The best American essays

Encountering the essay

Essayists on the essay

The telephone / Anwar F. Accawi

Hair / Marcia Aldrich

Two questions / Lynda Barry

Silent dancing / Judith Ortiz Cofer

Westbury Court / Edwidge Danticat

The blue machinery of summer / Yusef Komunyakaa

My friend Lodovico / David Masello

Book marks / Rebecca McClanahan

Silk parachute / John McPhee

Shame / Robert Polito

The inheritance of tools / Scott Russell Sanders

Black swans / Lauren Slater

Mother tongue / Amy Tan

Turning point / Rudolph Chelminski

The stunt pilot / Annie Dillard

Joyas voladoras / Brian Doyle

Memoria ex machina / Marshall Jon Fisher

Sister Bernadette's barking dog / Kitty Burns Florey

A lovely sort of lower purpose / Ian Frazier

The stone horse / Barry Lopez

Yarn / Kyoko Mori

They all just went away / Joyce Carol Oates

Lifelike / Susan Orlean

Ali in Havana / Gay Talese

The disposable rocket / John Updike

Think about it / Frank Conroy

Shouting "Fire!" / Alan M. Dershowitz

Mail / Anne Fadiman

What's wrong with animal rights / Vicki Hearne

On seeing England for the first time / Jamaica Kincaid

Living will / Danielle Ofri

Exquisite corpse / Ashraf Rushdy

Citizenship in emergency / Elaine Scarry

The Singer solution to world poverty / Peter Singer

Six seconds / Paula Speck

Dining with robots / Ellen Ullman

The killing game / Joy Williams.

1. Personal voice,identity, diversity, self-discovery: Hair / Marcia Aldrich

Silent dancing / Judith Ortiz Cofer

Burl's / Bernard Cooper

In the kitchen / Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Kubota / Garrett Hongo

On seeing England for the first time / Jamaica Kincaid

Vital signs / Natalie Kusz

Coming home again / Chang-Rae Lee

Oranges and sweet sister boy /Judy Ruiz

The inheritance of tools / Scott Russell Sanders - - Mother tongue / Amy Tan

The gangster we are all looking for / Lê Thi Diem Thúy.

2. The Attentive mind [...]: Think about it / Frank Conroy

The stunt pilot / Annie Dillard

Spring / Gretel Ehrlich

Take the F / Ian Frazier

Heaven and nature / Edward Hoagland

No wonder they call me a bitch / Ann Hodgman

Salt / Diana Kappel-Smith

The stone horse / Barry Lopez

They all just went away / Joyce Carol Oates

Owls / Mary Oliver

Crickets, bats, cats & chaos / Lewis Thomas

The mystery of Mickey Mouse / John Updike.

3. The public sphere [...]: Yes, Oswald alone killed Kennedy / Jacob Cohen

Hooked / Stanley Crouch

Shouting "Fire!" / Alan M. Dershowitz.

Who shot Johnny? / Debra Dickerson

Understanding Afrocentrism why blacks dream of a world without whites / Gerald Early

Counters and cable cars / Stephen Jay Gould

What's wrong with animal rights / Vicki Hearne

We are still only human / Verlyn Klinkenborg

Talking AIDS to death / Randy Shilts

A century of cinema / Susan Sontag

On being black and middle class / Shelby Steele

The killing game / Joy Williams.