# What are your favorite essays? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 12, 2008, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favorite-essays/449010 "2008-05-12T10:44:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mojo\_Pin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Mojo\_Pin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mojo_Pin)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2008, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favorite-essays/449010/1 "2008-05-12T10:44:25Z")
More specifically, those that are on the short side and of the expository/argumentative/persuasive variety. But anything you like really. Quite pathetically, I haven’t got one to start this thread with any kind of momentum, but that’s partly why I’m asking, because I don’t know any, so don’t hesitate to point out any well known classics either. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2008, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favorite-essays/449010/2 "2008-05-12T12:22:17Z")
George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language” Virginia Woolf, “A Room of One’s Own” ---
**Author:** ![Wargamer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/df705f/32.png) [@Wargamer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wargamer)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2008, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favorite-essays/449010/3 "2008-05-12T12:39:38Z")
‘A Modest Proposal’ by J. Swift. ---
**Author:** ![Mojo\_Pin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Mojo\_Pin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mojo_Pin)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2008, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favorite-essays/449010/4 "2008-05-12T15:39:30Z")
[QUOTE=jayjay] George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language” Virginia Woolf, “A Room of One’s Own” [/QUOTE] I was not unamused somewhat by the George Orwell one, sometimes not always not too unlike _monsieur_ William Strunk Jr. he is, is he not? the Woolf OTOH, I x’ed out of as soon as I saw that it required a table of contents with 6(!) sections. Maybe another day. [QUOTE=Wargamer] ‘A Modest Proposal’ by J. Swift. [/QUOTE] Hey here’s one I actually knew. Read it in middle school without any kind of introduction or primer, and spent much of it partly trying to figure out how the hell it got printed in a textbook and partly kind of convinced. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2008, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favorite-essays/449010/5 "2008-05-12T15:43:13Z")
G. K. Chesterton has written a lot of great ones. Try, for example, [On Running After One’s Hat](http://essays.quotidiana.org/chesterton/running_after_ones_hat/) [On Lying In Bed](http://essays.quotidiana.org/chesterton/lying_in_bed/) [The Contented Man](http://www.online-literature.com/chesterton/2606/) ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2008, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favorite-essays/449010/6 "2008-05-12T15:59:28Z")
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “[The American Scholar](http://www.emersoncentral.com/amscholar.htm),” although it’s technically a speech rather than an essay. ---
**Author:** ![Jamaika\_a\_jamaikaiake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7993a0/32.png) [@Jamaika\_a\_jamaikaiake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jamaika_a_jamaikaiake)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2008, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favorite-essays/449010/7 "2008-05-12T16:01:47Z")
“Letter from Birmingham Jail” -Martin Luther King Jr “Gettysburg Address” -Abe Lincoln ---
**Author:** ![bauble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f6c823/32.png) [@bauble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bauble)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2008, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favorite-essays/449010/8 "2008-05-12T16:54:45Z")
I hope this counts; it’s been one of my favorites for several years now: [False Authority Syndrome](http://www.vmyths.com/fas/fas1.cfm) ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2008, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favorite-essays/449010/9 "2008-05-12T16:58:50Z")
I have not read \*\*Montaigne \*\*- yet. He is on my list of classics to read… Would \*\*Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex \*\* apply here? I found a link to it here: [Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex](http://www.rawbw.com/~svw/superman.html) ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2008, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favorite-essays/449010/10 "2008-05-12T16:59:04Z")
Mark Twain: [Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses](http://ww3.telerama.com/~joseph/cooper/cooper.html). ---
**Author:** ![Lakai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de0a6/32.png) [@Lakai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lakai)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2008, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favorite-essays/449010/11 "2008-05-12T17:05:52Z")
The essay that always comes to mind is Adam Gopnik’s comments on the Virgina Tech [shootings](http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2007/04/30/070430taco_talk_gopnik). ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2008, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favorite-essays/449010/12 "2008-05-12T18:44:02Z")
[This Is No Game](http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/01/09/060109sh_shouts), by Jack Handey. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favorite-essays/449010/13 "2008-05-13T00:30:11Z")
Not as elevated as the others, but it started me thinking about something that will be the defining problem of the next century - Marshall Brain’s [“Robotic Nation”](http://www.marshallbrain.com/robotic-nation.htm). ---
**Author:** ![Linty\_Fresh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Linty\_Fresh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linty_Fresh)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favorite-essays/449010/14 "2008-05-13T02:29:06Z")
Orwell’s [The Lion and the Unicorn](http://www.netcharles.com/orwell/essays/lion-and-unicorn1.htm) as well as his essay on [Rudyard Kipling](http://www.netcharles.com/orwell/essays/rudyard-kipling.htm) are about as close to my political views as one can get (minus the actual socialism), and they’re about 50 times more eloquent than I could hope to become. How could anyone read what Orwell wrote about Chamberlain and not immediately think of Dubya? ---
**Author:** ![wolf\_in\_second\_hand\_clothing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/9d8465/32.png) [@wolf\_in\_second\_hand\_clothing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_in_second_hand_clothing)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favorite-essays/449010/15 "2008-05-13T17:28:53Z")
Isaac Asimov’s [“The Relativity of Wrong”](http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm) ---
**Author:** ![VarlosZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d78d45/32.png) [@VarlosZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VarlosZ)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favorite-essays/449010/16 "2008-05-13T17:47:45Z")
Haven’t read it in ages, but Thoreau’s essay on [Civil Disobedience](http://www.literatureproject.com/civil-disobedience/civil-disobedience.htm%22%5B/url) floored me back in high school. ---
**Author:** ![Ca3799](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9f8e36/32.png) [@Ca3799](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ca3799)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favorite-essays/449010/17 "2008-05-13T18:14:59Z")
_Why I Am Not a Christian_ by Bertrand Russell [http://users.drew.edu/~jlenz/whynot.html](http://users.drew.edu/~jlenz/whynot.html) ---
**Author:** ![Ol\_Gaffer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Ol\_Gaffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ol_Gaffer)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favorite-essays/449010/18 "2008-05-13T18:50:46Z")
[QUOTE=Ca3799] _Why I Am Not a Christian_ by Bertrand Russell > **[Why I Am Not a Christian by Bertrand Russell - The Bertrand Russell Society](https://users.drew.edu/~jlenz/whynot.html)** [/QUOTE] While not as eloquent (in my opinion) as Russell, Clarence Darrow’s [Why I am an Agnostic](http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/clarence_darrow/why_i_am_an_agnostic.html) is good as well. I find this excerpt from Carl Sagan’s [Reflections on a Mote of Dust](http://obs.nineplanets.org/psc/pbd.html) one of the most moving things I have ever read. ---
**Author:** ![Ol\_Gaffer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Ol\_Gaffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ol_Gaffer)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favorite-essays/449010/19 "2008-05-13T19:10:52Z")
Another favorite is Garrison Keillor’s [We’re Not in Lake Wobegon Anymore](http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/979/) from August 2004. It is worth a look just for the following paragraph - “The party of Lincoln and Liberty was transmogrified into the party of hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, nihilists in golf pants, brownshirts in pinstripes, sweatshop tycoons, hacks, fakirs, aggressive dorks, Lamborghini libertarians, people who believe Neil Armstrong’s moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico, little honkers out to diminish the rest of us, Newt’s evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man suspicious of the free flow of information and of secular institutions, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk.” ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favorite-essays/449010/20 "2008-05-13T19:49:47Z")
[THEY’RE MADE OUT OF MEAT](http://www.terrybisson.com/meat.html) by by Terry Bisson It’s actually a story, or more specifically, a conversation, but it is awesome and essay-ish. It’s a conversation between two aliens upon seeing Earth. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favorite-essays/449010.md?page=2)