best essay 2021

Top Reads 2021 | Essays

With another year under our belts, here are ten of our most popular essays from 2021, on abandoned whaling communities in the Bering Strait to Joni Mitchell’s Blue  album.

Lice | AK Blakemore

‘I often had head  lice as a child . . . Mum would sit on the lip of the tub and comb and comb, pulling faces, flicking clots of Pantene freckled with their little bodies into the sink’.

AK Blakemore on lice.

A Bleed of Blue | Amy Key

‘I was trying simultaneously to numb the grief I felt and to burrow into that grief, so I could stand in it.’

On love, its absence and Joni Mitchell’s Blue album.

On Vulnerability | Katherine Angel

‘Being porous – being susceptible to the other’s needs and desires – is what makes one tender to the feelings of others, and what puts one at their mercy.’

Katherine Angel on vulnerability . 

Bleak Midwinter | Catherine Taylor

‘In a sense, we had been waiting for the Ripper to visit for months, even years.’

Catherine Taylor on growing up in Sheffield and Peter Sutcliffe.

Breast or Tooth? | Tishani Doshi

‘In the nineteenth century, a woman called Nangeli in Kerala sliced off her breasts and offered them to the tax collectors on a plaintain leaf as protest against having to pay the breast tax.’

Tishani Doshi on breasts and police violence in India.

Having and Being Had | Eula Biss

‘A white set designer and a white director work to create an authentic African American interior. The commercial, they tell us, is going to feature an African American grandmother serving a holiday turkey.’

Eula Biss on complicity and capitalism.

On Mistaking Whales | Bathsheba Demuth

‘Before a gray whale becomes a home, or a barrel of oil, or a metaphor, before she enters the realm of human meaning, she is a being complete in herself.’

Bathsheba Demuth visits the abandoned whaling communities of the Bering Strait.  

A Series of Rooms Occupied by Ghislaine Maxwell | Chris Dennis

‘What is the metaphor of the room? Of the house. Of the neighborhood.’

Chris Dennis on incarceration.

On Running | Larissa Pham

‘Maybe that’s why running has its adherents: there are those who are drawn to its simplicity, who find beauty in its pure, egalitarian punishment. Who even find joy in it.’

Larissa Pham on running.

Mr Brown, Mrs White and Ms Black | Kei Miller

‘Mr Brown only thinks these thoughts. He would never share them with anyone, because these are the kinds of thoughts that implicate him.’

Three stories of race in Jamaica, by Kei Miller.

Title photo courtesy of Amy Key.  

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Granta 167: Extraction Online

You Are the Product

‘The anglophone world, we have to infer, has run out of words for its own feelings.’ Daisy Hildyard on the wisdom of scarecrows.

‘What is the read receipt for?’ Lillian Fishman on texting, power and the ethics of leaving a friend on read.

‘Like pretty much everyone who uses the internet, I have seen many terrible things that I did not search for and that I cannot unsee.’ Rosanna McLaughlin on what the internet thinks she wants.

‘I have a pathological addiction to the internet, which I indulge with the excuse of making art. It rarely translates to anything good and mostly leaves me overstimulated and afraid.’ Paul Dalla Rosa on excess and the internet.

‘rumors of bees on speedwell, / no oxidative stress just / effortless pollination’ Two poems by Sylvia Legris.

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More on granta.com, essays & memoir | the online edition, a summer of japanese literature, dan bradley.

From manga to crime fiction, contemporary literature to Nobel-Prize-winning classics, here are ten works of Japanese literature worth spending your summer on

Ten Books that Changed the World

Martin puchner.

Martin Puchner on ten books that have changed the course of world history.

Art & Photography | The Online Edition

Brea souders & alice zoo.

‘How would I feel if I had messaged for years with someone that I later found out was an AI?’ Brea Souders speaks to Alice Zoo about chatbots, interconnection and the dialogue between photography and text in her work.

Chicken Crazy

Thom sliwowski.

‘Patterns in my love life, things I read, my dreams and distant memories together wove plush carpets of significance.’ An essay by Thom Sliwowski on chicken, abstinence and polyamory.

Podcasts | Issue 167

Podcast | rachel kushner, rachel kushner.

‘My instinct often is to swerve, to try to commit to some kind of reversal on received logics and see how far I can go with it.’ Rachel Kushner on the mystery of prehistory and the true depth of a cave.

Ted Hodgkinson

‘There are few things worse than being rebuked by the very books you have promised yourself you will read.’

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The Best American Essays 2021

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“The world is abundant even in bad times; it is lush with interestingness, and always, somewhere, offering up consolation or beauty or humor or happiness, or at least the hope of future happiness,” writes guest editor Kathryn Schulz in the introduction to The Best American Essays 2021 . Featuring essays by Elizabeth Alexander, Molly McCully Brown, Dawn Lundy Martin, and Wesley Morris, to name a few, this installment of the annual anthology captures writers at work during a historic year of grief and tumult. From an intimate account of nursing a loved one during the pandemic to an exploration of the political and aesthetic history of a mustache, this collection demonstrates what it is to be writing during an unprecedented time, offering readers and writers solace and inspiration through rigorous prose.  

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“Essays root ideas in personal experience”, the philosopher Alain de Botton tells us in his interview  in which he discussed five books of “illuminating essays”.  He chooses The Crowded Dance of Modern Life by Virginia Woolf, as well as a selection of DW Winnicott , The Wisdom of Life by Arthur Schopenhauer, The Secret Power of Beauty by John Armstrong and Yoga for People Who Can’t be Bothered to Do It by Geoff Dyer, which “is in praise of slacker-dom and not doing very much. It’s not about Yoga at all.”

David Russell, Associate Professor at Oxford University, recommends the best Victorian essays , including selections by Charles Lamb , Matthew Arnold , George Eliot , Walter Pater and (one twentieth-century writer) Marion Milner and discusses the connection between the essay and the development of urban culture in the 19 th century.

Dame Hermione Lee, the writer's biographer, chooses her best books on Virginia Woolf .  She discusses how and why her stature has grown so much since the 1960s and selects a range of her books including diaries and novels, as well as essays, including To the Lighthouse , which she considers Woolf’s greatest novel, her Diaries and her essay " Walter Sickert: A Conversation " , which can be seen as a meditation on the disparities between painting and writing as art forms.

Adam Gopnik , of the New Yorker , chooses Woolf’s The Common Reader as well as collections by Max Beerbohm , EB White , Randall Jarrell and Clive James .

The Best Essays: the 2021 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award , recommended by Adam Gopnik

Had i known: collected essays by barbara ehrenreich, unfinished business: notes of a chronic re-reader by vivian gornick, nature matrix: new and selected essays by robert michael pyle, terroir: love, out of place by natasha sajé, maybe the people would be the times by luc sante.

Every year, the judges of the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay search out the best book of essays written in the past year and draw attention to the author's entire body of work. Here, Adam Gopnik , writer, journalist and PEN essay prize judge, emphasizes the role of the essay in bearing witness and explains why the five collections that reached the 2021 shortlist are, in their different ways, so important.

Every year, the judges of the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay search out the best book of essays written in the past year and draw attention to the author’s entire body of work. Here, Adam Gopnik, writer, journalist and PEN essay prize judge, emphasizes the role of the essay in bearing witness and explains why the five collections that reached the 2021 shortlist are, in their different ways, so important.

David Russell on The Victorian Essay

Selected prose by charles lamb, culture and anarchy and other writings by matthew arnold, selected essays, poems, and other writings by george eliot, studies in the history of the renaissance by walter pater, the hands of the living god: an account of a psychoanalytic treatment by marion milner.

With the advent of the Victorian age, polite maxims of eighteenth-century essays in the  Spectator  were replaced by a new generation of writers who thought deeply—and playfully—about social relationships, moral responsibility, education and culture. Here, Oxford literary critic  David Russell explores the distinct qualities that define the Victorian essay and recommends five of its greatest practitioners.

With the advent of the Victorian age, polite maxims of eighteenth-century essays in the  Spectator  were replaced by a new generation of writers who thought deeply—and playfully—about social relationships, moral responsibility, education and culture. Here, Oxford literary critic David Russell explores the distinct qualities that define the Victorian essay and recommends five of its greatest practitioners.

The Best Virginia Woolf Books , recommended by Hermione Lee

To the lighthouse by virginia woolf, the years by virginia woolf, walter sickert: a conversation by virginia woolf, on being ill by virginia woolf, selected diaries by virginia woolf.

Virginia Woolf was long dismissed as a 'minor modernist' but now stands as one of the giants of 20th century literature. Her biographer, Hermione Lee , talks us through the novels, essays, and diaries of Virginia Woolf.

Virginia Woolf was long dismissed as a ‘minor modernist’ but now stands as one of the giants of 20th century literature. Her biographer, Hermione Lee, talks us through the novels, essays, and diaries of Virginia Woolf.

Adam Gopnik on his Favourite Essay Collections

And even now by max beerbohm, the common reader by virginia woolf, essays of e.b. white by e.b. white, a sad heart at the supermarket by randall jarrell, visions before midnight by clive james.

What makes a great essayist? Who had it, who didn’t? And whose work left the biggest mark on the New Yorker ? Longtime writer for the magazine, Adam Gopnik , picks out five masters of the craft

What makes a great essayist? Who had it, who didn’t? And whose work left the biggest mark on the New Yorker ? Longtime writer for the magazine, Adam Gopnik, picks out five masters of the craft

Illuminating Essays , recommended by Alain de Botton

The crowded dance of modern life by virginia woolf, home is where we start from by d w winnicott, the wisdom of life by arthur schopenhauer, the secret power of beauty by john armstrong, yoga for people who can’t be bothered to do it by geoff dyer.

The essay format allows the author to develop ideas but add a personal touch, says the popular philosopher Alain de Botton . Here, he chooses his favourite essay collections

The essay format allows the author to develop ideas but add a personal touch, says the popular philosopher Alain de Botton. Here, he chooses his favourite essay collections

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Longform Best of 2021

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The Abortion I Didn’t Have

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Merritt Tierce New York Times Magazine

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Eve Crawford Peyton Slate

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On the writer W.G. Sebald.

Ben Lerner New York Review of Books

Naked Grief

On illness, lockdown, marriage, and intimacy.

Mary H.K. Choi GQ

The Best American Essays 2021

by Kathryn Schulz, Robert Atwan

• On Sale: 10/12/2021

Price: $16.99

Format: Trade PB

• Book Overview
• Author Info

About the Book

A collection of the year’s best essays, selected by award-winning journalist and New Yorker  staff writer Kathryn Schulz

“The world is abundant even in bad times,” guest editor Kathryn Schulz writes in her introduction, “it is lush with interestingness, and always, somewhere, offering up consolation or beauty or humor or happiness, or at least the hope of future happiness.” The essays Schulz selected are a powerful time capsule of 2020, showcasing that even if our lives as we knew them stopped, the beauty to be found in them flourished. From an intimate account of nursing a loved one in the early days of the pandemic, to a masterful portrait of grieving the loss of a husband as the country grieved the loss of George Floyd, this collection brilliantly shapes the grief, hardship, and hope of a singular year.

The Best American Essays 2021 includes ELIZABETH ALEXANDER • HILTON ALS • GABRIELLE HAMILTON • RUCHIR JOSHI • PATRICIA LOCKWOOD• CLAIRE MESSUD • WESLEY MORRIS • BETH NGUYEN • JESMYN WARD and others

Product Details

• ISBN: 9780358381754
• ISBN 10: 0358381754
• Imprint: Mariner Books
• Trimsize: 5.500 in (w) x 8.250 in (h) x 0.000 in (d)
• List Price: $16.99
• BISAC1 : FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Collections & Anthologies
• BISAC2 : LITERARY COLLECTIONS / American / General
• BISAC3 : LITERARY COLLECTIONS / Essays

Photo by Michael Polito

Kathryn Schulz

Kathryn Schulz is a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine , Rolling Stone , Foreign Policy , the Nation , the Boston Globe , and the "Freakonomics" blog of the New York Times . She lives in New York's Hudson Valley.

Being Wrong: The Book

Kathryn Schulz at the Huffington Post

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Robert Atwan

ROBERT ATWAN has been the series editor of The Best American Essays since its inception in 1986. He has edited numerous literary anthologies and written essays and reviews for periodicals nationwide.

The Top Ten Most-Read Essays of 2021

In 2021, democracy’s fortunes were tested, and a tumultuous world became even more turbulent. Democratic setbacks arose in places as far flung as Burma, El Salvador, Tunisia, and Sudan, and a 20-year experiment in Afghanistan collapsed in days. The world’s democracies were beset by rising polarization, and people watched in shock as an insurrection took place in the United States. In a year marked by high political drama, economic unrest, and rising assaults on democracy, we at the  Journal of Democracy  sought to provide insight and analysis of the forces that imperil freedom. Here are our 10 most-read essays of 2021:

Manuel Meléndez-Sánchez Nayib Bukele has developed a blend of political tactics that combines populist appeals and classic autocratic behavior with a polished social-media brand. It poses a dire threat to the country’s democratic institutions.

Most Read in 2021

Year-End Lists!

We don’t publish a lot of lists. But this year, having launched this new website with nearly complete access to 30 years of magazine archives, we thought it seemed like a good time to look back at the stories that resonated with our readers. 

In that spirit, we’ve compiled the most-read pieces published on our website in 2021, as well as the most-read work from our archives. 

And for good measure, we’ve pulled together a few pieces worth an honorable mention; our favorite Sunday Short Reads ; CNF content that was republished elsewhere; and the best advice, inspiration, and think pieces from some of our favorite publications.

Finally, if you enjoy what follows, please know there’s plenty more! We have a soft paywall on our site, which allows for three free reads a month. To get unlimited access for as little as $4/month, simply subscribe today.

Top 10 Published in 2021

• Almost Behind Us A dental emergency interrupts a meaningful anniversary // JENNIFER BOWERING DELISLE
• El Valle, 1991 An early lesson in strength and fragility // AURELIA KESSLER
• Stay at Home All those hours alone with a new baby can be rough // JARED HANKS
• The Desert Was His Home There are many things we don’t know about Mr. Otomatsu Wada, and a few things we do // ERIC L. MULLER
• Just a Big Cat The dramatic boredom of jury duty // ERICA GOSS
• What Will We Do for Fun Now? Her parents survived World War II and the Blitz just fine … didn’t they? // JANE RATCLIFFE
• Harriet Two brothers and a turtle // TYLER McANDREW
• Rango Getting existential at a funeral for a lizard   // JARRETT G. ZIEMER
• Mouse Lessons from a hamster emergency // BEVERLY PETRAVICIUS
• Roxy & the Worm Box Trying to recapture a childhood love of dirt // ANJOLI ROY

Top 5 from the Archive

• Picturing the Personal Essay A visual guide // TIM BASCOM
• The 5 Rs of Creative Nonfiction The essayist at work   // LEE GUTKIND
• The Line Between Fact & Fiction Do not add, and do not deceive // ROY PETER CLARK
• The Braided Essay as Social Justice Action The braided essay may be the most effective form for our times // NICOLE WALKER
• On Fame, Success, and Writing Like a Mother#^@%*& An interview with Cheryl Strayed   // ELISSA BASSIST

Honorable Mention ( ICYMI Essays)

• Latinx Heritage Month Who do you complain to when it’s HR you have a problem with? // MELISSA LUJAN MESKU
• Women’s Work Sometimes, freedom means choosing your obligations // EILEEN GARVIN
• Bloodlines and Bitter Syrup Avoiding prison in Huntsville, Texas, is nearly impossible // WILL BRIDGES
• Stealth A nontraditional couple struggles with keeping part of their life together private while undertaking the public act of filing for marriage // HEATHER OSTERMAN-DAVIS
• Something Like Vertigo An environmental writer sees parallels between her father’s declining equilibrium and a world turned upside down   // ELIZABETH RUSH

Our favorite Sunday Short Reads from our partners 

from BREVITY

• What Joy Looks Like SSR #128  // DORIAN FOX
• How to Do Nothing SSR #156 // ABIGAIL THOMAS

from DIAGRAM

• At 86, My Grandmother Regrets Two Things SSR #134 // DIANA XIN
• The Seedy Corner SSR #140 // KIMBERLY GARZA

from RIVER TEETH

• Waste Not SSR #131 // DESIREE COOPER
• This Is Orange SSR #141 // JILL KOLONGOWSKI

from SWEET LITERARY

• The Pilgrim’s Prescription SSR #122  // CAROLYN ALESSIO
• Leaves in the Hall SSR #160 // ANNE GUDGER

Our favorite stories from around the internet. 

Advice & Inspiration

• In Praise of the Meander Rebecca Solnit on letting nonfiction narrative find its own way (via Lit Hub )
• What’s Missing Here? A Fragmentary, Lyric Essay About Fragmentary, Lyric Essays Julie Marie Wade on the mode that never quite feels finished (via Lit Hub )
• Getting Honest about Om A brief essay on audience (via Brevity )
• Using the Personal to Write the Global Intimate details, personal exploration and respect for facts (via Nieman Storyboard )
• Fix Your Scene Shapes And quickly improve your manuscript (via Jane Friedman’s blog)

The State of Nonfiction

• What the NYT ‘Guest Essay’ Means for the Future of Creative Nonfiction Description (via Brevity )
• How the Role of Personal Expression and Experience Is Changing Journalism On the future of the newsroom (via Poynter )
• 50 Shades of Nuance in a Polarized World An essayist ponders when to write black-and-white polemics that attract clicks, and when to be more considered (via Nieman Storyboard )
• These Literary Memoirs Take a Different Tack Description (via NY Times )
• The Politics of Gatekeeping On reconsidering the ethics of blind submissions (via Poets & Writers )

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The Best Reviewed Nonfiction of 2021

Featuring george saunders, joan didion, michelle zauner, tom stoppard, tove ditlevsen, and more.

Well, friends, another grim and grueling plague year is drawing to a close, and that can mean only one thing: it’s time to put on our Book Marks stats hats and tabulate the best reviewed books of the past twelve months.

Yes, using reviews drawn from more than 150 publications, over the next two weeks we’ll be revealing the most critically-acclaimed books of 2021, in the categories of (deep breath): Memoir and Biography ; Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror ; Short Story Collections ; Essay Collections ; Poetry ; Mystery and Crime ; Graphic Literature; Literature in Translation; General Fiction ; and General Nonfiction.

Today’s installment: Nonfiction .

Brought to you by Book Marks , Lit Hub’s “Rotten Tomatoes for books.”

1. Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner (Knopf)

24 Rave • 6 Positive

“… powerfully maps a complicated mother-daughter relationship cut much too short … Zauner’s food descriptions transport us to the table alongside her … a rare acknowledgement of the ravages of cancer in a culture obsessed with seeing it as an enemy that can be battled with hope and strength …Zauner carries the same clear-eyed frankness to writing about her mother’s death five months after her diagnosis … It is rare to read about a slow death in such detail, an odd gift in that it forces us to sit with mortality rather than turn away from it.”

–Kristen Martin ( NPR )

2. The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen, trans. by Tiina Nullally and Michael Favala Goldman (FSG)

23 Rave • 4 Positive Read an excerpt from The Copenhagen Trilogy here

“… beautiful and fearless … Ditlevsen’s memoirs…form a particular kind of masterpiece, one that helps fill a particular kind of void. The trilogy arrives like something found deep in an ancestor’s bureau drawer, a secret stashed away amid the socks and sachets and photos of dead lovers. The surprise isn’t just its ink-damp immediacy and vitality—the chapters have the quality of just-written diary entries, fluidly translated by Tiina Nunnally and Michael Favala Goldman—but that it exists at all. It’s a bit like discovering that Lila and Lenú, the fictional heroines of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan quartet, were real … A half-century later, all of it—her extraordinary clarity and imperfect femininity, her unstinting account of the struggle to reconcile art and life—still lands. The construct of memoir (and its stylish young cousin, autofiction) involves the organizing filter of retrospection, lending the impression that life is a continuous narrative reel of action and consequence, of meanings to be universalized … Ditlevsen’s voice, diffident and funny, dead-on about her own mistakes, is a welcome addition to that canon of women who showed us their secret faces so that we might wear our own.”

–Megan O’Grady ( The New York Times Book Review )

3. Tom Stoppard: A Life by Hermione Lee (Knopf)

13 Rave • 19 Positive • 3 Mixed Read an excerpt from Tom Stoppard: A Life here

“Lee…builds an ever richer, circular understanding of his abiding themes and concerns, of his personal and artistic life, and of his many other passionate engagements … Lee’s biography is unusual in that it was commissioned, and published while its subject is still alive. Lee is a highly acclaimed biographer whose rigor and integrity make her decision to write under such conditions surprising … Lee is frank and thoughtful about the challenges of writing about a living subject. She is aware, as the reader will be, that her interview subjects do not want to speak ill of a friend and colleague who is still among them. In addition to the almost unrelievedly positive portrayal of Stoppard, the seven-hundred-fifty-plus pages of this volume might have been somewhat condensed, were its subject no longer living, thereby rendering the biography easier to wield and to read. In spite of these quibbles, this is an extraordinary record of a vital and evolving artistic life, replete with textured illuminations of the plays and their performances, and shaped by the arc of Stoppard’s exhilarating engagement with the world around him, and of his eventual awakening to his own past.”

–Claire Messud ( Harper’s )

4. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life by George Saunders (Random House)

20 Rave • 9 Positive • 3 Mixed • 2 Pan Listen to an interview with George Saunders here

“This book is a delight, and it’s about delight too. How necessary, at our particular moment … I love the warmth with which he writes about this teaching … This kind of reading (one of the best kinds, I’m convinced) tracks the author’s intentions—and missed intentions, and intuitions, and instinctive recoil from what’s banal or obvious—so closely and intimately, at every step, through every sentence … All this makes Saunders’s book very different from just another ‘how to’ creative writing manual, or just another critical essay. In enjoyably throwaway fashion, he assembles along his way a few rules for writing … reading…with this rich, close attention will mulch down into any would-be writer’s experience, and repay them by fertilising their own work eventually … One of the pleasures of this book is feeling his own thinking move backwards and forwards, between the writer dissecting practice and the reader entering in through the spell of the words, to dwell inside the story.”

–Tessa Hadley ( The Guardian )

5. Real Estate by Deborah Levy (Bloomsbury)

18 Rave • 9 Positive Read an excerpt from Real Estate here

“[A] wonderful new book … Levy, whose prose is at once declarative and concrete and touched with an almost oracular pithiness, has a gift for imbuing ordinary observations with the magic of metaphor … The new volume, which follows the death of one version of the self, describes the uncertain birth of another … She herself is not always a purely likable, or reliable, narrator of her own experience, and her book is the richer for it.”

–Alexandra Schwartz ( The New Yorker )

6. Mike Nichols: A Life by Mark Harris (Penguin)

18 Rave • 8 Positive • 2 Mixed

“Mark Harris’s portrait of director Mike Nichols is a pleasure to read and a model biography: appreciative yet critical, unfailingly intelligent and elegantly written. Granted, Harris has a hyper-articulate, self-analytical subject who left a trail of press coverage behind him, but Nichols used his dazzling conversational gifts to obfuscate and beguile as much as to confide … Harris, a savvy journalist and the author of two excellent cultural histories, makes judicious use of abundant sources in Mike Nichols: A Life to craft a shrewd, in-depth reckoning of the elusive man behind the polished facade … Harris gently covers those declining years with respect for the achievements that preceded them. His marvelous book makes palpable in artful detail the extraordinary scope and brilliance of those achievements.”

–Wendy Smith ( The Washington Post )

7. These Precious Days by Ann Patchett (Harper)

21 Rave • 3 Positive • 1 Mixed Read Ann Patchett on creating the work space you need, here

“… excellent … Patchett has a talent for friendship and celebrates many of those friends here. She writes with pure love for her mother, and with humor and some good-natured exasperation at Karl, who is such a great character he warrants a book of his own. Patchett’s account of his feigned offer to buy a woman’s newly adopted baby when she expresses unwarranted doubts is priceless … The days that Patchett refers to are precious indeed, but her writing is anything but. She describes deftly, with a line or a look, and I considered the absence of paragraphs freighted with adjectives to be a mercy. I don’t care about the hue of the sky or the shade of the couch. That’s not writing; it’s decorating. Or hiding. Patchett’s heart, smarts and 40 years of craft create an economy that delivers her perfectly understated stories emotionally whole. Her writing style is most gloriously her own.”

–Alex Witchel ( The New York Times Book Review )

8. Let Me Tell You What I Mean by Joan Didion (Knopf)

14 Rave • 12 Positive • 6 Mixed Read an excerpt from Let Me Tell You What I Mean here

“In five decades’ worth of essays, reportage and criticism, Didion has documented the charade implicit in how things are, in a first-person, observational style that is not sacrosanct but common-sensical. Seeing as a way of extrapolating hypocrisy, disingenuousness and doubt, she’ll notice the hydrangeas are plastic and mention it once, in passing, sorting the scene. Her gaze, like a sentry on the page, permanently trained on what is being disguised … The essays in Let Me Tell You What I Mean are at once funny and touching, roving and no-nonsense. They are about humiliation and about notions of rightness … Didion’s pen is like a periscope onto the creative mind—and, as this collection demonstrates, it always has been. These essays offer a direct line to what’s in the offing.”

–Durga Chew-Bose ( The New York Times Book Review )

9. Orwell’s Roses by Rebecca Solnit (Viking)

12 Rave • 13 Positive • 1 Mixed Read an excerpt from Orwell’s Roses here

“… on its simplest level, a tribute by one fine essayist of the political left to another of an earlier generation. But as with any of Solnit’s books, such a description would be reductive: the great pleasure of reading her is spending time with her mind, its digressions and juxtapositions, its unexpected connections. Only a few contemporary writers have the ability to start almost anywhere and lead the reader on paths that, while apparently meandering, compel unfailingly and feel, by the end, cosmically connected … Somehow, Solnit’s references to Ross Gay, Michael Pollan, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Peter Coyote (to name but a few) feel perfectly at home in the narrative; just as later chapters about an eighteenth-century portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds and a visit to the heart of the Colombian rose-growing industry seem inevitable and indispensable … The book provides a captivating account of Orwell as gardener, lover, parent, and endlessly curious thinker … And, movingly, she takes the time to find the traces of Orwell the gardener and lover of beauty in his political novels, and in his insistence on the value and pleasure of things .”

10. A Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ní Ghríofa (Biblioasis)

17 Rave • 4 Positive Read an excerpt from A Ghost in the Throat here

“… ardent, shape-shifting … The book is all undergrowth, exuberant, tangled passage. It recalls Nathalie Léger’s brilliant and original Suite for Barbara Loden : a biography of the actress and director that becomes a tally of the obstacles in writing such a book, and an admission of the near-impossibility of biography itself … The story that uncoils is stranger, more difficult to tell, than those valiant accounts of rescuing a ‘forgotten’ woman writer from history’s erasures or of the challenges faced by the woman artist … What is this ecstasy of self-abnegation, what are its costs? She documents this tendency without shame or fear but with curiosity, even amusement. She will retrain her hungers. ‘I could donate my days to finding hers,’ she tells herself, embarking on Ni Chonaill’s story. ‘I could do that, and I will.’ Or so she says. The real woman Ni Ghriofa summons forth is herself.”

–Parul Sehgal ( The New York Times )

Our System:

RAVE = 5 points • POSITIVE = 3 points • MIXED = 1 point • PAN = -5 points

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The best essays of 2021.

As the year ends, I thought I’d revisit some of my favorite entries from the past twelve months:

• The Productivity Frontier: Can You Get More Done Without Making Sacrifices? – How much more productivity can you squeeze out of your day? Is such a squeeze sustainable? Productivity enthusiasts like me often talk about systems to maximize the amount you can do. But sometimes, it’s more helpful to look at trade-offs and make decisions about what to prioritize.
• Is Life Better When You’re Busy? – Research suggests we prefer activity to idleness, sometimes to the point that we busy ourselves unnecessarily. Is there a sweet spot for busyness that keeps up engaged but not overwhelmed?
• Is Modernity a Myth? – My review/explainer of Bruno Latour’s fascinating (and confusing) book We Have Never Been Modern . While postmodern philosophy always walks a line between profundity and nonsense, Latour’s writing kept me thinking for weeks—a sign of a good book!
• Digging the Well – We spend years digging deep wells of expertise to sustain our professional lives. But what do you do when the water runs dry?
• How I Do Research – Some thoughts on the research process from a non-expert researcher. How do you make sense of topics you’re unfamiliar with? How do you reach sound conclusions on issues that matter? Research is a lot of work, but it seems to be a skill worth learning.
• My 10 Favorite Free Online Courses – This list proved to be (by far) my most popular work of 2021. If you’re interested in learning something new in 2022, here’s a great place to start.
• The Craft is the End – Why do we strive to be successful? What if we never get the respect we feel we’re due? Some meditations on C. S. Lewis’s famous speech, “The Inner Ring,” and the goal of finding work we can be proud of.

I’ll be back next week with new writing. Happy holidays!

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Essay Papers Writing Online

Top reviews of essay writers – a comprehensive analysis of the best essay writing services in 2021.

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The best video essays of 2021

An escape from the most popular to the most captivating

by Ransford James and Wil Williams

If you buy something from a Polygon link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.

As coronavirus cloistered the world, the genre of video essays continued to augment in popularity on Youtube. Despite the homogeny of the creator space being apparent from a cursory glance, 2021 saw POC video essayists gaining momentum on the platform. From behemoths like D’Angelo Wallace to humble creators like myself, there is a gradient of experiences that are finally being represented thanks to YouTube’s algorithm “apparently” being an equalizer. That being said, this article hopes to shed light on some of gems you may have missed.

Beyond the players, the format of video essays has also evolved. Gone are the days when a midwestern man could aggregate thousands of views on a video about why water is wet. (OK, jk, that still happens.) But most of today’s video essays now amalgamate several genres of YouTube videos. Whether it’s the commentary crossovers à la Tara Mooknee , or the stand-up comedy stylings of Chill Goblin , there is a variety of variations to find. Here are a few that surprised us in the last year. —Ransford James, aka Foreign

[ Ed. note: This list is ordered chronologically rather than ranked by preference, meaning everything is worth checking out. And if you need more to watch, check out last year’s list .]

“Your Island is a Commune pt. 1,” Nowhere Grotesk

I first discovered this touching series on Animal Crossing: New Horizons via the social posts on F. D. Signifier’s YouTube channel — more on him later, but credit where credit’s due. Nowhere Grotesk’s bio on social media reads, “We’re two visual artists that create and examine art through a utopian leftist lens,” and that feeling permeates this series.

Discussing Animal Crossing: New Horizons through the lens of communal living and pastoral nostalgia, Nowhere Grotesk pushes back on the easy joke that Tom Nook is a greedy capitalist. Instead, this series shows how Animal Crossing: New Horizons conveys the concept of community as directly in conflict with urbanization and capitalism, thriving only when everyone’s needs are met without the turmoil of work. Even the addition of the Happy Home Paradise DLC , which gives players the option to work for additional outcomes, doesn’t nullify the anticapitalist argument here; working is a choice you can but don’t have to make. The island even meets more of the players’ needs by providing free healthcare. Animal Crossing isn’t the apolitical fluff many seem to think; instead, it’s a lovely, immersive argument for anarcho-communism, mutual aid, and rooting our politics in community. —Wil Williams

“The Market of Humiliating Black Women,” Tee Noir

This offering is far from obscure, but by the off chance that Tee Noir has evaded your eyes and eluded your ears, consider my favorite video from her so far: “ The Market of Humiliating Black Women .” Without spoiling this masterpiece, Tee breaks down what is such an innocuous experience that not many people even notice: How quotidian Black women’s pain is in popular media. From high-budget Tyler Perry movies to grainy WorldstarHipHop videos, the parodying of pain that Black women face on the daily is rewarded with thousands of millions of views and thousands of shares.

This is an experience that is far from second-hand with regard to Tee Noir, as she faces scrutiny that men don’t, simply by virtue of being a Black woman on this platform — let alone her queerness. —RJ

“The Day Rue ‘Became’ Black,” Yhara Zayd

After hitting shelves in 2008, Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games was praised for the way it conveyed real-life modern class struggles in a strange, borderline fantastical world. The Hunger Games was clear about what it was saying and referencing, but apparently, some readers didn’t get the memo — or perhaps they refused to.

In this video, Zayd pulls on the Hunger Games fandom’s history to dissect what made some readers so shocked when Amandla Stenberg, a young Black actress, was cast as Rue, a young girl who is ... canonically Black. This isn’t just about people reading a book wrong, though; it’s about why audiences felt less protective of Rue the moment she “became” Black “in casting.” It’s also about why most of those comments have since been scrubbed from the internet.

Yhara Zayd’s work has been featured on all of my video essay lists , and for good reason. Her sharp, concise, passionate analysis is scored by a low-key (but not necessarily relaxed) aesthetic and narration style. Her occasional breaks to make a joke or loosen up her script emphasize what’s so important about the topic at hand: the humanity. —WW

“Infantilization and the Body Hair Debate,” Shanspeare

Unironic ASMR, charismatic candor, and witty humor are but a few of Shanspeare’s calling cards. Despite the myriad of channels dedicated to analyzing pop culture, none do it quite like Shanspeare. “ Infantilization and the Body Hair Debate ” is one of the most eye-opening videos that I have encountered, and it has provoked me — a cishet Afro-Caribbean man — into thoroughly addressing my own contributions to the subject matter. This deep dive into how the world incentivizes childlike behavior from women is as unnerving as it is necessary to watch. From the way I speak to women, to my subconscious preference of nicely shaven legs, Shanspeare details how all of that is essentially the product of a purposeful inculcation that was underway far before I was even a thought. I cannot emphasize to you enough that you should watch this masterpiece and all of her other ones as well. —RJ

“Bo Burnham vs. Jeff Bezos,” CJ the X

Thanks to my specific symptoms of ADHD, it can be really hard for me to devote time to watch video essays that are over an hour long, and even harder for me to really fall in love with them. I hope this will help convey the gravity with which I am saying that I watched this two-and-a-half-hour video more times than any other video on YouTube this year. What starts as an analysis of Bo Burnham’s Inside slowly morphs into something else, then something else, then something else . This video transitions so gracefully between discussions of posthumanism, the internet, online fame, and what makes something funny, all while being punctuated with CJ the X’s hallmark near-absurdist blink-and-you’ll-miss-it humor. What makes this video an instant classic of the medium, though, is how it lands: a deep, sincere, vulnerable love letter to empathy and human connection, wound up in a personal anecdote that makes the thesis feel even more real.

I struggled to have basic hope or faith in humanity this year. I struggled to tell myself that everything is worth it. No piece of media helped me more with those struggles than this video. I wrote a piece on my read of Inside before seeing this video, and after watching it, my read on Inside has changed. And I’m so grateful. — WW

“The Reign of the Slim Thick Influencer,” Khadija Mbowe

I hope that this creator needs no introduction, because I feel woefully unequipped to introduce them myself. Khadija Mbowe walks the walk, and the walk is an onerous one. Being a feminine-presenting nonbinary creator of an obsidian hue, they brazenly break down some of the most nuanced topics with empathy and levity. Moreover, they pay it forward by promoting creators that the algorithm may have missed — much like myself, and in the same way Tee Noir promoted them a year ago.

“ The Reign of the Slim-Thick Influencer ” is arguably my favorite Khadija Mbowe video this year. It’s a discussion of the trend of Brazilian butt lifts , how influencers like Kim Kardashian perpetuate unrealistic beauty standards, and the awful origins of commodifying the Black woman’s body. This is a must-see for everybody who consumes social media, which is … everybody. — RJ

“make more characters bi, you cowards: why (not) romance?,” voice memos for the void

An installment of Voice Memos for the Void’s Romance in Media series, “make more characters bi, you cowards: why (not) romance?” does what it says on the tin. This video analyzes the strange state of bisexual characters in media, pointing out how rarely bisexual characters get to fall in love. Not have sex, but fall in love. Voice Memos for the Void effortlessly combats rebuttals to this idea that we hear every time we ask for more representation and romance: “Why do they need to be queer?” “Why do they need to be in love?” It also dives into different depictions of masculinity, a history of Byronic heroes, and the troubling tropes that follow bisexual characters around in media, like that of the Magical and/or Hedonistic Bisexual . Forgive the glitchy camera in this video; equipment is expensive, and the commentary more than makes up for the video fidelity. We can thank F. D. Signifier’s feed for putting this video on my radar, too. — WW

“The Black Right Wing,” Anansi’s Library

While Tee Noir enjoys (?) a visibility that many POC creators don’t, Anansi boasts a dedicated 15,000 subscriber count but is deserving of far more. They stay closer to the format that many video essays have in the past of concealing their face in their videos, relying more on the merit of their musings than the luster of their looks. Many of us simply create and comment on the actions of others, but Anansi, for lack of a better term, is really in the field. They are deeply entrenched in American activism, which makes their videos simply an accompaniment to a much larger concerted effort.

This video on The Black Right Wing is redolent of the very fight that they have fought on many occasions. It details this unique subset of Black Americans that embraces the Trumpian conservatism that still plagues the United States to this very day. If you are fascinated by the neurosis necessary to align oneself with a party that is antipodal to your existence, then this is the video for you! — RJ

“On Leftist Disunity,” St. Andrewism

By now you must see the peaks and valleys that this list is riding, from creators who have passed the 100,000 mark to those who are still in the 10,000s. The themes that combine in all of them are apparent: their marginalized status, the video essay format, and most of all, the quality. Over the last year, the Trinibagan St. Andrewism has amassed over 50,000 subscribers, and his video On Leftist Disunity is a highlight. This video is the quintessential love letter to the leftist community that encourages the embrace of the many differences it has within it. Instead of approaching this with the pessimism that many people do, St. Andrew seems gleefully optimistic that this diversity of thought will end up saving not only the United States but the world. —RJ

“Break Bread,” F. D. Signifier

OK, now we can talk about F. D. Signifier in earnest. In my video essay list for our Masterpieces of Streaming series, I gave a brief history of video essays through the lens of educational videos. In “Breaking Bread,” F. D. Signifier offers an uncomfortably accurate parallel history: the rise of video essays from rant reviewers like The Nostalgia Critic. The trend of debate bros and, in F. D. Signifier’s words, every LeftTuber making a video about Ben Shapiro, isn’t just rooted in the medium’s history, though; it’s also rooted in whiteness. That lens and style of video stays prominent thanks to the YouTube algorithm, and while the homogeneity of video essays has been critiqued many times, “Break Bread” breaks down the issue with an astounding level of complexity, research, and guests from all over the video essay ecosystem. How much of a video essayist’s success comes down to talent? How much comes down to luck? And how much comes down to the algorithm knowing that what keeps people watching is simply who looks familiar? — WW

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Our Most-Read Stories of 2021

In a year that was haunted by the continuing pandemic, The Yale Review saw a lot of change. We launched a new website, where we now regularly publish online pieces, along with slideshows by visual artists and audio of our poets reading their poems. Through the ups and downs of these past twelve months, we have felt lucky to be able to publish a host of powerful stories and essays in both our print journal and on our new website.

For your enjoyment over the winter break, we have collected our most-read stories of the year. They include a short story that skewers white progressive hypocrisy around race; a sharp, moving re-reading of the poet John Ashbery; a meditation on the complexities of being a twin; and an essay that interrogates the ways that photography shapes our views of protest and racial violence. We hope you’ll find much on this list to linger with over the coming weeks, and we look forward to bringing you more great writing next year. –The Editors

“ Colonial Conditions ” by Brandon Taylor Taylor’s short story takes place at a Covid-era Halloween party where the protagonist—queer, Black, and raised in rural poverty—finds himself in uneasy conversation with progressive white guests. “ The Wild, Sublime Body " by Melissa Febos Febos recounts how she developed contempt for her body in early puberty but eventually regained the self-love she'd known as a young girl. “ There I Almost Am ” by Jean Garnett This portrayal of being a twin grapples with envy in its many forms. “ Stalking ” by Becca Rothfeld Rothfeld plumbs the depths of social media stalking in an essay about our desire to see without being seen. “ Picturing Catastrophe ” by Rizvana Bradley Bradley argues that photography has historically functioned as an anti-Black medium, and looks at the way that a dominantly white media covered racial protests after George Floyd’s death. “ The Wrong Daddy ” by Jeremy Atherton Lin Lin tells the story of his love for—and then disillusionment with—the musician Morrissey in a reflection on fandom and identity. “ How to Come Back to Life ” by Emily Ogden Ogden considers what it means to reach middle age, lyrically weaving together readings of Ovid’s Orpheus and Eurydice and Federico Fellini’s Le notti di Cabiria . “ The Brink of Destruction ” by Edward Hirsch Hirsch writes a love letter to the poet John Ashbery. “ Olga Tokarczuk's Radical Tenderness ” by Marek Makowski Makowski reflects on Nobel Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk’s genre-defying body of work. “ Going to Lvov ” by Ilya Kaminsky Kaminsky remembers the gentle profundity of the late Adam Zagajewski, who died in 2021, and explains why he was one of the most important poets of our time.

The Shapes of Grief

Writing in pictures, garth greenwell, you might also like, our most-read poems of 2021, our most-read archival pieces of 2021, wood working at the end of the world, new perspectives, enduring writing.

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These are the cheapest binocular deals ahead of the Amazon Prime Big Deal Days

Amazon Prime Big Deal Days are officially coming on 8-9 October, so we've rounded up the best binocular deals to save money on your next pair of binos.

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Best binocular deals

Amazon have officially announced their next Prime event — Prime Big Deal Days is coming on 8-9 October, so we've hunted around to find all the best binocular deals currently on the market. We've price-checked them against one and looked at previous Prime Day deals to bring you the cheapest deals on the best binoculars , best binoculars for stargazing and best binoculars for kids all here in one place.

Best binocular deals today

• Celestron Nature DX 12x56: was $269.95 now $190.95
• Occer 12x25: was $59.99 now $23.40
• Celestron SkyMaster Pro 15x70: was $259.95 now $189.95

Celestron Nature DX 12x56: was $269.95 now $190.95 at Amazon

Save $79 on a pair of the best binoculars for stargazing, the Celestron Nature DX 12x56 are 29% off at Amazon. Their impressive 12x magnification and large 56mm objective lenses are an ideal combination for stargazing and for spotting wildlife.

Occer 12x25: was $59.99 now $23.40 at Amazon

Save $42 on these compact binoculars for kids. We think they're a great portable binocular and gave them 4/5 stars in our Occer 12x25 review .

Make sure you add the 35% coupon to get them for this price.

Celestron SkyMaster Pro 15x70: was $259.95 now $189.95 at Amazon

Save $70 on a pair of the best stargazing binoculars that are well suited to lunar viewing even without a tripod, all thanks to their powerful 15x magnification and 70mm objective lenses that drink in the low light from the moon's surface.

Check out our other guides to the best air purifiers , air purifiers for allergies , the best telescopes , microscopes for students , binoculars , rowing machines , electric toothbrushes and more.

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Kimberley Lane, E-commerce writer for Live Science, has tested hundreds of optics equipment reviewing cameras, lenses and tripods, and getting hands-on observations with binoculars and more. Also a landscape & seascape photographer living in South England she originally used photography as a way to cope with health issues, aiming to portray a feeling of calm and peace through her images. Her work has also been featured in a number of national photography magazines and regularly contributes to our sister site Space.com .

Save $79 on Celestron Nature DX 12x56 binoculars at Amazon

Lowest ever price — save over $400 on one of our favorite cameras at Adorama

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Baby Reindeer 's Jessica Gunning Says She Researched 'Stalker' Characters Like Kathy Bates' in Misery

"I never saw her as a villain," says the actress, who just won an Emmy for her role as Martha on the Netflix series

Emma McIntyre/Getty, Moviestore/Shutterstock

Jessica Gunning looked to "iconic" stalker roles to craft her performance in Baby Reindeer . 

On Sunday, Sept. 15, the English actress, 38, took home the award for outstanding supporting actress in a limited or anthology series or movie for her portrayal of Martha in the Netflix black-comedy series created by Richard Gadd at the 76th annual Primetime Emmy Awards .

Later that evening, Gunning opened up about preparing for her role while speaking to the press after her big win, revealing that Kathy Bates in 1990’s Misery was one of her inspirations.

The actress said she researched "obsession with people" and the "iconic films" around the topic, specifically naming the Oscar Award-winning Stephen King adaptation in which Bates, 76, plays the disturbing fan-turned-stalker Annie Wilkes.

Noting that Bates was one of the three stars who presented her with the award, she added, "So yeah, I was aware of stalker films and roles out there."

Gunning went on to compliment Gadd’s writing, saying that her character was "so unique and unusual" on paper. "It was all really there in the script for me and I just connected with her. I never saw her as a villain. I saw her as a kind of a complicated, lonely character, as was Richard's character Donny. It was all there in the work. I was just very lucky to be able to play the part," she said.

Disney/Scott Kirkland

Recalling her first exposure to the role, Gunning said that she was unable to put the script down once she received it. "I read all the seven episodes in one go and I just kind of fell in love with the story and the writing and the character of Martha," she shared. "When we were filming, I just was so proud of Richard [and] this story. And so when we made it, I think we just all thought it was gonna be this kind of indie slow-burning hit that people might watch."

She is still “extremely close” with Gadd now and said, "He's an amazing man. I think some of the writing he did in the series and the story he told in episode four was some of the bravest pieces ... I've ever seen or been part of. So I'm incredibly proud of him."

The show won four awards at the ceremony, including outstanding lead actor in a limited or anthology series or movie and outstanding writing for a limited or anthology series or movie for Gadd and outstanding limited or anthology series .

Gunning said while accepting her first Emmy Award, "I honestly feel like I'm going to wake up any minute now, this whole thing has been a dream. Thank you very, very much indeed. I'm so incredibly proud to be part of Baby Reindeer . So I would just love to say a huge 'thank you' to everybody who let me, really."

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In the series, the actress plays leading lady Martha, a woman who goes to great lengths to stalk bartender and aspiring comedian Donny – played by Gadd and based on his real-life experience . 

See PEOPLE's full coverage of the 76th annual Primetime Emmy Awards.

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