Essays Books - Page 7

The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present

Phillip Lopate

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Essential! 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful.

I recently attended a lecture by Philip Lopate. It was informative, instructional, and entertaining. I can say the same about this anthology. Anyone interested in the personal essay--readers, and especially writers--will find this collection a gold mine. I highly recommend it.

A little disappointing 3 out of 5 stars.
3 of 17 people found this review helpful.

I should have researched this book more--I thought it was about writing, but it is actually a compilation of essays.

The Art of the Personal Essay... 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Using this book as a reference for a class in writing the personal essay. It is very comprehensive and the essays are interesting and helpful.

Well worth it 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

My favorite essay in this thick, heavy, door-stopping book is a humble writing of G.K. Chesterton entitled "A Piece of Chalk". I absolutely adore drawing with chalk and so of course I felt connected to him right off the bat. It was actually the first time I'd ever read Chesterton before, and I instantly fell in love. There is something in his writing that resonates with something inside me... in other words, it feels good. This anthology also includes other masters, both classic and modern such as Didion, Seneca, among many, many others. Despite the size, it's very easy to read through and find your own favorites thanks to the table that sorts the essays by theme.

Editorial Review:

Bringing together many great reflections on the human condition and the peculiarities of daily life, a unique collection of more than seventy-five essays ranges from classical predecessors of the genre up to today's finest writers. Reprint. NYT.

The Conde Nast Traveler Book of Unforgettable Journeys: Great Writers on Great Places

VARIOUS

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 2.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

From the #1 travel magazine in the country, a collection of travel tales from some of today’s finest writers

Travel writing maintains its seemingly endless popularity, and this volume offers a particularly transporting body of work, pairing exotic locales with writers of the highest caliber: Russell Banks writes on the Everglades, Francine Prose explores the secrets of Prague, Robert Hughes takes us on a tour of Italy, and more. From the most beautiful gardens to visit in Japan to the best free things to do in Provence, this book is as enlightening as it is entertaining. Whether off to the other side of the globe or to their favorite reading chair, wanderers of every sort will find this book truly indispensable.

Other featured writers and places include:
Nik Cohn on Savannah
Philip Gourevitch on Tanzania
Shirley Hazzard on Capri
Pico Iyer on Iceland and Ethiopia
Nicole Krauss on Japan
Suketu Mehta on the Himalayas
Edna O’Brien on Bath
Patricia Storace on Provence and Athens
James Truman on Iran
Gregor Von Rezzori on Romania
Edmund White on Jordan
Simon Winchester on Mount Pinatubo
William Dalrymple on his pilgrimage to Santiago
John Julius Norwich on the Vatican
Jan Morris on Hawaii

Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China

Fuchsia Dunlop

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

A new memoir by the most talented and respected British food writer of her generation.

Award-winning food writer Fuchsia Dunlop went to live in China as a student in 1994, and from the very beginning she vowed to eat everything she was offered, no matter how alien and bizarre it seemed. In this extraordinary memoir, Fuchsia recalls her evolving relationship with China and its food, from her first rapturous encounter with the delicious cuisine of Sichuan Province to brushes with corruption, environmental degradation, and greed. In the course of her fascinating journey, Fuchsia undergoes an apprenticeship at China's premier Sichuan cooking school, where she is the only foreign student in a class of nearly fifty young Chinese men; attempts, hilariously, to persuade Chinese people that "Western food" is neither "simple" nor "bland"; and samples a multitude of exotic ingredients, including sea cucumber, civet cat, scorpion, rabbit-heads, and the ovarian fat of the snow frog. But is it possible for a Westerner to become a true convert to the Chinese way of eating? In an encounter with a caterpillar in an Oxford kitchen, Fuchsia is forced to put this to the test.

From the vibrant markets of Sichuan to the bleached landscape of northern Gansu Province, from the desert oases of Xinjiang to the enchanting old city of Yangzhou, this unique and evocative account of Chinese culinary culture is set to become the most talked-about travel narrative of the year.

'Not just a smart memoir about cross-cultural eating but one of the most engaging books of any kind I've read in years.'—O Magazine

'Insightful, entertaining, scrupulously reported... and a swashbuckling memoir studded with recipes... a distinguished contribution to the literature of gastronomy.'—New York Times

'Delightful.'—Jeffrey Steingarten in Vogue

'An autobiographical food-and-travel classic.'—Publishers Weekly

'Literary, entertaining and almost anthropological.'—Seattle Post-Intelligencer

'Fuchsia Dunlop's brilliant new food memoir.'—Wall Street Journal

'Painstakingly researched, beautifully written and impossible to put down, Dunlop takes us on a tantalizing tour through China in what's sure to be the gastronomic book of the year.'—Inside Toronto

'Shows the rare insight and compassion that... Fuchsia Dunlop has been demonstrating for 15 years...Dunlop's grasp of Chinese culture and cuisine run deep.'—Toronto Globe and Mail

'Destined... to become a classic of travel writing.'—The Observer

'Marvellous and mesmerising.'—The Daily Mail

'As much a memoir and a superlative example of travel writing as it is a book about food... funny, honest and illuminating.'—London Lite

'Dunlop is now an expert on Chinese cuisine, but she's also a fantastically witty storyteller... Dunlop will charm and delight you with her enthralling anecdotes.'—Wanderlust
'More than just a delicious memoir of extraordinary meals... an erudite, nuanced look at Chinese culinary culture, its history, and China's development over the last decade.'—China Daily

'[Dunlop] writes of China's familiar culinary faces...with an outsider's eye, an insider's palate, and a lover's affection. The best food book I've read so far this year.'—Straits Times, Singapore

'A sensual feast of a book... Fuchsia Dunlop is a star in the world of food writing, but she's never preachy in this Oriental food odyssey.'—The Times of South Africa

'This charming, informative textbook/memoir/travelogue, one of the more noteworthy recent food studies. Readers definitely won't be hungry an hour after finishing this satisfying history from a witty Chinese food authority.'—Kirkus Reviews

On the Good Life (Penguin Classics)

Marcus Tullius Cicero

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Buy On Friendship, trash Michael Grant 4 out of 5 stars.
9 of 14 people found this review helpful.

It is a surprise to me that many of you give this book five stars: it isn't worth it. Four stars is the max. Why? First, only "On Friendship" is completely translated, all the others are merely selections. Second, Michael Grant's introduction to this book is rather unprofessional, and to some extent misleading. Grant keeps mentioning people other than Cicero himself, that is to say, you don't learn much about Cicero after reading his introduction. Third, Grant's has made a poor selection on Cicero's works: "On Duties II" can hardly stand alone, and if it is read by itself it could be very misleading (For this, see the introduction of "On Obligation" translated by P.G. Walsh, published by Oxford). "On the Orator I" is another poor choice, and in my opinion it should be excluded. Also, "Discussion at Tusculum V" should not stand alone. It should be published with the previous four books in a separate edition (becaue "Tusculan Disputation" is one of the best works of Cicero). And the "Dream of Scipio" is almost insignificant if it is left without the entire book of "De Republica". In short, I bought this book only for the purpose of reading "On Friendship", and no more.

Editorial Review:

For the great Roman orator and statesman Cicero, the good life' was at once a life of contentment and one of moral virtue and the two were inescapably intertwined. This volume brings together a wide range of his reflections upon the importance of moral integrity in the search for happiness. In essays that are articulate, meditative and inspirational, Cicero presents his views upon the significance of friendship and duty to state and family, and outlines a clear system of practical ethics that is at once simple and universal. These works offer a timeless reflection upon the human condition, and a fascinating insight into the mind of one of the greatest thinkers of Ancient Rome.

A Mencken Chrestomathy: His Own Selection of His Choicest Writing

H.L. Mencken

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 24 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The Baltimorean Belle-Lettrist... 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Most human beings can't write worth a damn. Mencken was an anomaly--a once-in-a-generation anomaly. This book represents over six-hundred pages of his best work, culled (by Mencken himself) from a fifty-year career in journalism. It is enjoyable and educational, and you can't ask for much more than that. Of course, Mencken allows his fulsome personality free rein, and hypersensitive, humorless, religious, and/or idealistic folks may be put off. Mencken needed those people to make fun of, to pinpoint their hypocrisy, silliness, uselessness to society, etc.; ergo, they may feel roughly used. Everyone else should have a good laugh.

new h.l. mencken fan- life's full circle is timeless. 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 2 people found this review helpful.

so many topics so little time. i found quickly the time to delve into the genius as presented. humor,candor,insight going lightly before you.

Mencken is talented. 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This book is an excellent item for the individualist who knows how to appreciate a critical thinker. It's hard to put down.

SUPERB....BUT THEN WHAT WOULD YOU EXPECT? IT'S MENCKEN'S OWN SELECTION. 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

If you love Mencken, trust him to select his best writing. This is the book for you. Only topics of a timeless nature are included. None of the dated topics, obscure names or three generation old gossip included in other collections.

Editorial Review:

A choice selection of H.L. Mencken's previously out-of-print writings. Highly recommended!

Walden: 150th Anniversary Illustrated Edition of the American Classic

Henry David Thoreau, Scot Miller

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Revisiting Walden 5 out of 5 stars.
18 of 18 people found this review helpful.

On a family vacation many years ago, I visited Walden Pond and walked all around it. In celebration of the 150th anniversary of the publication of Thoreau's Walden, the Walden Woods Project published, in 2004, this illustrated edition of the work with stunning color photographs by Scott Miller of Walden Pond and its environs. The Walden Woods Project is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation of Walden Pond and to the legacy of Thoreau. I found this book a fitting memorial of my walk around Walden Pond and of my earlier readings of Walden. The lovely edition, photographs, and memories inspired me to turn again to Thoreau's book.

Henry David Thoreau (1817 -- 1862) lived at Walden Pond, Masachusetts from July, 1845 -- September, 1847, in a cabin he built himself on a tract of land owned by his friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson. He was two miles from Concord, Massachusetts and one mile from his nearest neighbor. A railroad passed near the pond, and it was frequented regularly by farmers, hunters, picnickers, and others. During the two years, Thoreau left Walden Pond at times to visit friends in Concord, to lecture, and to visit other ponds and sites in the area. He made no pretense of being entirely isolated. In his book, Walden, published in 1854, Thoreau described the first year of his life at Walden Pond (he tells us that the second year was much the same) and his reasons for living there. Much of the book was written at Walden Pond, and Throreau also wrote other works there.

The book is short but it is written in a dense, difficult and condensed style with many long, complex sentences. It is also highly allusive and shows Thoreau's learning in classical literature and his interest in Eastern thought and religion. It is filled with many short, pithy, and provocative comments which have become proverbial in American literature.

In the opening and closing chapters of the book, Thoreau describes his motivations for living at Walden Pond and abandoning the life of commerce. For Thoreau, most people are owned by their possessions. He saw a need to live with little encubrance in order to understand himself and find inner peace. "Simplify, simplify, simplify" was his goal. In one of my favorite sentences of the book, he states (p. 67) "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." Then, towards the end of the book, Thoreau recounts some of the lessons he had learned in the following passage:

"We should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and took advantage of every accident that befell us, like the grass which confesses the influence of the slightest dew that falls on it, and did not spend our time in atoning for the neglect of past opportunities, which we call doing our duty. We loiter in winter while it is already spring."(p/253)

In the middle sections of the book, Throreau describes his life in the woods, again with recognition of his substantial interactions with other people during the time. (He was not a hermit.) He describes the books he read, his activites at his cabin, Walden Pond and woods, the changes of the seasons, and the plants and animals. The pond and its creatures are described with great detail, but Thoreau gives even more attention to internalizing his experiences and explaining their significance to his readers.

Scott Miller's beatiful photographs of Walden Pond add a great deal to this edition. They are well-placed to correspond with the discussion in the text, and they illuminate Thoreau's descriptive passages. The photographs, and the book itself, brought back reading and visiting memories and made me want to see Walden Pond again.

But much as Walden is revered for its descriptions of nature, the book remains for me primarily internalized and intropsective. Thoreau has many polemical things to say which will not, and should not, appeal to all readers. But the book documents the effort of an individual to try to understand his life, to reflect, and to understand change. As I have suggested, it is not an anti-social book as Thoreau was never far removed from friends and company. But it is a book about understanding one's life and learning not to be afraid of solitude or of being with oneself.

Robin Friedman

Editorial Review:

In August 1854, Houghton Mifflin"s predecessor, Ticknor & Fields, published a book called Walden; or, Life in the Woods, by a little-known writer named Henry Thoreau. At the time the book was largely ignored, but it has gone on to become one of the most widely read and influential works ever published, not only in this country but throughout the world. In August 2004 Houghton Mifflin, in association with the Walden Woods Project, will proudly publish a special 150th anniversary edition, beautifully illustrated with Scot Miller's spectacular color photographs, which are accompanied by historic black-and-white photographs and drawings. In the spirit of Thoreau, the book will be sensibly priced at $28.12, half a cent less than he spent building his cabin at Walden Pond.

Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays (FSG Classics)

Joan Didion

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 32 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Yeats, The Grateful Dead, and All That 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This book starts out citing W.B. Yeats and Peggy Lee, co-equals in esteem and regard. Yeats and his slouching towards Bethlehem, "Turning and turning in the widening gyre / The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the center cannot hold...And What rough best, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?" and this lovely gem from Miss Peggy, "I learned courage from Buddha, Jesus, Lincoln, Einstein, and Cary Grant." And what a unique dichotomy to start out a unique collection of essays uniquely told, from a voice risen above voices of that time--Joan Didion.

This book has a little story to it worth telling. I found myself in Boston of all places in the Harvard Book Store (no affiliation I guess to the better known little school near by). A bookstore staff member points out her recommendations from the staff recommendations section. It turns out she grew up in California parents of some freerer spirited, macrobiotic, driven by the very power of flowers types. This book store maven also goes to the little Harvard school and she recommends Joan Didion as one of her very fave reads of all fave reads. I having spent time in Cali myself and thinking that San Francisco is America's greatest city and having always been vexed, perplexed, and intrigued by that 60's counter-culture period in our country couldn't resist picking up the book...well picking it up from Amazon. Where else would one in their right mind buy books after all?

Joan Didion, as it turns out, is a phenomenal writer. She hails from Sacramento and wasn't in the thick of experiencing the 60's (aka Hunter Thompson) but a passionate 3rd person observer. She writes as if she is reporting on the age, place, and times but between the lines you pick up the pathos of these words, "Michael (a three-year old) burned his arm though, which is probably why Sue Ann was so jumpy when she happened to see him chewing on an electric cord. 'You'll fry like rice,' she screamed...they didn't notice Sue Ann screaming at Michael because they were in the kitchen trying to retrieve some very good Moroccan hash which had dropped down through a floorboard damaged in the fire." And things fell apart.

But "Slouching Towards Bethlehem," isn't about the Haight-Ashbury district scene alone. Didion's writing extends to a love letter for John Wayne, personal reflections (which are far from self-absorbent as personal reflections can trend), and a witty eye that takes it all in unflinchingly, bracingly, and honest. Here's a little nugget from "On Self Respect," "...it is difficult in the extreme to continue fancying oneself Cathy in Wuthering Heights with one's head in a Food Fair bag. There is a similar case for all the small disciplines, unimportant in themselves; imagine maintaining any kind of swoon, commiserative or carnal, in a cold shower."

I'll be a faithful reader of Didion for many moons to come. Thank you Harvard Book Store girl...thank you Amazon. Don't miss out on Didion dear readers. ...mmw

Editorial Review:

The first nonfiction work by one of the most distinctive prose stylists of our era, Slouching Towards Bethlehem remains, forty years after its first publication, the essential portrait of America— particularly California—in the sixties. It focuses on such subjects as John Wayne and Howard Hughes, growing up a girl in California, ruminating on the nature of good and evil in a Death Valley motel room, and, especially, the essence of San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury, the heart of the counterculture.

Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History, Updated and Expanded Edition

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The definitive compendium of classic and modern oratory expanded—with a new preface on what makes a speech "great."

An instant classic when it was first published a decade ago and now enriched by seventeen new speeches, Lend Me Your Ears contains more than two hundred outstanding moments of oratory. This third edition is selected, arranged, and introduced by William Safire, who honed his skills as a presidential speechwriter. He is considered by many to be America's most influential political columnist and most elegant explicator of our language. Covering speeches from Demosthenes to George W. Bush, this latest edition includes the words of Cromwell to the "Rump Parliament," Orson Welles eulogizing Darryl F. Zanuck, General George Patton exhorting his troops before D-Day, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg speaking on Bush v. Gore. A new section incorporates speeches that were never delivered: what Kennedy was scheduled to say in Dallas; what Safire wrote for Nixon if the first moon landing met with disaster; and what Clinton originally planned to say after his grand jury testimony but swapped for a much fiercer speech.

Here is New York

E.B. White

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 20 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

"On any person who desires such queer prizes, New York will bestow the gift of loneliness and the gift of privacy." So begins E.B. White's classic meditation on that noisiest, most public of American cities. Written during the summer of 1948, well after the author and editor had taken up permanent residence in Maine, Here Is New York is a fond glance back at the city of his youth, when White was one of the "young worshipful beginners" who give New York its passionate character. It's also a tribute to the sheer implausibility of the place--the tangled infrastructure, the teeming humanity, the dearth of air and light. Much has changed since White wrote this essay, yet in a city "both changeless and changing" there are things here that will doubtless ring equally true 100 years from now. To wit, "New Yorkers temperamentally do not crave comfort and convenience--if they did they would live elsewhere."

Anyone who's ever cherished his essays--or even Charlotte's Web--knows that White is the most elegant of all possible stylists. There's not a sentence here that does not make itself felt right down to the reader's very bones. What would the author make of Giuliani's New York? Or of Times Square, Disney-style? It's hard to say for sure. But not even Planet Hollywood could ruin White's abiding sense of wonder: "The city is like poetry: it compresses all life ... into a small island and adds music and the accompaniment of internal engines." This lovely new edition marks the 100th anniversary of E.B. White's birth--cause for celebration indeed. --Mary Park

Pensees (Penguin Classics)

Blaise Pascal

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 20 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Religion of the Heart and of the Head 5 out of 5 stars.
13 of 15 people found this review helpful.

Before actually reading "Pensees," I knew Blaise Pascal and his "Pensees" only from snippets of quotes such as, "The heart has its reason of which reason knows nothing" and from "Pascal's Wager": better to risk believing in God and living with Him for all eternity and being wrong, then risk not believing in God and living apart from Him in all eternity and because you were wrong.

Having read him, I know now that the quote and wager just mentoned, though only snippets, do summarize his brilliance and his beauty. Like few others, Pascal fuses head and heart in his defense of Christianity. His ability is likely due to his brilliant mind that on November 23, 1654, from 10:30 PM to 12:30 AM encountered God in a mysterious, mystical experience that he could only describe with the one-word epitaph: "Fire."

For the rest of his brief life (he died at age 39), the fire in his soul and the genius of his mind merged in the "writing" of "Pensees." I place "writing" in quotation marks because Pascal's early death never allowed him to finish "Pensees." What we have is akin to his outline (though 325 pages in length!). Imagine if he had actually finished it. Pascal, ever the absent-minded professor, would have a thought run through his mind, write it down, cut it in a strip, and splice it in with other similar subject headings.

It's helpful to understand this before reading "Pensee" for what you find is brilliant disorder--an incomplete sentence here, half a thought there, then long and insightful paragraphs here. In other words, you do need to wade through the unusual design of the book, but in the wading you will find oceans of depth that flood both your heart and your head with passion and reason to love and know God.

Pascal's "real world" arguments for God are the most rationally and personally compelling ones that I have ever read. Pascal honestly faces the reality that we see God only in part and that by evidence alone, whether of reason or nature or both, we might just as well conclude that there is no God (the atheists), or that He is not loving, or not powerful, or that He is disinterested (Deism), or dispassionate (the Greek philosophers). He then explains that God reveals enough in nature to cause us to perceive His existence and to perceive that we are finite and fallen. Nature, according to Pascal, points more to the Mediator--Christ--the One who reveals the hidden God as a God of holiness and love, and the One who reveals us as God's prodigal children who need to come home.

Reviewer: Dr. Robert W. Kellemen is the author of "Soul Physicians: A Theology of Soul Care and Spiritual Direction," "Spiritual Friends: A Methodology of Soul Care and Spiritual Direction," and the forthcoming "Sacred Companions: A History of Soul Care and Spiritual Direction."

Editorial Review:

Blaise Pascal, the precociously brilliant contemporary of Descartes, was a gifted mathematician and physicist, but it is his unfinished apologia for the Christian religion upon which his reputation now rests. "The Pensees" is a collection of philosohical fragments, notes and essays in which Pascal explores the contradictions of human nature in pscyhological, social, metaphysical and - above all - theological terms. Mankind emerges from Pascal's analysis as a wretched and desolate creature within an impersonal universe, but who can be transformed through faith in God's grace.