Edmund Wilson has been a great inspiration for me. He lived through a vibrant era in history and popular culture and captured much of it with his unique voice.
David, can you name a particular Jill Lepore and/or Caitlin Flanagan book/essay? I'd love to add them to the list. Caitlin Flanagan often gets on my nerves, but I did like her edgy profile of Alice Waters :-)
Living? British World War II historian James Holland for me. He mixes the top-level with the front-line level pretty seamlessly.
He also has good insights on what worked and what didn't, ranging from grand strategy to economics to uniform design. He points out that the Germans ran into food crises because their diet was based on pork, which eats meat, while the British ate lamb, which grazes. That meant Germans had to duplicate feed for people and pork.
He has a powerful writing style that moves quickly and explains things well.
Others I like among the living: Sir Max Hastings, Geoffrey Ward, Geoffrey Perret, Joe Balkoski, Richard B. Frank, Patrick Bishop, John C. McManus, and Jeffrey Cox.
Isabel Wilkerson's THE WARMTH OF OTHER SUNS, a meticulous reliving and rethinking of the Great Migration through the lives of six people, is a book of the decade for me, if not a book of the past 50 years. I'm an evangelist for this book and the insights it holds for storytellers, students of nonfiction and all Americans. I haven't read CASTE.
I don't know if this counts as journalism, but the magazine in which I most often encounter excellent writing is the London Review Of Books. For example this essay (about a sort of horrible topic) is just a fantastic piece of prose: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n14/rachel-nolan/always-look-in-the-well
Great suggestions, NickS, and I definitely consider the writing in London Review of Books to be a form of first-person journalism of very high quality. I'll list these entries on my list, unless you tell me otherwise :-)
I'll second Nick's nomination of the LRB as a source of excellent writing. I'd also add the New York Review of Books, and since I'm a lover of Irish literature and writing I'll single out two regular contributors, John Banville and Finian O'Toole. They are worthy members of a lineage from Joyce through William Trevor, Edna O'Brian, Sebastian Barry, Iris Murdoch, and any number of Irish authors.
As part of the McGill debate team, we would travel to tournaments on the weekend, mostly in eastern Canada and the north-eastern US. The rules were similar in both countries; you would be in a team of two, debating another team of two, and would win or lose on points awarded by judges, themselves student debaters. In Canada, there were points to be won by entertaining or inspiring the audience. In the US, it was more an attritional training for future litigators. You had to check each argument they made, no matter how stupid, otherwise it would be deemed to stand. The more arguments, the more points. The trick for us was to make the audience laugh or feel while also winning at the tedious arithmetical punch and judy.
For a couple of tournaments, as his normal partner wasn’t available, I debated with our team’s president. Gerry spoke with an authority that gathered the jangled masculinity of our many opposing alpha try-hards into itself, exposing their puff and strut as mere mummery. He knocked points down like an apex predator who has only occasionally to swat at something for it to shrink away. I’m not sure what I brought to the partnership. It’s hard to picture it, now. I had the novelty accent, for sure, plenty of earnest and the odd flash of wit. Whatever it was, we took home a fair amount of silver though I never won a tournament or placed in the top three.
We went to Harvard some time in the autumn of 1992, cutting through the preliminary rounds like a hot knife through butter. The semi-final was to be held in a medium-sized, steep walled amphitheatre, just like home. Our opposing team was also a man and a woman, Ted Cruz and a woman whose name I don’t remember. (In fact, I hadn’t recalled that it was Cruz till Gerry reminded me during the US presidential primaries a couple of years back.)
Wow, Martha, your evolving list is amazing! I'm trying to think of someone I might call 'great' who has published since 1990 and I'm drawing a blank. I do love Barbara Kingsolver's essays. And Amy Tan's.
I think what this is telling me is that I need to expand my reading and look for those essays that will move me and change me. I'll start by selecting some from your list!
Barbara Kingsolver has a couple of books of essays I'm happy to say I own and cherish--and go back and read often, but you asked for a particular essay, so I'll choose "Knowing Our Place", from her 2002 book of essays, Small Wonder.
In it she writes about the natural inspiration she takes as a writer from each of the places she loves and lives in at different times of the year. The holler in Kentucky, where she and her husband spend time in her family cabin, and her home in Arizona, where the desert denizens provide their own kind of magic. Her choice of words thrill me. I've given up ever thinking I could write in a way that would be close to hers. I'm just happy to be reading them.
In Amy Tan's memoir, Where the Past Begins, the chapters read like essays, each able to be read separately and distinctly. In the chapter/essay called "How I Learned to Read", she describes a study on early reading where she was one of 49 children, some white, some Black, some 'oriental', who were followed over a few years to see if children who learned to read before starting school were actually at a disadvantage, as earlier studies had indicated.
It sounds dry, but in her hands it's a fascinating path to discovering more about herself, about the woman who conducted the study, and about her parents who, she would learn later, had their reasons for lying as they were questioned about her early childhood.
I loved the entire book but that essay stands out for me. I came away loving that little girl and wanting to hug her to pieces.
I love the list! I would suggest Patrick Radden Keefe. His writing for the New Yorker inspired me to go back to school and take your class, and his books Snakehead and Say Nothing are two of my favorites. His most recent work, Rouges, is a collection of profiles he’s written for The New Yorker that includes a few of the pieces that he later turned into books.
Hi Martha! Jia Tolentino is my recommendation. I've enjoyed her pieces for The New Yorker throughout the years. Her book of essays, Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-delusion, sits patiently on my to-read shelf. The blurb on the back cover says she "is a peerless voice of her generation," which... is a contestable statement in my opinion. But overall, I admire her unique voice and the ease of her prose.
Two of my favorite non-fiction writers, both for the quality of their prose and the breadth of their work, are Janet Malcolm and Bill Bryson. Malcolm's brilliance as both a reporter and kind of intellectual investigator should be familiar to long-time New Yorker readers, and all her books are well worth reading. If I had to single out one for the acuity of her perceptions and singularity of her prose, it would be her essay collection, "Forty-one False Starts: Essays on Artists and Writers." I could also recommend any of Bryson's books, but the deftness of his writing, his sense of humor, and the wealth of detail he collects are on abundant display in "Body: A Guide for Occupants."
I want to recommend three works by two authors. The first, and by far the better known, is Jared Diamond. His famous books "Guns, Germs and Steel" and "Collapse" are still among my favorites, right up there with the nonfiction writings of Collette and Tolkein. The last is a little more obscure: The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia by James C. Scott.
Who are your favorite nonfiction writers? I'd love to hear your suggestions...
Edmund Wilson has been a great inspiration for me. He lived through a vibrant era in history and popular culture and captured much of it with his unique voice.
Indeed, David - does any particular title of Wilson’s stand out for you?
Great question, Martha.
Jill Lepore––These Truths was one of my favorite history books. I'll read any essay she writes.
Also, Caitlin Flanagan (the Atlantic). She's an automatic read for me.
Substack writers, too, but I don't want to embarrass anyone!
David, can you name a particular Jill Lepore and/or Caitlin Flanagan book/essay? I'd love to add them to the list. Caitlin Flanagan often gets on my nerves, but I did like her edgy profile of Alice Waters :-)
My mistake. I was thinking of Jennifer Señor and this article:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/09/twenty-years-gone-911-bobby-mcilvaine/619490/
As fro Jill Lepore, These Truths is a top favorite history book.
Yes, that’s an amazing piece by Jennifer Senior - it appears on my list under the student suggestions 😊
Living? British World War II historian James Holland for me. He mixes the top-level with the front-line level pretty seamlessly.
He also has good insights on what worked and what didn't, ranging from grand strategy to economics to uniform design. He points out that the Germans ran into food crises because their diet was based on pork, which eats meat, while the British ate lamb, which grazes. That meant Germans had to duplicate feed for people and pork.
He has a powerful writing style that moves quickly and explains things well.
Others I like among the living: Sir Max Hastings, Geoffrey Ward, Geoffrey Perret, Joe Balkoski, Richard B. Frank, Patrick Bishop, John C. McManus, and Jeffrey Cox.
I read history.
Great suggestions, but I’m looking for writers and their work published since 1990 - I should have clarified that in my note 😉
"Axel's Castle"- the first thing of his I read. He actually made Proust, Joyce and Gertrude Stein understandable for me.
Isabel Wilkerson's THE WARMTH OF OTHER SUNS, a meticulous reliving and rethinking of the Great Migration through the lives of six people, is a book of the decade for me, if not a book of the past 50 years. I'm an evangelist for this book and the insights it holds for storytellers, students of nonfiction and all Americans. I haven't read CASTE.
I don't know if this counts as journalism, but the magazine in which I most often encounter excellent writing is the London Review Of Books. For example this essay (about a sort of horrible topic) is just a fantastic piece of prose: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n14/rachel-nolan/always-look-in-the-well
Addendum; thinking about specific writers that I associate with the LRB, I would say that the essays that make up Jenny Diski's _In Gratitude_ should be included in the list of best non-fiction writing: (description: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/jenny-diskis-way-of-seeing-beyond-the-story )
Great suggestions, NickS, and I definitely consider the writing in London Review of Books to be a form of first-person journalism of very high quality. I'll list these entries on my list, unless you tell me otherwise :-)
That's great.
I'll second Nick's nomination of the LRB as a source of excellent writing. I'd also add the New York Review of Books, and since I'm a lover of Irish literature and writing I'll single out two regular contributors, John Banville and Finian O'Toole. They are worthy members of a lineage from Joyce through William Trevor, Edna O'Brian, Sebastian Barry, Iris Murdoch, and any number of Irish authors.
Your mention of Irish literature made me think you might enjoy this story from Maria Farrell about her experience coming from Ireland to Canada and joining the college debate team: https://crookedtimber.org/2018/09/23/owning-the-peanut-gallery/
-----------------------------
As part of the McGill debate team, we would travel to tournaments on the weekend, mostly in eastern Canada and the north-eastern US. The rules were similar in both countries; you would be in a team of two, debating another team of two, and would win or lose on points awarded by judges, themselves student debaters. In Canada, there were points to be won by entertaining or inspiring the audience. In the US, it was more an attritional training for future litigators. You had to check each argument they made, no matter how stupid, otherwise it would be deemed to stand. The more arguments, the more points. The trick for us was to make the audience laugh or feel while also winning at the tedious arithmetical punch and judy.
For a couple of tournaments, as his normal partner wasn’t available, I debated with our team’s president. Gerry spoke with an authority that gathered the jangled masculinity of our many opposing alpha try-hards into itself, exposing their puff and strut as mere mummery. He knocked points down like an apex predator who has only occasionally to swat at something for it to shrink away. I’m not sure what I brought to the partnership. It’s hard to picture it, now. I had the novelty accent, for sure, plenty of earnest and the odd flash of wit. Whatever it was, we took home a fair amount of silver though I never won a tournament or placed in the top three.
We went to Harvard some time in the autumn of 1992, cutting through the preliminary rounds like a hot knife through butter. The semi-final was to be held in a medium-sized, steep walled amphitheatre, just like home. Our opposing team was also a man and a woman, Ted Cruz and a woman whose name I don’t remember. (In fact, I hadn’t recalled that it was Cruz till Gerry reminded me during the US presidential primaries a couple of years back.)
...
NickS, love this story - you should write it up as your own post 😉
I hadn't thought about it in ages, but it is a great story well told.
Agree, Dennis - I’ve already decided to add Mark O’Connell to the no fiction list.
Tim Kreider. Books: I Wrote This Book Because I Love You and We Learn Nothing. He has a Substack: https://timkreider.substack.com/
Wow, Martha, your evolving list is amazing! I'm trying to think of someone I might call 'great' who has published since 1990 and I'm drawing a blank. I do love Barbara Kingsolver's essays. And Amy Tan's.
I think what this is telling me is that I need to expand my reading and look for those essays that will move me and change me. I'll start by selecting some from your list!
Same challenge for you, Ramona: can you name a particular Kingsolver or Tan essay that resonates with you? I'd like to include it on my list :-)
Barbara Kingsolver has a couple of books of essays I'm happy to say I own and cherish--and go back and read often, but you asked for a particular essay, so I'll choose "Knowing Our Place", from her 2002 book of essays, Small Wonder.
In it she writes about the natural inspiration she takes as a writer from each of the places she loves and lives in at different times of the year. The holler in Kentucky, where she and her husband spend time in her family cabin, and her home in Arizona, where the desert denizens provide their own kind of magic. Her choice of words thrill me. I've given up ever thinking I could write in a way that would be close to hers. I'm just happy to be reading them.
In Amy Tan's memoir, Where the Past Begins, the chapters read like essays, each able to be read separately and distinctly. In the chapter/essay called "How I Learned to Read", she describes a study on early reading where she was one of 49 children, some white, some Black, some 'oriental', who were followed over a few years to see if children who learned to read before starting school were actually at a disadvantage, as earlier studies had indicated.
It sounds dry, but in her hands it's a fascinating path to discovering more about herself, about the woman who conducted the study, and about her parents who, she would learn later, had their reasons for lying as they were questioned about her early childhood.
I loved the entire book but that essay stands out for me. I came away loving that little girl and wanting to hug her to pieces.
I love the list! I would suggest Patrick Radden Keefe. His writing for the New Yorker inspired me to go back to school and take your class, and his books Snakehead and Say Nothing are two of my favorites. His most recent work, Rouges, is a collection of profiles he’s written for The New Yorker that includes a few of the pieces that he later turned into books.
Great, Tim, I'll list these pieces by Keefe :-)
Hi Martha! Jia Tolentino is my recommendation. I've enjoyed her pieces for The New Yorker throughout the years. Her book of essays, Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-delusion, sits patiently on my to-read shelf. The blurb on the back cover says she "is a peerless voice of her generation," which... is a contestable statement in my opinion. But overall, I admire her unique voice and the ease of her prose.
Two of my favorite non-fiction writers, both for the quality of their prose and the breadth of their work, are Janet Malcolm and Bill Bryson. Malcolm's brilliance as both a reporter and kind of intellectual investigator should be familiar to long-time New Yorker readers, and all her books are well worth reading. If I had to single out one for the acuity of her perceptions and singularity of her prose, it would be her essay collection, "Forty-one False Starts: Essays on Artists and Writers." I could also recommend any of Bryson's books, but the deftness of his writing, his sense of humor, and the wealth of detail he collects are on abundant display in "Body: A Guide for Occupants."
I want to recommend three works by two authors. The first, and by far the better known, is Jared Diamond. His famous books "Guns, Germs and Steel" and "Collapse" are still among my favorites, right up there with the nonfiction writings of Collette and Tolkein. The last is a little more obscure: The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia by James C. Scott.
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-art-of-not-being-governed-james-c-scott/1101223172?ean=9780300169171
Changed my political thinking in a profound way.
Thanks for the list – great prompts for new things to check out. Having just read The Wager, I would mention David Grann…
Thanks, Robin — it's about time for me to update that list :-) I have a recollection that "The Wager" is already on there, but I'll check.