Ask HN: Who are your favorite essayists?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9294704

by kev6168 • 11 years ago

3 6 11 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

argimenes• 11 years ago

Alan Kay

Kenneth Clark, art historian

John Ruskin, art and social historian

Slavoj Zizek, Marxist/Lacanian philosopher

zem• 11 years ago

lewis thomas. combined solid science and excellent writing.

mightymaike• 11 years ago

Noam Chomsky Emma Goldman Tolstoy

sjs382• 11 years ago

Chuck Klosterman

brickcap• 11 years ago

I don't have favourites I just go up on gutenberg and look for collections. This way I get to read essays from authors whom I hadn't read before.

For example couple of months back I found 'all things considered' [1] a collection of selected essays by GK Chesterton. While the entire collection is good my favourites were in no particular order:-

1. On running afters ones hat

2. The fallacy of success

3. The worship of the wealthy

These days I am reading Oxford book of American Essays[2]. I liked Benjamin Franklin's essays (The whistle was also in his autobiography). Consolation for the old bachelor (Francis Hopkinson) is very funny. Calvin a study of character (Charles Dudley Warner) is the strangest thing I have read in recent time, it is good though.

[1]http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11505

[2]http://www.gutenberg.org/files/40196/40196-h/40196-h.htm

brandonlipman• 11 years ago

I am not sure what you consider an essay versus a blogger. I am a big fan of Andrew Chen's essays. I love how through he is. He does not gloss over critical points/how to's like many marketing writers do.

Link to his site: http://andrewchen.co/

Ask HN: Who are your favorite essayists?

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