THE TEN GREATEST ESSAYS, EVER
Michael Paterniti
Jo Ann Beard, “The Fourth State of Matter” (from The New Yorker, 1996)
Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me (from Spiegel & Grau, 2015)
Maggie Nelson, The Argonauts (from Graywolf Press, 2015)
William Carlos Williams, The Discovery of Kentucky (from In the American Grain, 1956)
Walter Benjamin, The Storyteller (from Penguin Random House, 2016)
Virginia Woolf, Street Haunting (from 1927)
Flannery O’Connor, Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction (from Mystery and Manners, 1960)
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance (from 1847)
Wallace Stevens, The Necessary Angel (from Vintage, 1965)
Eileen Myles, Iceland (from The Importance of Being Iceland, 2009)
About Michael Paterniti
Michael Paterniti is the author of the New York Times bestselling books, The Telling Room: A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge, and the World’s Greatest Cheese and Driving Mr. Albert: A Trip Across America with Einstein’s Brain, which has been published in 20 countries. His writing has appeared in varied publications including The New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, Harper’s, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, Esquire, and GQ, where he is a correspondent. In addition, he’s been a frequent contributor to the radio show This American Life, and his work has been heard on NPR, the BBC, and CBC. He’s the winner of an NEA grant and National Magazine Award.