Favorite Essay(s) ?

[McKenna]

Hello fellow AH regulars and irregulars! I've a small favor to ask which has nothing to do with actual writng -it has to do with reading.

In one of my nonfiction writing classes this semester, I have to come up with an essay to discuss in class. It has to be nonfiction, and short enough to read through in class. Thing is, I'm drawing a blank as to a "favorite essay" that will fit these categories. Help?

I figure with the number of rational, intelligent beings here, one of you has to have a favorite essay or writer or something that could help me out here.

Ideas anyone?

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Originally posted by McKenna
I figure with the number of rational...beings here

Not as many as you'd think. But, then again, I have high standards in that area.

Favorite essays? Short ones?

Let's see... I would say that I am very, very fond of Gettier's epistemology article (one of the most powerful articles in philosophy in the last chunk of years... he wrote it... and hundreds and hundreds of reponses were written by philosophers in books and journals and essays... that's power).

Also, very fond of Michael Shermer's stuff... most notably, his essays on why the Holocaust may not have happened like we think it did, Pseudo-science, and the 25 points against Creationism as a science.

 

[fogbank]

Annie freakin' Dillard. Amazing essayist. In particular, her essay titled "Total Eclipse," which describes driving to a hillside near Yakima, I believe, to witness an eclipse. I remember studying it in a rhetoric class, and it left me completely stunned.

Not sure if you can find a copy of it floating around on the net, but it's in a lot of literary anthologies, and should be in any good library.

Just did a bit of searching and found a copy of it:

http://pencible.tripod.com/pande/total_eclipse.htm

 

[McKenna]

Joe, Fogbank -thanks. I'm having a look at the authors/essays you mentioned.

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

Not as many as you'd think. But, then again, I have high standards in that area. . .

There's no one left but me and thee, and I'm not so sure of thee!

 

[cloudy]

I love this one: Superman and Me: The Joys of Reading and Writing, by my favorite, Sherman Alexie.

 

[McKenna]

I love this one: Superman and Me: The Joys of Reading and Writing, by my favorite, Sherman Alexie.

Sherman Alexie? I should have guessed!


Thanks Cloudy!

 

[cloudy]

Sherman Alexie? I should have guessed!


Thanks Cloudy!

I can't help it, his words fascinate me.

plus, he's hot as hell!

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

Well MY FAVORITE would be:

“Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex” by Larry Niven

It's a Hoot!



But here is a group, one of which you might not mind have represent your taste:

The Best of English Essays

 

[McKenna]

Thanks Burley... checking out the links now!

 

[amicus]

From previous encounters I doubt you will be receptive to my suggestion, but the Ayn Rand Institute has a series of essays concerning Romantic Love, Literature and ethics and morality that might interest you.

amicus

 

[Guest]

Fuck my holes! by Aurora Snow

It comes with pretty pictures.

 

[CrazyyAngel]

The only essay I can come up with is Mark Twains "The awful german language" ... funny as hell, especially for a German .

Can be found here:

http://www.bdsnett.no/klaus/twain/

CA

 

[McKenna]

Amicus - You're exactly right.

CV - I need a nonfiction essay. Aurora Snow is ... fiction, from her tits to her toes.

CA- Thanks for the suggestion!