Essays

Consolations by David Whyte

★★★★★ | Philosophy | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads 

Ah, what a treasure. Two to three page poetic essays on 52 commonplace words or themes like Curiosity, Heartbreak, and Forgiveness. I’ve been ruminating on this definition of Beauty for the past month:

Beauty is the harvest of presence.

Whyte often shared a take that surprised me, and sometimes changed my very paradigm of a long-fixed, but one-sided belief. I can see spending a year with this book, one theme per week, and digging deep, deep, deep into the purpose of life. This one is a permanent addition to my bedside table.

A Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut

★★★☆☆ | Essays | Audio | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads

A cranky, comical book of essays written in the last years of Vonnegut’s life.  He is depressed about the state of the world and our short-term minded treatment of it.  He reminds you that everyone, even those experts in power only just got here, like everyone else and no one really knows anything.

These Precious Days by Ann Patchett

★★★★☆ | Essays | Audio | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads

A wonderful collection of essays across a variety of topics.  I read her essay “Three Fathers” in the New Yorker a while back, but it’s so much more engaging to hear Ann read it aloud in her own voice.  Her writing reminds me of my own if I were better — and that it’s possible to write and essay and still be impactful.

Scroll to Top