith Gessen (Viking)

4 Rave • 10 Positive • 1 Mixed Read an excerpt from Raising Raffi here

“A wise, mild and enviably lucid book about a chaotic scene … Is it OK to out your kid like this? … Still, this memoir will seem like a better idea if, a few decades from now, Raffi is happy and healthy and can read it aloud to his own kids while chuckling at what a little miscreant he was … Gessen is a wily parser of children’s literature … He is just as good on parenting manuals … Raising Raffi offers glimpses of what it’s like to eke out literary lives at the intersection of the Trump and Biden administrations … Needing money for one’s children, throughout history, has made parents do desperate things — even write revealing parenthood memoirs … Gessen’s short book is absorbing not because it delivers answers … It’s absorbing because Gessen is a calm and observant writer…who raises, and struggles with, the right questions about himself and the world.”

–Dwight Garner ( The New York Times )

9. The Crane Wife by CJ Hauser (Doubleday)

8 Rave • 4 Positive • 2 Mixed • 1 Pan Watch an interview with CJ Hauser here

“17 brilliant pieces … This tumbling, in and out of love, structures the collection … Calling Hauser ‘honest’ and ‘vulnerable’ feels inadequate. She embraces and even celebrates her flaws, and she revels in being a provocateur … It is an irony that Hauser, a strong, smart, capable woman, relates to the crane wife’s contortions. She felt helpless in her own romantic relationship. I don’t have one female friend who has not felt some version of this, but putting it into words is risky … this collection is not about neat, happy endings. It’s a constant search for self-discovery … Much has been written on the themes Hauser excavates here, yet her perspective is singular, startlingly so. Many narratives still position finding the perfect match as a measure of whether we’ve led successful lives. The Crane Wife dispenses with that. For that reason, Hauser’s worldview feels fresh and even radical.”

–Hope Reese ( Oprah Daily )

10. How to Read Now by Elaine Castillo (Viking)

8 Rave • 2 Positive • 1 Mixed Read an excerpt from How to Read Now here

“Elaine Castillo’s How to Read Now begins with a section called ‘Author’s Note, or a Virgo Clarifies Things.’ The title is a neat encapsulation of the book’s style: rigorous but still chatty, intellectual but not precious or academic about it … How to Read Now proceeds at a breakneck pace. Each of the book’s eight essays burns bright and hot from start to finish … How to Read Now is not for everybody, but if it is for you, it is clarifying and bracing. Castillo offers a full-throated critique of some of the literary world’s most insipid and self-serving ideas …

So how should we read now? Castillo offers suggestions but no resolution. She is less interested in capital-A Answers…and more excited by the opportunity to restore a multitude of voices and perspectives to the conversation … A book is nothing without a reader; this one is co-created by its recipients, re-created every time the page is turned anew. How to Read Now offers its audience the opportunity to look past the simplicity we’re all too often spoon-fed into order to restore ourselves to chaos and complexity—a way of seeing and reading that demands so much more of us but offers even more in return.”

–Zan Romanoff ( The Los Angeles Times )

Our System:

RAVE = 5 points • POSITIVE = 3 points • MIXED = 1 point • PAN = -5 points

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Nonfiction Books » Essays

The best essays: the 2021 pen/diamonstein-spielvogel award, recommended by adam gopnik.

WINNER OF the 2021 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay

Had I Known: Collected Essays by Barbara Ehrenreich

Every year, the judges of the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay search out the best book of essays written in the past year and draw attention to the author's entire body of work. Here, Adam Gopnik , writer, journalist and PEN essay prize judge, emphasizes the role of the essay in bearing witness and explains why the five collections that reached the 2021 shortlist are, in their different ways, so important.

Interview by Benedict King

Unfinished Business: Notes of a Chronic Re-Reader by Vivian Gornick

Nature Matrix: New and Selected Essays by Robert Michael Pyle

Terroir: Love, Out of Place by Natasha Sajé

Maybe the People Would be the Times by Luc Sante

1 Had I Known: Collected Essays by Barbara Ehrenreich

2 unfinished business: notes of a chronic re-reader by vivian gornick, 3 nature matrix: new and selected essays by robert michael pyle, 4 terroir: love, out of place by natasha sajé, 5 maybe the people would be the times by luc sante.

W e’re talking about the books shortlisted for the 2021 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay . As an essayist yourself, or as a reader of essays, what are you looking for? What’s the key to a good essay ?

Let’s turn to the books that made the shortlist of the 2021 PEN Award for the Art of the Essay. The winning book was Had I Known: Collected Essays by Barbara Ehrenreich , whose books have been recommended a number of times on Five Books. Tell me more. 

One of the criteria for this particular prize is that it should be not just for a single book, but for a body of work. One of the things we wanted to honour about Barbara Ehrenreich is that she has produced a remarkable body of work. Although it’s offered in a more specifically political register than some essayists, or that a great many past prize winners have practised, the quiddity of her work is that it remains rooted in personal experience, in the act of bearing witness. She has a passionate political point to make, certainly, a series of them, many seeming all the more relevant now than when she began writing. Nonetheless, her writing still always depends on the intimacy of first-hand knowledge, what people in post-incarceration work call ‘lived experience’ (a term with a distinguished philosophical history). Her book Nickel and Dimed is the classic example of that. She never writes from a distance about working-class life in America. She bears witness to the nature and real texture of working-class life in America.

“One point of giving awards…is to keep passing the small torches of literary tradition”

Next up of the books on the 2021 PEN essay prize shortlist is Unfinished Business: Notes of a Chronic Re-Reader by Vivian Gornick.

Vivian Gornick is a writer who’s been around for a very long time. Although longevity is not in itself a criterion for excellence—or for this prize, or in the writing life generally—persistence and perseverance are. Writers who keep coming back at us, again and again, with a consistent vision, are surely to be saluted. For her admirers, her appetite to re-read things already read is one of the most attractive parts of her oeuvre , if I can call it that; her appetite not just to read but to read deeply and personally. One of the things that people who love her work love about it is that her readings are never academic, or touched by scholarly hobbyhorsing. They’re readings that involve the fullness of her experience, then applied to literature. Although she reads as a critic, she reads as an essayist reads, rather than as a reviewer reads. And I think that was one of the things that was there to honour in her body of work, as well.

Is she a novelist or journalist, as well?

Let’s move on to the next book which made the 2021 PEN essay shortlist. This is Nature Matrix: New and Selected Essays by Robert Michael Pyle.

I have a special reason for liking this book in particular, and that is that it corresponds to one of the richest and oldest of American genres, now often overlooked, and that’s the naturalist essay. You can track it back to Henry David Thoreau , if not to Ralph Waldo Emerson , this American engagement with nature , the wilderness, not from a narrowly scientific point of view, nor from a purely ecological or environmental point of view—though those things are part of it—but again, from the point of view of lived experience, of personal testimony.

Let’s look at the next book on the shortlist of the 2021 PEN Awards, which is Terroir: Love, Out of Place by Natasha Sajé. Why did these essays appeal?

One of the things that was appealing about this book is that’s it very much about, in every sense, the issues of the day: the idea of place, of where we are, how we are located on any map as individuals by ethnic identity, class, gender—all of those things. But rather than being carried forward in a narrowly argumentative way, again, in the classic manner of the essay, Sajé’s work is ruminative. It walks around these issues from the point of view of someone who’s an expatriate, someone who’s an émigré, someone who’s a world citizen, but who’s also concerned with the idea of ‘terroir’, the one place in the world where we belong. And I think the dialogue in her work between a kind of cosmopolitanism that she has along with her self-critical examination of the problem of localism and where we sit on the world, was inspiring to us.

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Last of the books on the shortlist for the 2021 Pen essay award is Maybe the People Would Be the Times by Luc Sante.

Again, here’s a writer who’s had a distinguished generalised career, writing about lots of places and about lots of subjects. In the past, he’s made his special preoccupation what he calls ‘low life’, but I think more broadly can be called the marginalized or the repressed and abject. He’s also written acute introductions to the literature of ‘low life’, the works of Asbury and David Maurer, for instance.

But I think one of the things that was appealing about what he’s done is the sheer range of his enterprise. He writes about countless subjects. He can write about A-sides and B-sides of popular records—singles—then go on to write about Jacques Rivette’s cinema. He writes from a kind of private inspection of public experience. He has a lovely piece about tabloid headlines and their evolution. And I think that omnivorous range of enthusiasms and passions is a stirring reminder in a time of specialization and compartmentalization of the essayist’s freedom to roam. If Pyle is in the tradition of Thoreau, I suspect Luc Sante would be proud to be put in the tradition of Baudelaire—the flaneur who walks the streets, sees everything, broods on it all and writes about it well.

One point of giving awards, with all their built-in absurdity and inevitable injustice, is to keep alive, or at least to keep passing, the small torches of literary tradition. And just as much as we’re honoring the great tradition of the naturalist essay in the one case, I think we’re honoring the tradition of the Baudelairean flaneur in this one.

April 18, 2021

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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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Essay on Good Books

Students are often asked to write an essay on Good Books 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 Good Books

Introduction.

Good books are not just ordinary books. They are friends that guide us, entertain us, and teach us. They are a source of knowledge and inspiration.

Why are Good Books Important?

Good books are important because they broaden our minds. They take us to different worlds, introduce us to new characters, and make us think in new ways.

Benefits of Reading Good Books

Reading good books improves our vocabulary and language skills. They also help us understand different cultures and perspectives.

In conclusion, good books are a treasure trove of knowledge and entertainment. They are indeed our best companions.

250 Words Essay on Good Books

The power of good books.

Books have been an integral part of human civilization, acting as repositories of knowledge, wisdom, and imagination. Good books, in particular, have the power to transform lives and societies by stimulating intellectual growth and fostering empathy.

Intellectual Stimulation

Good books challenge our thought processes, encouraging us to question, analyze, and synthesize information. They introduce new concepts, perspectives, and theories, pushing us to expand our understanding of the world. From complex scientific theories to philosophical dilemmas, good books provide intellectual nourishment. They cultivate critical thinking skills, a vital asset in today’s information-driven society.

Empathy and Understanding

Beyond intellectual stimulation, good books foster empathy, allowing us to inhabit different perspectives and experience diverse cultures, histories, and emotions. They break down barriers, fostering a sense of shared humanity. This ability to understand and empathize with others’ experiences is crucial in our increasingly globalized world.

Transformative Potential

In essence, good books have transformative potential. They can spark revolutions of thought, inspire innovation, and promote social change. They can act as catalysts for personal growth, helping us to navigate life’s complexities. They can also provide solace, acting as a source of comfort and companionship.

In conclusion, good books are not just a source of entertainment but a powerful tool for intellectual growth and empathy development. They have the potential to transform both individuals and societies, making them a vital part of our lives.

500 Words Essay on Good Books

Introduction to good books.

A good book is a treasure trove of knowledge, a refuge for the mind, and a catalyst for imagination. It is a mirror reflecting the society we live in and a window into worlds unknown. It is a testament to human creativity, intellect, and empathy. Reading good books is an enriching experience that has the potential to shape our thoughts, beliefs, and perspectives.

Good books have the power to transport us to different times, places, and situations, allowing us to experience life from diverse perspectives. They cultivate empathy by enabling us to step into the shoes of different characters. This helps us understand and appreciate the nuances of human experiences that are different from our own.

Moreover, good books stimulate critical thinking. They encourage us to question, analyze, and reflect on various issues, thus fostering intellectual growth. They can also be a source of inspiration, motivating us to strive for excellence and make a positive impact in our respective spheres of influence.

Good Books as a Source of Knowledge

Books are an invaluable source of knowledge. They provide us with insights into different fields of study, ranging from science and technology to arts and humanities. By reading good books, we can deepen our understanding of complex concepts, theories, and phenomena, thereby enhancing our academic performance and intellectual prowess.

Furthermore, good books expose us to different cultures, traditions, and lifestyles, broadening our horizons and promoting cultural sensitivity. They also help us appreciate the beauty and diversity of the human experience.

Good Books and Personal Development

Reading good books contributes significantly to personal development. It helps in developing language skills, improving vocabulary, and enhancing communication abilities. It also fosters creativity and imagination, which are crucial for problem-solving and innovation.

Moreover, good books can be therapeutic. They provide solace during challenging times and help us navigate the complexities of life. They enable us to reflect on our experiences, emotions, and thoughts, thereby promoting self-awareness and emotional intelligence.

In conclusion, good books are much more than mere collections of words on paper. They are repositories of wisdom, vehicles of empathy, stimulants of critical thinking, sources of knowledge, and tools for personal development. They have the power to enlighten, empower, and transform us. Therefore, reading good books should be an integral part of our lives, especially as college students who are at a critical juncture of intellectual and personal growth.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — The Book Thief — The Book Thief Analysis

The Book Thief Analysis

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The Greatest "Essays" Books of All Time

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Essays are a category of books that typically consist of a collection of written works by a single author or multiple authors. These works are typically non-fiction and explore a wide range of topics, from personal experiences and opinions to social and political issues. Essays are often characterized by their informal tone, personal voice, and the author's unique perspective on the subject matter. They can be thought-provoking, informative, and entertaining, and are often used as a means of exploring complex ideas and issues in a more accessible and engaging way.

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The Essay: A Novel Paperback – October 25, 2016

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• Print length 256 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Arcade
• Publication date October 25, 2016
• Dimensions 6 x 0.9 x 9 inches
• ISBN-10 1628727179
• ISBN-13 978-1628727173
• Lexile measure 950L
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About the author, product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Arcade; Reprint edition (October 25, 2016)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1628727179
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1628727173
• Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 950L
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.2 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.9 x 9 inches
• #490 in Teen & Young Adult Coming of Age Fiction
• #3,471 in Coming of Age Fiction (Books)
• #15,617 in Literary Fiction (Books)

About the author

Robin yocum.

Robin Yocum is the Edgar-nominated author known for his fiction set in the Ohio River Valley.

His next novel, The Sacrifice of Lester Yates, will be released in the spring of 2021 by Arcade CrimeWise, an imprint of Arcade Publishing.

He is the author of five additional works of fiction:

A Perfect Shot

A Welcome Murder

A Brilliant Death

Favorite Sons

Favorite Sons was named the 2011 Book of the Year for Mystery/Suspense by USA Book News. A Brilliant Death was a Barnes & Noble No. 1 bestseller and a finalist for both the 2017 Edgar Award and the Silver Falchion Award for best adult mystery.

Yocum joined the Columbus Dispatch in 1980. He worked at the paper for 11 years, including six years as the senior reporter on the investigative desk. He won more than 30 local, state and national journalism awards in categories ranging from investigative reporting to feature writing.

Prior to joining the Dispatch, Yocum was the associate sports editor of the Martins Ferry, Ohio, Times Leader, and a reporter for the Lancaster, Ohio, Eagle-Gazette.

He is the principle at Yocum Communications, a public relations and marketing consulting firm in Galena, Ohio, that he founded in 2001.

Yocum grew up in the Ohio River village of Brilliant, Ohio, and has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Bowling Green State University.

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Imprinted by Belief

Does It Seem Like the End Times Are Here? These Novels Know Better.

What can fiction tell us about the apocalypse? Ayana Mathis finds unexpected hope in novels of crisis by Ling Ma, Jenny Offill and Jesmyn Ward.

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By Ayana Mathis

Ayana Mathis’s most recent novel, “The Unsettled,” was published in September.

• April 11, 2024

On the day my mother died, I sat by her bedside and read the Psalms. The room was quiet — the need for machines had passed — save for the sound of my voice and my mother’s labored breathing. Outside her room, the hospital went about its business: Lunch trays were delivered, nurses conferred, a television played too loudly down the corridor. Out there, time passed in its usual, unremarkable way. In her room, my mother and I had stepped off time’s familiar track.

Everything inessential vanished in her final hours. I read the Psalms because they comforted her. I told her I loved her. She squeezed my hand, which, in that afternoon when she was no longer able to speak, was as profound an expression of love as any words had ever been. When she died hours later, I knew that on the other side of her hospital room door there awaited, at least for me, an altered world.

The subject of this essay is apocalypse, and so I have begun with an ending. If you have lost a deeply beloved, then you have experienced the obliterating finality of death, that catastrophe in the small universe of an individual life. The loss also brings a realization: The “worst thing” that could happen is no longer a future projection; it has exploded into the present.

Apocalypse is generally understood as a future event: widespread suffering, extinctions, various iterations of end-time destruction gunning for us from some tomorrow. Out there, in the vast, unknowable not-yet, apocalypse roars. It paralyzes us with fear, deadens us into numbness or provokes us to hysteria. We are powerless in its face.

But what if we could change our relationship with the end by shifting our perspective on it? The first step might be dwelling more profoundly in the here and now where our crises amass, rather than focusing on the boogeyman future. We already know something about how to do this: We are creatures of loss; we have confronted, or will confront, the “worst things” in the real time of our lives. There is a precedent, then, for how, in this moment, we might collectively approach the apocalyptic worst things. While our beloved still lives, there is possibility: We can give her our attention; we can hold her hand.

I won’t downplay the current horrors — tens of thousands dead in Gaza, conflict in Ukraine, the high-stakes presidential election on the horizon — or imply that all will turn out right. The novels in this essay don’t do that either. Instead, they suggest new ways of seeing: a shift to deeper present-time awareness, even wonder, as the times grow ever more dire. The theologian Catherine Keller calls this “apocalyptic mindfulness.” “A cloud of roiling possibility seems to reveal itself,” she writes in “Facing Apocalypse” (2021). “It guarantees no happy ending. It may, however, enhance the uncertain chance of better outcomes.”

Many of our end-time notions are inflected by the biblical Book of Revelation. Its phantasmagoric visions and lurid scenes of destruction have thoroughly infiltrated Western talk of the end: the Four Horsemen, the beast we call the Antichrist (though Revelation doesn’t use the term), fires, plagues and raging pestilence. It may come as a surprise, then, that apokalypsis, the Greek word for “revelation,” means not “ending” but “unveiling.” As Keller writes, “It means not closure but dis-closure — that is, opening. A chance to open our eyes?” But, to what?

In Ling Ma’s novel “ Severance ” (2018), newly pregnant Candace Chen wanders a near-deserted New York City in the midst of a pandemic caused by a disease called Shen Fever. The majority of the city’s residents have fled or become “fevered,” a zombielike state that leaves victims stuck on repeat: a family endlessly setting the table and saying grace; a saleswoman, her jaw half eaten by decay, folding and refolding polo shirts at an abandoned Juicy Couture store on Fifth Avenue. The fevered are the least threatening zombies imaginable: so busy with their mindless performance of mundane tasks that they don’t notice the living. Ma has a knack for nuanced satire.

Candace sticks around because she’s got nowhere else to go; she’s the orphaned child of Chinese immigrants who died years before. Inexplicably, and perhaps somewhat to her dismay, she remains virus-free. As the pandemic shuts down the city, she doggedly persists with her job in the Bibles department at Spectra, a book production company: “I clicked Send, knowing it was fruitless,” she says. When public transportation stops entirely, she moves into her office on the 32nd floor, overlooking an empty Times Square.

It doesn’t take long to understand that a vast grief underlies Candace’s workaholic paralysis. So intense is her mourning for her parents that for a while the pandemic hardly registers. She needs to hold on to something, even pointless work at Spectra. The office setting is no coincidence: In some sense, Candace, too, is fevered, and her job’s rote repetition is a kind of anesthetic.

The dull but familiar grind of late-capitalist working life acts as a numbing agent, or perhaps a blindfold. When work dries up because the rest of the world is no longer at its desk, Candace rambles around the city utterly alone, taking pictures of derelict buildings that she posts on a blog she calls “NY Ghost.” One afternoon she enters a flooded subway station. “You couldn’t even see the water beneath all the garbage,” Ma writes. “The deeper you tunneled down, the bigger the sound, echoed and magnified by the enclosed space, until this primordial slurp was all that existed.” Grieving Candace is adrift, her internal landscape aligned with the desolation of the external world.

Published two years before the Covid pandemic, “Severance” offers an eerily prescient description of a nation shocked and exhausted. For so many, 2020 was a kind of apocalyptic unveiling. The pandemic revealed the fault lines in our health care and our schools, as well as the fact that so many of us were living in perpetual economic precarity. Then there were the deaths, which as a country we have hardly begun to mourn. Painfully and all at once, we understood the fragility of the systems we relied on, and the instability of our own lives.

Yet alongside the devastation there was transient beauty: In many places, air and water quality improved during lockdown and wildlife resurged. Health-care and essential workers were acknowledged and more respected; we realized the extent of our dependence on one another. If only for a little while, we were thrown into Keller’s “apocalyptic mindfulness.” But the eye snapped shut. We “recovered,” and, like Candace, we find ourselves once again in a collective disquiet, punctuated by bouts of terror as we contemplate the future.

On the final afternoon of her wandering, Candace ventures into the same Juicy Couture store she’d photographed weeks before. Ominously, the fevered saleswoman has been bludgeoned to death. Candace’s unborn child seems frightened too: “The baby moved inside of me, fluttering frantically.” Candace leaves Manhattan through the Lincoln Tunnel in a yellow taxi she’s commandeered from a fevered driver. She joins a band of survivors led by a creepy zealot named Bob, a former I.T. guy who wears a brace for carpal tunnel syndrome, that most banal of white-collar work maladies. They journey to the Chicago suburbs to homestead in a deserted mall. (I told you Ma has a knack for satire.)

In this semi-cult, Candace’s grief intensifies. She begins to have visions of her mother, who warns her that she and her unborn baby aren’t safe with Bob. Candace’s mother is right. Bob has a penchant for shooting the fevered in the head if he encounters them when he and the others go “stalking” for food and supplies. We squirm at these killings, even if the victims are not quite alive, at least not in the usual sense. Bob’s violent demagoguery opens Candace’s eyes to her metaphorically fevered state, and as we look into the mirror the novel holds up to us, we begin to wonder about our relationship to our own beleaguered world.

At last, Candace’s fever breaks and, fully alive, she escapes Bob and the others in a Nissan stolen from the group’s mini-fleet. She drives into once grand Chicago, swerving to avoid abandoned cars clogging Milwaukee Avenue. Finally, she runs out of gas. “Up ahead there’s a massive littered river, planked by an elaborate, wrought-iron red bridge,” she recounts. “Beyond the bridge is more skyline, more city. I get out and start walking.”

The “end” for Candace and her baby is not, in fact, an ending, but rather, an awakening that follows revelation.

If “Severance” chronicles its protagonist’s end-time stirrings from the stupor of grief, Jenny Offill’s novel “ Weather ” (2020) is its manic cousin, a diaristic account of climate anxiety. Narrated in the first person, aggressively present tense and composed of short chapters that leap from association to observation, the book is like a panicked brain in overdrive.

“Weather”’s protagonist, Lizzie, works as a university librarian in New York City. Her former professor, Sylvia, a climate change expert, finagled the gig for her though Lizzie isn’t really qualified. “Years ago, I was her grad student,” Lizzie explains, “but then I gave up on it. She used to check in on me sometimes to see if I was still squandering my promise. The answer was always yes.”

Lizzie is all wry self-deprecation. As the book progresses, we understand that she is less an underachiever than an empath, so often overwhelmed that her focus scrambles. Or perhaps it’s that she is deeply attentive to things we try to ignore. Her experience of the world is the opposite of Candace’s near-impenetrable grief. Lizzie is porous. Too much gets in: grave news about the environment, the plights of relative strangers — like kindly Mr. Jimmy, a car-service owner being run out of business by Uber. Lizzie “helps” by taking Mr. Jimmy’s car to various appointments, though she can’t afford it and the traffic makes her late.

The novel doesn’t so much unfold as tumble out over the course of a turbulent year that encompasses Donald Trump’s election in 2016. After Trump’s win, tensions rise in Lizzie’s Brooklyn neighborhood. Even Mr. Jimmy is spewing casual vitriol about Middle Eastern people and car bombs. Lizzie’s husband, Ben, retreats to the couch, to read a “giant history of war.” And I haven’t even mentioned Henry, Lizzie’s depressive, recovering-addict brother, who meets a woman, marries and has a baby, all at whiplash speed. When the marriage implodes, Henry winds up on Lizzie and Ben’s couch, using again and barely able to parent his daughter.

For Lizzie, as for most of us, personal and collective catastrophes run parallel. Her vision of the future grows ever darker. She talks to Sylvia about buying land somewhere cooler, where Eli, her young son, and Iris, her newborn niece, might fare better in 30 years or so. “Do you really think you can protect them? In 2047?” Sylvia asks.

“I look at her,” Lizzie thinks. “Because until this moment, I did, I did somehow think this.” The realization of her helplessness is unbearable, but Lizzie knows she must bear it: This bleak state of affairs is her son’s inheritance.

Lizzie is gripped by grief and despair — she spends far too much time on doomsday prepper websites — both complicated responses to a planet in the midst of radical, damaging change. “In a world of mortal beings,” Keller writes in “Facing Apocalypse,” “it would seem that without some work of mourning, responsibility for that world cannot develop.” Lizzie’s sense of loss and futility is wrenching, but her response attaches her that much more deeply to this world. Her anxiety is acute because the time in which to act is limited and shot through with urgency.

Lizzie experiences her moment as unprecedented; her end-time sensibility suggests an analogy, albeit to a starkly different context. The Apostle Paul also understood himself to be living through an extraordinary rupture in time. Paul's zeal to spread the Gospel through the ancient world was fueled by his conviction that ordinary time, and life, had been profoundly derailed by Christ’s crucifixion, and was soon to end with his imminent Second Coming. Paul believed he was living in an in-between time that the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben has aptly called “ the time that remains ,” a phrase borrowed from Paul’s letter to the fledgling church at Corinth. “The time is short,” Paul wrote. “From now on those who have wives should live as if they do not; those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not.”

The old world and its rules had not yet passed away but the prospect of Christ’s return cast an altering light on the present, highlighting the impermanence of all things. Everything was revealed to be in flux and therefore subject to reversals and change.

In “Weather,” Lizzie’s frazzled report from the event horizon of impending disaster, the time that remains means that moments are more precious, less bound by previous rules of engagement and more open to radically new ones. Near the end of the novel, Henry reclaims his sobriety, and Lizzie finds renewed, if melancholic, love for this imperiled world. She wants to find a new way to engage, even as she is uncertain what that might be. “There’s the idea in the different traditions. Of the veil,” Lizzie says. “What if we were to tear through it?” The image recalls Keller’s apokalypsis — a revelatory “ dis-closure .”

Jesmyn Ward’s “ Salvage the Bones ” (2011) takes a very different approach to apocalypse. The novel is set over 12 days, before and just after Hurricane Katrina strikes the Gulf Coast. The 15-year-old narrator, Esch, her father and three brothers live in the Mississippi Delta, outside a coastal town Ward calls Bois Sauvage. Unlike other characters we have encountered, Ward’s need no awakening; and time is far too short for existential anxiety or long-term planning.

The novel opens as China, a pit bull belonging to Esch’s brother Skeetah, is giving birth. Moody, commanding China is the love of Skeetah’s young life and as vivid as any human character in the book. “What China is doing is fighting, like she was born to do,” Ward writes. “Fight our shoes, fight other dogs, fight these puppies that are reaching for the outside, blind and wet.” Skeetah hopes to sell China’s puppies for big money. Enough to send his older brother, Randall, to basketball camp, where, the family hopes, he’ll be noticed by college scouts. Enough, perhaps, to help Esch take care of her baby. Esch is pregnant, though not far enough along to show, and she is in love with the baby’s father, her brother Randall’s friend Manny, who keeps her a secret and won’t kiss her on the mouth.

The novel is full of mothers: mothers to be, absent mothers (Esch’s mother died in childbirth years before), animal mothers, even mythical mothers (Esch is fixated on the avenging Medea, whom she’s read about in school). And, of course, Mother Nature is flying across the gulf, heading straight for Bois Sauvage. Mothers in this novel are makers and destroyers. In some cases, they are also unprepared to occupy the role; they are in jeopardy or else the circumstances of their motherhood run afoul of certain proprieties.

Esch’s pregnancy isn’t easy. It may also be hard for readers to accept: Esch is in dire financial straits and young enough to scandalize some of us. Does the prospect of her motherhood elicit the same empathy as Lizzie’s or Candace’s? Whose children do we think of as the hope for the future when the end is nigh? Which mothers are most valued in the collective perception? Not, generally speaking, an impoverished Black girl barely into her teens.

Ward’s concerns are with those who will bear the brunt of the coming storms, both natural and metaphoric, on the page and in the world. Esch and her family face Katrina with nothing besides a few canned goods they’ve scared up, and some plywood nailed over the doors and windows. Esch herself is the sort of vulnerable person Scripture might refer to as “the least of these.” Each time I read the novel, my mind leaps to the biblical Mary, mother of Jesus, a poor, brown, teenage girl who gave birth in a barn because no safer provision was made for her. In that story, the life least protected turns out to be the most essential.

So it is in “Salvage the Bones”: Esch and her unborn child, along with fighting China and her puppies, are the beating heart of this universe. Here, Esch considers which animals flee before a coming storm: “Maybe the bigger animals do,” she reflects. “Maybe the small don’t run. Maybe the small pause on their branches, the pine-lined earth, nose up, catch that coming storm air that would smell like salt to them, like salt and clean burning fire, and they prepare like us.”

With “the small,” or those treated as such, as focal points, Ward’s novel is also an indictment. It’s true that Katrina was a natural disaster, but its effects were preventable, or might have been mitigated. Most of us remember the levees breaking. The disaster’s aftermath — thousands, mostly poor, stranded without food or water; critically ill patients dying in storm-ravaged hospitals ; desperate, unarmed civilians shot by police officers — was entirely the fault of humans.

We might extend Ward’s insight to end-time crises in general, in which other Esches are similarly left with the greater share of suffering. We may not be able to reverse the crises themselves, but we can intervene in the devastation they cause, and to whom.

We have been down a harrowing road; there isn’t much comfort here. But perhaps at this critical juncture in our human story, it is not comfort that will aid us most. Perhaps what will aid us most is to enter more fully into dis comfort. To awaken to our grief, like Candace. To try to tear through the veil, like Lizzie. In this way we might begin to believe that the future is not foreclosed upon, whatever it might look like.

I leave us with Esch’s declaration of hope at the end of Ward’s novel. Esch’s family has survived, but Skeetah is searching for China, who disappeared in the storm: “He will look into the future and see her emerge into the circle of his fire, beaten dirty by the hurricane so she doesn’t gleam anymore … dull but alive, alive, alive.”

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April 18, 2024

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Stifled Rage

April 18, 2024 issue

Louisa May Alcott; illustration by Maya Chessman

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A Strange Life: Selected Essays of Louisa May Alcott

“I write for myself and strangers,” Gertrude Stein once announced. So, too, Louisa May Alcott, who wrote for herself as well as the strangers who have been reading Little Women since 1868, when it first appeared. For more than a century and a half, Little Women has inspired playwrights, composers, filmmakers, scholars, novelists, and of course countless young girls. Jane Smiley salutes those young girls—she was one of them—in her warmly appreciative preface to A Strange Life , Liz Rosenberg’s slim new collection of Alcott’s essays.

When she first encountered Little Women , Smiley realized that a book about girls was actually famous and that every library had it. Later it even seemed that the book had to be about Alcott’s own life. And since many others have felt the same way—with good reason—it’s not surprising that new biographies come down the pike every few years, intent on changing the negative view of Alcott best expressed by Henry James, who belittled her as “the Thackeray, the Trollope, of the nursery and the school-room.”

Martha Saxton’s feminist Louisa May: A Modern Biography (1977) and, more recently, biographies by Harriet Reisen, Susan Cheever, and Eve LaPlante, and by scholars such as John Matteson, have demonstrated that Alcott was much more than the author of what she self-deprecatingly called “moral pap for the young.” Rather, as a woman of imagination with considerable stylistic range, Alcott composed gothic tales, short stories, satires, fantasies, adult novels, poetry, memoirs, and essays in which she wrote of female independence and its costs in a restrictive domestic circle. She was also a prolific letter writer who converted into a tart prose style much of her anguish—and anger—at the circumstances in which she found herself, as a woman, as a dutiful daughter, as a second-class citizen, and, ironically, as a best-selling author who worked hard to maintain her popularity.

Rosenberg, the author of Scribbles, Sorrows, and Russet Leather Boots: The Life of Louisa May Alcott (2021), aimed at young readers, is thus not the first person to suggest that Alcott, and in particular her nonfiction, are worthy of serious attention. There’s also Elaine Showalter’s excellent selection of Alcott’s prose in Alternative Alcott (1988); there’s the Portable Louisa May Alcott (2000), edited by Elizabeth Lennox Keyser, and The Sketches of Louisa May Alcott (2001), collected by the Alcott specialist Gregory Eiselein, not to mention the superb selection of her nonfiction in one of the Alcott volumes published by the Library of America.

In A Strange Life , Rosenberg wisely includes Alcott’s best-known prose works—the excellent, slightly fictionalized memoir “Transcendental Wild Oats” and the exceptional (abridged) Hospital Sketches —and sets them alongside excerpts from her semiautobiographical nonfiction to show that her prose, as she explains in her introduction, “canters along; she covers great distances in the fewest words; there is no dilly-dallying.” Maybe so; what’s also true is that Alcott can write with unmistakable acerbity.

Rosenberg provides some biographical information on Alcott as well but unfortunately doesn’t explain why she chose certain pieces and not others, or why she arranged them in the order she did. Presumably the essay “Happy Women” (1868), her penultimate selection, is meant to present Alcott at her feminist best. True, it was written as a buck-me-up advice column for the unmarried woman, counseling her not to fear becoming an “old maid” since “the loss of liberty, happiness, and self respect is poorly repaid by the barren honor of being called ‘Mrs.’” In stock terms, Alcott advises, “Be true to yourselves; cherish whatever talent you possess, and in using it faithfully for the good of others, you will most assuredly find happiness for yourself.” But pieces that Rosenberg didn’t include, such as “Unofficial Incidents Overlooked by the Reporters” (1875), Alcott’s account of the centennial celebration in Concord, Massachusetts, have far more bite:

We had no place in the procession, but such women as wished to hear the oration were directed to meet in the Town Hall at half-past nine, and wait there until certain persons, detailed for the service, should come to lead them to the tent, where a limited number of seats had been reserved for the weaker vessels.

Rosenberg also reprints short excerpts from Alcott’s travel book, Shawl-Straps : An Account of a Trip to Europe (1872), but these selections—from the essays “Women of Brittany,” “The Flood in Rome,” and “Visit from a King”—are flat and predictable. And while she includes Alcott’s autobiographical sketch “My Boys,” a forgettable group of portraits intended mainly for young people and originally published in Aunt Jo’s Scrap-Bag (1872), Rosenberg fails to note that this was the first in a series of six Scrap-Bag books ( Shawl-Straps being the first), and that in them Alcott cleverly assumed the voice of Jo March Bhaer, from the best-selling Little Women —presumably to make money.

Despite the thinness of these sketches, they could be enriched if the reader knew the books from which they’re taken or more of the circumstances under which they were written. For Alcott worked obsessively to become a successful writer and, not coincidentally, her impoverished family’s breadwinner. Her father, Amos Bronson Alcott, was eccentric and impecunious—and lovable, as long as you weren’t related to him. A self-taught Connecticut peddler turned educator, Bronson for a time ran the progressive Temple School in Boston. But after he published Conversations with Children on the Gospels (1836–1837), in which he included allusions to sex and birth, scandalized Bostonians withdrew their children from the school, forcing it to close. His next venture was short-lived; he admitted a Black child to a new school and even his die-hard supporters bolted.

Then in 1843, when Louisa was ten, Bronson marched his family off to the town of Harvard, Massachusetts, about fourteen miles from Concord, where the Alcotts had been living. At a farm inappropriately dubbed Fruitlands, Bronson believed that they and a small band of cohorts could create a new Garden of Eden by living off the fruit of the land. “Insane, well-meaning egotists,” the antislavery writer Lydia Maria Child called them.

At Fruitlands, Abigail May Alcott, Louisa’s mother, was tasked with the cleaning, the washing of clothes, and the cooking, though there was little of that since utopia mandated a diet of mostly raw vegetables. (Rosenberg calls Bronson “a prescient and intelligent vegetarian pre-hippie.”) She was miserable, and the children almost starved. The model for the beloved Marmee, the mother of the brood in Little Women , Abigail was the youngest child in a family of prominent Boston Brahmin liberals; her brother was the passionate Unitarian abolitionist and women’s rights advocate Samuel Joseph May. She studied French, Latin, and chemistry privately in Duxbury, Massachusetts, and later helped form the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society. In 1830 she married the self-involved Bronson, who confessed in his journal, “I love her because she loves me.” In Little Women , Marmee understandably declares, “I am angry nearly every day of my life.”

In “Transcendental Wild Oats” (1873), Alcott changes the names of the Fruitlanders and, Rosenberg argues, “alternates broad comedy with tragedy.” As she puts it, “Alcott never lingers on the psychological devastation” that she likely experienced but rather

focuses on the characters around her and records the homely details of daily life (“unleavened bread, porridge, and water for breakfast; bread, vegetables, and water for dinner; bread, fruit, and water for supper”), leaving little room for disbelief.

Yet Alcott’s details are telling. Her irony is unmistakable, and her voice devastating in its affectlessness. As she observes, these “modern pilgrims,” most notably her father, possessed “the firm belief that plenteous orchards were soon to be evoked from their inner consciousness.” Once in their prospective Eden, she acidly continues, “no teapot profaned that sacred stove, no gory steak cried aloud for vengeance from her chaste gridiron; and only a brave woman’s taste, time, and temper were sacrificed on that domestic altar.” Fortunately the sojourn in paradise lasted only seven months.

The Alcotts eventually resettled in Concord, where Louisa grew up near Emerson, Thoreau, and later Hawthorne. But since “money is never plentiful in a philosopher’s house,” as she later recollected, the family temporarily moved to a basement apartment in Boston. After her mother formed what was basically a female employment agency, Louisa volunteered to take a position as a lady’s live-in companion in Dedham, Massachusetts. It turned out to be a degrading experience that she partly fictionalized in the essay “How I Went Out to Service” (1874), with which Rosenberg opens her volume, claiming it’s yet another example of Alcott’s ability to “strike the intersecting point between tragedy and comedy.” It’s a fine essay but not particularly comic: it’s a chilly story of exploitation and sexual harassment despite the moralizing conclusion about how the experience taught her many lessons.

Doubtless it did, but it also seems that Alcott wrote more for strangers than herself, often muzzling the intensity of her response to those who underestimated, harassed, or took advantage of her. She had begun to sell stories to help support her family, and though she’d already published two in the prestigious Atlantic Monthly , she also tried her hand at teaching again, despite her hatred of it. The publisher of The Atlantic , James Fields, loaned her forty dollars to help outfit her classroom, but when she came to him with another story—according to Rosenberg, “How I Went Out to Service”—he told her bluntly, “Stick to your teaching.” Rosenberg omits what happened later: after the success of Little Women , Alcott paid back the loan, telling Fields she’d found that writing paid far better than teaching, so she’d stick to her pen. “He laughed,” she said, “& owned that he made a mistake.”

She never forgot the insult. Like Marmee, who said she was angry nearly every day of her life, Alcott added, “I have learned not to show it.” Instead she found ways to stifle her rage, distancing herself from her feelings and retreating into the safety of platitudes, which often deaden her prose. For instance, at the conclusion of “How I Went Out to Service,” she tacks on a lesson about “making a companion, not a servant, of those whose aid I need, and helping to gild their honest wages with the sympathy and justice which can sweeten the humblest and lighten the hardest task.” It’s not clear if she’s counseling the reader or herself.

That’s far less true, though, in Hospital Sketches (1863), Alcott’s first successful book, in which she combined her recollections with material from the letters she wrote home while serving as an army nurse at the Union Hotel Hospital in Washington, D.C. Having “corked up” her tears, she nonetheless writes with feeling about “the barren honors” that these soldiers, cut to pieces at Fredericksburg, had won. She washed their bodies with brown soap, dressed their wounds, sang them lullabies, mopped their brows, and scribbled letters to the mothers and sweethearts of the nameless men, some without arms or legs, who lay in excruciating pain in the hotel’s ballroom. Such “seeming carelessness of the value of life, the sanctity of death” astonished Alcott, who wanted to believe that none of them had been sacrificed in vain.

She lasted only six weeks before she fell ill with typhoid pneumonia and had to be taken home to Concord by her father. The physicians who treated her shaved her hair and dosed her with calomel, a mercury compound that ultimately ruined her health. Alcott, encouraged by a friend to publish her experience, wrote of the desperate conditions that had made her, like many others, so sick: the fetid water and poor ventilation and scant or inedible food. And she wrote not just of the clammy foreheads and agonized deaths, and the insouciance of doctors who made a young woman tell a desperate man that he was dying, but also of the inescapable racism even of her fellow nurses:

I expected to have to defend myself from accusations of prejudice against color; but was surprised to find things just the other way, and daily shocked some neighbor by treating the blacks as I did the whites. The men would swear at the “darkies,” would put two g s into negro, and scoff at the idea of any good coming from such trash. The nurses were willing to be served by the colored people, but seldom thanked them, never praised, and scarcely recognized them in the street.

When she voluntarily touched a small Black child, she was labeled a fanatic. Alcott then offers a typical homily:

Though a hospital is a rough school, its lessons are both stern and salutary; and the humblest of pupils there, in proportion to his faithfulness, learns a deeper faith in God and in himself.

These homilies, like her detachment, may have been a marketing strategy, since she worried always about hanging on to her audience. Yet she did still write for herself after all. “Darkness made visible,” as she called it, was what she also sought, anticipating, in her way, what the witty Emily Dickinson surmised: “Success in Circuit lies.”

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Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe discusses new essay collection

Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe, a Coast Salish author from the Nooksack and Upper Skagit Indian tribes, sees her great-grandmother as the quintessential storyteller. “It was her gift, not mine,” she writes in her new book “Thunder Song” — a collection of intimate, meditative essays woven together with metaphors, unabashed honesty and the echoes of spirit songs sung by generations of Coast Salish women.

“In our longhouse ceremonies, songs hold a spiritual power,” LaPointe says of spirit songs in her book. “There are certain songs for prayer, for healing.”

Outside of her family, the community most important to LaPointe was always the punk scene. LaPointe fell in love with punk as a kid in her trailer on the Swinomish Reservation — making mixtapes on a boombox, listening to haunting melodies and Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill screaming the lyrics to “White Boy.” Her book explores how she was drawn into the punk world and how it gave her a haven.

“I really feel like the pull was rooted in chosen family,” she says. “A lot of the folks that gravitate towards the punk scene are looking for that. And I was inspired by it. Punks and artists were fiery and passionate about things.” LaPointe is a member of the punk band Medusa Stare . 

LaPointe wears two silver customized name necklaces, one in English and one in her Indigenous language of Lushootseed. She was given her traditional Skagit name, taqʷšəblu, after her great-grandmother Vi taqʷšəblu Hilbert, a linguist who helped preserve the Lushootseed language. In 2006, Hilbert commissioned an orchestral work performed by the Seattle Symphony at Benaroya Hall. She believed that Indigenous songs had the power to heal the world. She died in 2008 at 90 years old. 

When asked what her traditional name means, LaPointe jokes and laments that elders and anthropologists confirmed it doesn’t mean anything.

“I feel really ripped off in this because I want to say it means something so cool. Like ‘woman who runs with wolves,’” she says. “But no, it doesn’t mean anything.” 

Since entering her 30s, carrying this name proudly means carrying her great-grandmother’s legacy within her, a responsibility but also a gift — one she now embraces. “It was a name that always made me feel like I had a lot to live up to,” LaPointe says. “I’m a very different person than my great-grandmother, but I want to make her proud.”

LaPointe’s “Thunder Song,” despite being an essay collection, is just as much autobiographical as LaPointe’s first book “ Red Paint: The Ancestral Autobiography of a Coast Salish Punk ,” which came out in 2022.

“There’s so much memoir and personal narrative in the essays that I think some of them absolutely do start off right where ‘Red Paint’ left off,” LaPointe says.

“Red Paint” was a true confessional, exploring trauma and how it shaped her with a magnifying glass held up to the most vulnerable parts of her childhood and adult life. “Thunder Song” is LaPointe’s call out to the world, a love letter to the Pacific Northwest, an Indigenous riot grrrl manifesto, a time machine to her great-grandmother and the story of her heart dealing with the collective historical trauma that continues to besiege Indigenous people.

“The world is a truly messed up place right now,” she says. “And I think in those moments — the protests, the pandemic, the forest fires — there was a lot of collective anxiety and trauma, and this collection is part of how I could make sense of it.”

Growing up on the Swinomish Reservation, LaPointe lived in the middle of the woods but was enamored by the city. She imagined moving to Seattle and becoming a music journalist or an artist. A runaway at 13 with a court-approved emancipation at 15, eventually, she spent much of her late teens and early 20s living, working and performing in Seattle. 

At 25, she was at a crossroads. Her grandparents had given her a college brochure and she had also been asked to go on tour with a circus band.

“It felt like an assignment from my great-grandmother coming through from the spirit world,” LaPointe says. “She was like, ‘We know you want to go join the circus — but go pursue an education.’”

She decided against going on tour and moved to Santa Fe, N.M., to enroll at the Institute of American Indian Arts. After graduating in 2014, LaPointe moved back to Seattle. She now splits her time between Washington and Southern California — where her partner, Blaine, lives — but she cannot stay away from her Tacoma home for too long. “I have to come back and recharge,” she says. “Being in my Coast Salish territory, literally my ancestral homelands, feels really powerful and significant to me.”

In “Thunder Song,” LaPointe traverses both trauma and tender joyous moments with fearlessness and grace. She talks about sexual assault, abortion, miscarriage and how love depleted and defeated the women in her ancestry.

She expertly crosses between her contemporary influences and Native heritage as she details her obsession with “The Little Mermaid” and the story of the Maiden of Deception Pass, who sacrificed herself for her people, or the story of the Basket Ogress, who could make children disappear, alongside the reality of missing and murdered Indigenous women who are forgotten. 

With special care to the people closest to her, this collection gives LaPointe space to explore past and present relationships including significant moments with her mother, who she, at times, has had a tumultuous relationship with. LaPointe says she was anxious when she showed her mother a draft of the essay detailing their story. 

“We were on one of our walks. She was like, ‘It was so powerful. It was really beautiful. It was right. I’m so proud of you,’” LaPointe says. “That felt like a good ‘mom blessing’ because that [essay] was not easy. I was shaking in my boots.”

Throughout the book, LaPointe narrates how she wades through the various intersections of her identity as a queer, mixed heritage woman, as an artist, as a writer, as a daughter and as a friend.

“Of course, I’m tribally enrolled but I contain multitudes,” she says. “Our traditional languages and stories are really important to me, but so is making mixtapes and going to rowdy punk shows.”

AUTHOR EVENTS

Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe, Counterpoint, 256 pp., $27

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Acclaimed singer Renee Fleming probes the relationship of 'Music and Mind' in new book

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• Robin Young
• Emiko Tamagawa

Famed soprano Renée Fleming wants people to better understand the link between music and health.

Musical activities can help nonverbal children speak, aid in recovery after a stroke, and improve the stride of people with Parkinson's, according to research. To spread the word, Fleming edited the new book " Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness ," which features essays by researchers, music therapists and artists including Yo-Yo Ma, Ben Folds and Anna Deveare Smith.

The book’sroots run back to 2015, when Fleming helped launch a collaboration between the Kennedy Center and the National Institutes of Health to explore how the arts and health intersect.

When she first started at the Kennedy Center as an artistic advisor, Fleming attended a Washington, D.C. gathering attended by Supreme Court Justices Anthony Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsberg, as well as former NIH Director Francis Collins.

Despite some high tensions after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of same-sex marriage, Fleming and Collins brought the room together with song.

“Music has historically created social cohesion between people. It happened that night,” Fleming says. “I said, ‘Francis, why are scientists studying music and the brain?’ And he said, ‘well, we're interested in it because we have a new brain institute. And the key is technology because this ability to look at the brain enables scientists to see the exact impact music is having.’”

Two years later, Fleming sat on a panel among scientists, music therapists and fellow artists with the Kennedy Center, the NIH and the National Endowment for the Arts. Her work with the organizations inspired her to share with the public what she learned about how the arts affect people.

4 questions with Renée Fleming

How did scanning your brain show the impact of music?

“My brain scan at the NIH was an fMRI scan, functional MRI, which measures blood oxygen in the brain. And it had me singing, speaking and imagining singing. And interestingly, imagining singing, It was by far the most powerful for me. It impacted many more parts of my brain than the other two activities, which was a big surprise to the scientists.

“But they finally said, ‘Well, listen, you're a singer, so it makes sense that that's second nature to you.’ So that was a wonderful experience. It's an opportunity for me to see firsthand how this research is done.

“Imagining singing can also help Parkinson's patients who are having difficulty walking. If they just imagine a rhythmic song in their head, like ‘When the Saints Go Marching In,” they'll be able to cross the street without stopping. It's a simple benefit, but it's very powerful.”

Music psychotherapist Stacie Yeldell writes about a boy who found relief from the pain of sickle cell anemia in the viral song “ The Fox .” What’s the relationship between pain and music?

“Pain is what is very much impacted by music. And in fact, there's a huge focus on research in terms of pain and Joke Bradt's chapter, which is all about that. They don't really know exactly what mechanism is occurring now with that, but they do know music reduces pain.

“I have a friend who actually had a brain bleed and the only thing that alleviated her excruciating pain at first was the loudest possible music she could play.  So, it's possible that that's what was interrupting his pain as well.”

How can music serve as a “bridge” to people with dementia, as music therapy pioneer Concetta Tomaino writes in the book?

“Music and memory are so completely linked. We remember events in our lives: If we hear just a snippet of a song, we're back at our wedding. We're back at any number of events.

“With people with Alzheimer's disease, it is the last memory to stay because this memory area, as it pertains to music, is the last area of the brain that's impacted by the disease. So [Tomaino has] been trying to kind of prolong the sustainability of memory attached to music memories.

“Somebody came up to me after the Kennedy Center Honors and said, ‘I just want to say I heard one of your presentations and my dad was really becoming difficult and becoming a little bit violent. And we remembered suddenly because of what you said, that he was an opera lover and we put on opera. And he calmed down and he smiled, and we've been playing it ever since. It's made a huge difference in his mood and state.’ And so it can alleviate life for caregivers as well.”

Have these insights changed the way you sing?

“It doesn't change the way I sing, but for instance, I now tell the audience that our brain waves are aligning as we are in this space together, having a shared musical experience. That's why they've now shown that singing in a choir is more impactful than singing alone.

“How this work has changed me is that I am living my life now, being mindful of the fact that I need these artistic experiences, things that I thought were extra. ‘If I have time, I'll go to a concert.’ I now prioritize them in my life and I see a huge difference in my state of mind, less anxiety. I’m much happier, so I'm like a living example of how this works.”

Emiko Tamagawa  produced and edited this interview for broadcast with  Todd Mundt .  Allison Hagan  adapted it for the web.

Book excerpt: 'The Parting Glass' from 'Music and Mind'

By Richard Powers, edited by Renée Fleming

It’s morning, and dozens of thrushes, wrens, and warblers are singing their hearts out in the trees beneath the window of my house in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains. Spring in Appalachia, and you know how that piece goes. Some of the singers live here year‑round. Others are passing through on long journeys. I listen as the dawn chorus reaches its wild peak. No one is conducting. The music exhilarates me, and clearly the singers are thrilling one another. If you ask a scientist why birds sing, the answer will deal in courtship and territory. But if you asked the bird, and if you could understand its reply, it would probably be something like, “Because I have to, and it feels so good.”

I put on some music of my own, adding a descant to the morning mayhem. Here’s a miracle that I hope I’ll never get used to: I can stream just about any song ever recorded, any time I want, in every season, from any room in my house in the woods. I call up a fine old Scottish‑Irish song that always goes right through me: “The Parting Glass.” The song is at least four hundred years old, and no one is sure who wrote the music or the words. Traditional, as they say. And I have dozens of covers to choose from. I play one by three Canadian women singing a cappella, in crystalline harmony, as if they’re already a step or two beyond the grave.

The song partakes of an old Celtic tradition. When a guest rose to leave the party and climbed up in the stirrups of his horse, he’d be given a stirrup cup or parting glass, one more drink to fortify him for the night’s trip back home. The song is in the voice of a guest taking such a leave:

So fill to me the parting glass And drink a health whate’er befall, And gently rise and softly call Good night and joy be to you all.

Words fill my house and spill out into the woods. It’s just a folk song— plaintive, playful, a little melancholy. The tune traces out the basic moves of tonal expectation, traveling from home and back again with open grace. The harmonies are steadfast and simple, with no great surprises. The lyrics, however, are a little cheeky, a nice mix of sass, stoicism, and self‑effacement, even though it’s easy to hear that this singer is setting out on a journey somewhat longer than a night’s ride:

Of all the money that e’er I spent, I spent it in good company. And all the harm that e’er I’ve done, Alas it was to none but me. And all I’ve done for want of wit To mem’ry now I can’t recall. So fill to me the parting glass: Good night and joy be with you all!

A summing up, then, with the singers taking stock before a last depar‑ ture. The words could be about nothing at all—they might be in a foreign language, and I would still hear the farewell. It’s there in the suspended harmonies, in the way the chords waver between major and minor. I’m off now, out of here: drink to me, drink to my disappearance. The Celts have always been good at emigration and goodbyes.

For reasons that science may never quite put its finger on, I get chills and my eyes start to water. It happens to me with music, far more than with any other art. Music has a startling ability to make a listener sad over noth‑ ing, simply by unfolding chords in a certain order and weaving them through with a tuneful filigree. It’s not clear what the adaptive advantage of this might be, but the right pitches in the right rhythm can overwhelm us with sorrow. And we love every minute of that harmonious grief.

I’m reassured by a quick online search that reveals at least twenty health benefits of crying. The sheer abundance of weeping’s benefits makes me laugh and laughing brings at least ten benefits more. I don’t know why I chose this song—an evening’s last farewell—to add to the birds’ exuberant morning chorus. I don’t understand why I would willingly choose sadness. But it feels so good. It’s a bracing dive into a cold spring, a glimpse of mid‑ night just before breakfast.

Countless clinical studies have now tied the secret of health to moving. There is also great health in being moved, something that produces similar physiology. Think about the old meanings buried in the etymology of “emotion.” To move and to feel are complements, and the emotion that a tune triggers is a tune‑up in how to move more deeply through the wider world. Music makes us go somewhere. It propels us into new states, new vantages, new emotional affordances. If you ask a scientist why music is healthy, the answer will come in units of cortisol and heart rate and blood‑ oxygen levels. But if you ask this listener, I’d say that music is an off‑line cognitive therapy. By making us sad in the absence of real tragedy, it leaves us more adept in sadness when life calls for the real thing.

Being moved by a song holds the key to mental health. Music says: “Here’s what happens to us. We and those around us move like chords unfolding in time, throwing off fantastic sparks and harmonies. And then the chords end. Here’s how to feel sad about that. And how to hear how that sadness, too, will pass.”

I suspect that none of the dozen species of birds singing outside my window know that one day their song will stop. But every human does. We carry the knowledge of our own death with us all life long. Awareness of mortality is the first and hardest challenge to our sanity. In my life, the best consolation for my approaching death has always been to sing it and to hear it being sung. I think that’s why the world’s great sacred ways of coping with death are so often built around music. So many times in this life I’ve heard friends say, “I love this piece. Play this at my funeral.” Music can train us in goodbyes. In giving us a little taste of our own finitude, it lets us, for a moment, feel the infinite.

“The Parting Glass” lasts only two and a half minutes. Soon enough, it reaches its final stanza. But in those one hundred and fifty seconds, the song lights up my brain in several ways. First, there is the sheer glory of the sound: three clear voices tuned tightly to each other. Then there is the stepwise tune and its dramatic pauses, its phrases always taking their leave, always coming home. Those simple syncopations lay out the plainest two‑step dance, reminding me of all the dancing I won’t be doing when I no longer have a body. A good song—a great movement—is a way of saying, Dance now, if only in your mind, for there is no dancing where you’re going. Finally, there is music’s uniquely vertical trick, stacking up companion lines in step with the one that my ear keys to. The tune contains its own accompani‑ ment, and all the regions of my brain fire in harmony. It reminds me of what good company I’ve spent my life in.

Of all the comrades that e’er I’ve had Are sorry for my going away. And all the sweethearts that e’er I’ve had They’ d wish me one more day to stay. But since it falls unto my lot That I should rise and you should not, I’ ll gently rise and softly call Good night and joy be with you all!

Of all music’s health benefits, teaching us how to be okay with our own disappearance may be the deepest. A good song lets me hear how the chords go on, far beyond the double bar. As another good song puts it:

Music, music for a while Will all our cares beguile.

That it can do so with sadness is a pure delight.

“The Parting Glass” does what all good songs do: it ends. It gets up in the stirrups, takes a last deep drink, and is off. My Canadian singers spring a surprise minor final cadence, and the tune is done. The morning chorus starts to disperse. I land back on Earth, turn from the window, and get on with my full day’s work. For what it’s worth, I get a ton done.

As I fall asleep, the night is all melancholy owls and mournful whip‑ poor‑wills. Birdsong, too, knows the uses of sadness. At two a.m., when I briefly wake, there is nothing but dead silence. I’m fine with that. The song is ended, but the melody lingers on. Even in the long rests, I can hear how the morning chorus will begin again in the dark, just before sunrise, for whoever may or may not be there to listen.

From 'Music and Mind' edited by Renée Fleming, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2024 by Richard Powers.

This segment aired on April 9, 2024.

Robin Young Co-Host, Here & Now Robin Young brings more than 25 years of broadcast experience to her role as host of Here & Now.

Emiko Tamagawa Senior Producer, Here & Now Emiko Tamagawa produces arts and culture segments for Here & Now.

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NPR defends its journalism after senior editor says it has lost the public's trust

David Folkenflik

NPR is defending its journalism and integrity after a senior editor wrote an essay accusing it of losing the public's trust. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

NPR is defending its journalism and integrity after a senior editor wrote an essay accusing it of losing the public's trust.

NPR's top news executive defended its journalism and its commitment to reflecting a diverse array of views on Tuesday after a senior NPR editor wrote a broad critique of how the network has covered some of the most important stories of the age.

"An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don't have an audience that reflects America," writes Uri Berliner.

A strategic emphasis on diversity and inclusion on the basis of race, ethnicity and sexual orientation, promoted by NPR's former CEO, John Lansing, has fed "the absence of viewpoint diversity," Berliner writes.

NPR's chief news executive, Edith Chapin, wrote in a memo to staff Tuesday afternoon that she and the news leadership team strongly reject Berliner's assessment.

"We're proud to stand behind the exceptional work that our desks and shows do to cover a wide range of challenging stories," she wrote. "We believe that inclusion — among our staff, with our sourcing, and in our overall coverage — is critical to telling the nuanced stories of this country and our world."

NPR names tech executive Katherine Maher to lead in turbulent era

She added, "None of our work is above scrutiny or critique. We must have vigorous discussions in the newsroom about how we serve the public as a whole."

A spokesperson for NPR said Chapin, who also serves as the network's chief content officer, would have no further comment.

Praised by NPR's critics

Berliner is a senior editor on NPR's Business Desk. (Disclosure: I, too, am part of the Business Desk, and Berliner has edited many of my past stories. He did not see any version of this article or participate in its preparation before it was posted publicly.)

Berliner's essay , titled "I've Been at NPR for 25 years. Here's How We Lost America's Trust," was published by The Free Press, a website that has welcomed journalists who have concluded that mainstream news outlets have become reflexively liberal.

Berliner writes that as a Subaru-driving, Sarah Lawrence College graduate who "was raised by a lesbian peace activist mother ," he fits the mold of a loyal NPR fan.

Yet Berliner says NPR's news coverage has fallen short on some of the most controversial stories of recent years, from the question of whether former President Donald Trump colluded with Russia in the 2016 election, to the origins of the virus that causes COVID-19, to the significance and provenance of emails leaked from a laptop owned by Hunter Biden weeks before the 2020 election. In addition, he blasted NPR's coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

On each of these stories, Berliner asserts, NPR has suffered from groupthink due to too little diversity of viewpoints in the newsroom.

The essay ricocheted Tuesday around conservative media , with some labeling Berliner a whistleblower . Others picked it up on social media, including Elon Musk, who has lambasted NPR for leaving his social media site, X. (Musk emailed another NPR reporter a link to Berliner's article with a gibe that the reporter was a "quisling" — a World War II reference to someone who collaborates with the enemy.)

When asked for further comment late Tuesday, Berliner declined, saying the essay spoke for itself.

The arguments he raises — and counters — have percolated across U.S. newsrooms in recent years. The #MeToo sexual harassment scandals of 2016 and 2017 forced newsrooms to listen to and heed more junior colleagues. The social justice movement prompted by the killing of George Floyd in 2020 inspired a reckoning in many places. Newsroom leaders often appeared to stand on shaky ground.

Leaders at many newsrooms, including top editors at The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times , lost their jobs. Legendary Washington Post Executive Editor Martin Baron wrote in his memoir that he feared his bonds with the staff were "frayed beyond repair," especially over the degree of self-expression his journalists expected to exert on social media, before he decided to step down in early 2021.

Since then, Baron and others — including leaders of some of these newsrooms — have suggested that the pendulum has swung too far.

Author Interviews

Legendary editor marty baron describes his 'collision of power' with trump and bezos.

New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger warned last year against journalists embracing a stance of what he calls "one-side-ism": "where journalists are demonstrating that they're on the side of the righteous."

"I really think that that can create blind spots and echo chambers," he said.

Internal arguments at The Times over the strength of its reporting on accusations that Hamas engaged in sexual assaults as part of a strategy for its Oct. 7 attack on Israel erupted publicly . The paper conducted an investigation to determine the source of a leak over a planned episode of the paper's podcast The Daily on the subject, which months later has not been released. The newsroom guild accused the paper of "targeted interrogation" of journalists of Middle Eastern descent.

Heated pushback in NPR's newsroom

Given Berliner's account of private conversations, several NPR journalists question whether they can now trust him with unguarded assessments about stories in real time. Others express frustration that he had not sought out comment in advance of publication. Berliner acknowledged to me that for this story, he did not seek NPR's approval to publish the piece, nor did he give the network advance notice.

Some of Berliner's NPR colleagues are responding heatedly. Fernando Alfonso, a senior supervising editor for digital news, wrote that he wholeheartedly rejected Berliner's critique of the coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict, for which NPR's journalists, like their peers, periodically put themselves at risk.

Alfonso also took issue with Berliner's concern over the focus on diversity at NPR.

"As a person of color who has often worked in newsrooms with little to no people who look like me, the efforts NPR has made to diversify its workforce and its sources are unique and appropriate given the news industry's long-standing lack of diversity," Alfonso says. "These efforts should be celebrated and not denigrated as Uri has done."

After this story was first published, Berliner contested Alfonso's characterization, saying his criticism of NPR is about the lack of diversity of viewpoints, not its diversity itself.

"I never criticized NPR's priority of achieving a more diverse workforce in terms of race, ethnicity and sexual orientation. I have not 'denigrated' NPR's newsroom diversity goals," Berliner said. "That's wrong."

Questions of diversity

Under former CEO John Lansing, NPR made increasing diversity, both of its staff and its audience, its "North Star" mission. Berliner says in the essay that NPR failed to consider broader diversity of viewpoint, noting, "In D.C., where NPR is headquartered and many of us live, I found 87 registered Democrats working in editorial positions and zero Republicans."

Berliner cited audience estimates that suggested a concurrent falloff in listening by Republicans. (The number of people listening to NPR broadcasts and terrestrial radio broadly has declined since the start of the pandemic.)

Former NPR vice president for news and ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin tweeted , "I know Uri. He's not wrong."

Others questioned Berliner's logic. "This probably gets causality somewhat backward," tweeted Semafor Washington editor Jordan Weissmann . "I'd guess that a lot of NPR listeners who voted for [Mitt] Romney have changed how they identify politically."

Similarly, Nieman Lab founder Joshua Benton suggested the rise of Trump alienated many NPR-appreciating Republicans from the GOP.

In recent years, NPR has greatly enhanced the percentage of people of color in its workforce and its executive ranks. Four out of 10 staffers are people of color; nearly half of NPR's leadership team identifies as Black, Asian or Latino.

"The philosophy is: Do you want to serve all of America and make sure it sounds like all of America, or not?" Lansing, who stepped down last month, says in response to Berliner's piece. "I'd welcome the argument against that."

"On radio, we were really lagging in our representation of an audience that makes us look like what America looks like today," Lansing says. The U.S. looks and sounds a lot different than it did in 1971, when NPR's first show was broadcast, Lansing says.

A network spokesperson says new NPR CEO Katherine Maher supports Chapin and her response to Berliner's critique.

The spokesperson says that Maher "believes that it's a healthy thing for a public service newsroom to engage in rigorous consideration of the needs of our audiences, including where we serve our mission well and where we can serve it better."

Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik and edited by Deputy Business Editor Emily Kopp and Managing Editor Gerry Holmes. Under NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no NPR corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly.

Environmental Science: Advances

2023 outstanding papers published in the environmental science journals of the royal society of chemistry.

a Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong, China

b Carnegie Mellon University Department of Chemistry, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

c Department of Civil and Resource Engineering, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

d Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, UK

e Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Portugal

f Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA

g Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA

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• This article is part of the themed collections: Outstanding Papers of 2023 from RSC’s Environmental Science journals and Outstanding Papers 2023 – Environmental Science: Advances

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Z. Cai, N. Donahue, G. Gagnon, K. C. Jones, C. Manaia, E. Sunderland and P. J. Vikesland, Environ. Sci.: Adv. , 2024, Advance Article , DOI: 10.1039/D4VA90010C

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What's it like to work on Robert Pirsig's Zen motorcycle? Museum curators can tell you.

Author Robert Pirsig left greasy fingerprints on pages of his shop manual while working on his mystical motorcycle, the one in the enduring 1974 classic "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance."

Years later, a few curators at the Smithsonian have an idea how he felt, because they've worked on the cycle, too.

That's because Pirsig's motorcycle, a 1966 Honda Super Hawk, will be exhibited at the Smithsonian’s  National Museum of American History  in Washington, D.C., starting April 15.

Learn more: How Robert Pirsig's cycle found a home in Smithsonian .

The exhibit, titled " Zen and the Open Road ," includes Pirsig's Honda, some motorcycling gear, and manuals and documents that are part of his book and cycling odyssey.

How did conservators prepare those cherished objects for the museum? With care and precision, it turns out.

The exhibit pays homage to Pirsig's famous book ...

"'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' is such an iconic book that anything associated with it has the same level of mystique," says Janice Ellis, the museum's senior book and paper conservator. "It's American-born philosophy."

Ellis worked on the motorcycle manuals Pirsig took with him on the 1968 ride, a rare photocopy of the typed Zen manuscript, and other documents.

You'll see that copy of Pirsig's manuscript, one of 10 he sent to prospective publishers, next to his motorcycle, tools, leather jacket, helmet and a first edition of the book.

... but 1966 Honda Super Hawk is the star

Pirsig's conversational style puts readers on the cycle with the very first sentence. The Smithsonian exhibit anticipates visitor interest by putting the cycle on center stage. Museum staffers were also impressed.

Co-workers, even those not connected with the exhibit, began stopping by to see the cycle themselves. They were fascinated, almost reverent, says Dawn Wallace, an objects conservator for the American history museum. She headed the group that spent many hours preparing it for exhibit.

"When we told them this was the motorcycle that Pirsig rode, the one he based his book on, you could see a light come on in their eyes when they realized what they were looking at," Wallace says.

The project "is really personal to a lot of people," she says. "Everyone's excited to see it go on display."

Conservators meticulously preserved cycle

When the museum takes possession of an item, "we don’t immediately open the crates the things are in," says Paul Johnston, a Smithsonian transportation curator who specializes in maritime artifacts, motorcycles, race cars and road transportation.

"We put the crate in the environment that it's going to be in and we let it sit for between a week and a month," he says. "That lets it acclimate to the environment."

The cycle was in decent shape, despite having not been on the road for a few years.

"My husband and his son had ridden it years and years ago, and they had worked on it throughout their ownership," says Wendy Pirsig, widow of Robert Pirsig, who died in 2017 at age 88.

Robert Pirsig "did his own maintenance, as he wrote about extensively in his book. That was going on for decades."

Later in life, when Robert Pirsig was in a wheelchair, he worked on the cycle "with someone who was more physically fit than he was," Wendy Pirsig says.

"When the bike came into the museum, it had just some dirt, a little bit of built-up residue on some surfaces," Wallace says. "It had some surface corrosion, nothing really in-depth or problematic. It just needed a little TLC and cleaning."

"All we did was a surface cleaning, with some cotton swabs and cotton wipes to remove the surface dirt or any built-up grime," Wallace says.

"You could definitely see an improved appearance," she says. "The chromed parts, for example, definitely shone more than they did before. But it still retains that historic appearance."

It took as many as 75 hours for the work to be completed, Wallace says. All the work was done in house.

Pirsig’s motorcycle was handled with kid – er, nitrile – gloves

As you might suspect, museum staffers don't just roll a vehicle into an exhibit hall.

"Every object is different," Wallace says. "The motorcycle was a little more complicated because it's large, it's got a lot of different parts and materials and surfaces."

And while the cycle will never be kick-started to life inside the museum, "We needed to be aware of the motorcycle's working condition," Wallace says.

Wallace says she checks for things like:

• Structural problems

Conservators then determine what should be done. "Are there things that need to be repaired? Or are they considered historic? We don't want to alter the history of it," she says.

"We work with the curator to learn the story of the object and what is trying to be told," Wallace says.

Staffers work in an object lab, a workspace about the size of a single-car garage. The space allows them to position the motorcycle for photographs and move around it to thoroughly clean it.

That means the room can get dirty. "We're working with grease, grime, and with different types of cleaners and solvents," Wallace says.

The team wears nitrile gloves at all times, which protect workers and the metal, plastic and rubber components of the object they're working on.

"If you touch a metal object, you may not see anything, but over the years, the oils in your hands are going to etch into the metal," Wallace says. "That will attract dirt. And that dirt will attract moisture, which can cause corrosion."

Besides cleaning, "we make sure that all the cycle's fluids are drained," Wallace says.

If they sit for too long, engine and transmission oils can settle, build up and get hard and cause problems, she says. Brake fluid, for example, is hygroscopic , which means it absorbs water and moisture. That causes metal parts to corrode.

"We introduce a long-term lubricant, usually a silicone-based lubricant or spray, into the system," Wallace says.

"It goes through the oil lines, so even if the motorcycle isn't running, we're not going to have pistons and things getting seized or corroded inside."

Preparation work included:

• Draining the gas tank and protecting the interior against corrosion.
• Draining the oil in the engine and transmission and replacing it with long-term lubricant.
• Removing the battery and disposing of it responsibly.
• Removing as much surface corrosion as possible and adding a protective chemical barrier.

The cycle will be placed on its center stand in the exhibit hall. An additional support stand will be added to keep both wheels off the floor to prevent wear spots on tires.

Documents preserve a 'window for future generations'

One of Pirsig's books was a 182-page Honda shop manual on how to fix the motorcycle. Smithsonian conservators found Pirsig's greasy fingerprints on inside pages with engine pistons, crankshafts and clutches, proof he was referring to the manual while getting his hands dirty handling engine parts.

"That's what's so lovely about it," says Ellis, the paper conservator. "He clearly used the manual, and used it well, to the point of it falling apart and him repairing it with what he had on hand, which was electrical tape."

Early in his book, Pirsig exhaustively lists what he took on the motorcycle ride. Ellis and other staffers worked on some of them for inclusion in the exhibit.

"It was really interesting to see the things that he carried with him on his trip," Ellis says. "It's one thing to have the luxury of working on an artifact, but it's another to have an artifact that clearly shows the person behind it."

Why save Pirsig's papers?

Preserving papers, documents and books takes much time and effort. What's the benefit of all that work?

"You do it so your kids or grandkids can understand a little bit about the life and culture of the maker or the user of the artifact,” Ellis says. "It provides a window for future generations to see the past."

In Pirsig's manual, "I love the electrical tape and the grease and the greasy fingerprints, because they tell you the way and the extent to which it was used," she says.

"It helps you get a sense of the person. To say he was hands-on is clear when you look at the artifacts he had."

Here's how to see the Smithsonian's Pirsig exhibit

Robert Pirsig's Honda Super Hawk and other items will be on display at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History, 1300 Constitution Ave. NW, Washington, D.C., 20560.

You'll find the cycle and other items in the " America on the Move " exhibition on the museum's first floor, in the East Wing.

The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. every day, except for Dec. 25. Admission is free and no tickets are required. For more information, go to  https://americanhistory.si.edu or call (202) 633-1000.

Photographs from Robert Pirsig's 1968 motorcycle ride are courtesy of Wendy Pirsig; museum photos are by Jaclyn Nash and are courtesy of the Smithsonian  Institution 's National Museum of American History.   Sourcing for this story includes USA TODAY Graphics reporting and research and interviews with staff of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. Other sources include Montana State University; The Robert Pirsig Association ;  National Maritime Historical Society; the International Journal of Motorcycle Studies; Sea History Magazine; and the  National Institute of Health's National Library of Medicine .   Special thanks to Melinda Machado, director of the National Museum of American History 's  Office of Communications and Marketing, Integrated Communications.