Ask HN: What are your favorite Essays/Longform blogposts
17 comments
Essays of GK Chesterton, Hazlitt, Emerson, Robert Louis Stevenson, Santayana, Bertrand Russell, HL Mencken, Oscar Wilde, William James
Almost everything they wrote, but some good starting points:
Chesterton - Heretics, Varied Types
Hazlitt - The Plain Speaker, Table-Talk
Emerson - Essays: First and Second Series
Stevenson - Virginibus Puerisque, Across the Plains
Santayana - Little Essays ed. Logan Pearsall Smith
Russell - Unpopular Essays, Sceptical Essays
Mencken - Selected Prejudices
Wilde - Intentions
James - Talks to Students, Memories and Studies
Almost everything they wrote, but some good starting points:
Chesterton - Heretics, Varied Types
Hazlitt - The Plain Speaker, Table-Talk
Emerson - Essays: First and Second Series
Stevenson - Virginibus Puerisque, Across the Plains
Santayana - Little Essays ed. Logan Pearsall Smith
Russell - Unpopular Essays, Sceptical Essays
Mencken - Selected Prejudices
Wilde - Intentions
James - Talks to Students, Memories and Studies
I find older essays much better than contemporary ones, which is why I currently read Chesterton, Emerson and Montaigne the most. Thanks for this, I'll explore other writers from your list.
I greatly enjoyed working through this list a while back: https://kk.org/cooltools/best-magazine-articles-ever/
From my Kobo vacation readings :
- The internet didn’t kill counterculture — you just won’t find it on Instagram https://www.documentjournal.com/2021/01/the-internet-didnt-k...
- Extreme Athleticism Is the New Midlife Crisis (10 min) https://elemental.medium.com/extreme-athleticism-is-the-new-...
- The Rise and Fall of Getting Things Done (19 min) https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-rise...
- On Aging Alone (19 min) https://thewalrus.ca/on-aging-alone/
- How an Unlikely Family History Website Transformed Cold Case Investigations (31 min) https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/science/gedmatch-genealog...
- They Hacked McDonald’s Ice Cream Machines—and Started a Cold War (31 min) https://www.wired.com/story/they-hacked-mcdonalds-ice-cream-...
- Why Revolutionaries Love Spicy Food (14 min) https://nautil.us/issue/62/systems/why-revolutionaries-love-...
- For Hannah Arendt, totalitarianism is rooted in loneliness (13 min) https://aeon.co/essays/for-hannah-arendt-totalitarianism-is-...
- The Olympics Is a Racket (18 min) https://jacobinmag.com/2021/07/olympics-politics-working-cla...
- The internet didn’t kill counterculture — you just won’t find it on Instagram https://www.documentjournal.com/2021/01/the-internet-didnt-k...
- Extreme Athleticism Is the New Midlife Crisis (10 min) https://elemental.medium.com/extreme-athleticism-is-the-new-...
- The Rise and Fall of Getting Things Done (19 min) https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-rise...
- On Aging Alone (19 min) https://thewalrus.ca/on-aging-alone/
- How an Unlikely Family History Website Transformed Cold Case Investigations (31 min) https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/science/gedmatch-genealog...
- They Hacked McDonald’s Ice Cream Machines—and Started a Cold War (31 min) https://www.wired.com/story/they-hacked-mcdonalds-ice-cream-...
- Why Revolutionaries Love Spicy Food (14 min) https://nautil.us/issue/62/systems/why-revolutionaries-love-...
- For Hannah Arendt, totalitarianism is rooted in loneliness (13 min) https://aeon.co/essays/for-hannah-arendt-totalitarianism-is-...
- The Olympics Is a Racket (18 min) https://jacobinmag.com/2021/07/olympics-politics-working-cla...
There's No Speed Limit [0]
How I Became The Honest Broker [1]
Running with Bruce Lee [2]
This excerpt from Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman [3]
Before The Startup [4] (also available in video form[5])
[0] https://sive.rs/kimo
[1] https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/how-i-became-the-honest-brok...
[2] http://quittingadderall.com/running-with-bruce-lee-quote/
[3] https://www.asc.ohio-state.edu/kilcup.1/262/feynman.html
[4] http://paulgraham.com/before.html
[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii1jcLg-eIQ
How I Became The Honest Broker [1]
Running with Bruce Lee [2]
This excerpt from Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman [3]
Before The Startup [4] (also available in video form[5])
[0] https://sive.rs/kimo
[1] https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/how-i-became-the-honest-brok...
[2] http://quittingadderall.com/running-with-bruce-lee-quote/
[3] https://www.asc.ohio-state.edu/kilcup.1/262/feynman.html
[4] http://paulgraham.com/before.html
[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii1jcLg-eIQ
Sea of Crisis (Grantland) https://grantland.com/features/sumo-wrestling-tokyo-japan-ha...
I really like this one
The Night I Met Einstein by Jerome Weidman
https://www.rd.com/article/the-night-i-met-einstein/
The Night I Met Einstein by Jerome Weidman
https://www.rd.com/article/the-night-i-met-einstein/
How to Think for Yourself by Paul Graham. Link to essay: http://www.paulgraham.com/think.html
Sorry I don't remember anything right now, but do you do something to read the articles on the kindle?
Yeah I have a jailbroken kindle and build a little tool which automatically downloads my reads from wallabag.it onto the kindle
https://github.com/simonfrey/wallabag-kindle-4-client
https://github.com/simonfrey/wallabag-kindle-4-client
Ty
[deleted]
Does not have to be entrepreneurship related!
Heading out for a longer vacation and wanna stack up that Kindle