my year of essayists

thoughts on a year-long project (or, boring my readers for one last time)

January 25, 2010

On New Year’s morning, I woke to find a message in my inbox telling me that Scott Russell Sanders had left a comment on my blog. Sanders was my essayist for October, and reading his message was such a thrill, and a closing more satisfying than I ever could have imagined for my year-long project.  [...]

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december: notes on adam gopnik

January 11, 2010

It’s time for the last installment in My Year of Excellent Essayists. random notes: If you’ve been reading here for a year now (and how lucky I am if you have), you’ll remember that it was my thoughts on Adam Gopnik that inspired this project. I started 2009 bemoaning the fact that after years of [...]

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november: notes on michael chabon

December 10, 2009

For my little project this month, I read  Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father and Son by Michael Chabon. I loved this book. I think my copy now bears more blue and green highlights than any of the essay collections I’ve read this year.  random notes: Judging from the blurbs and praises [...]

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october: notes on scott russell sanders

November 10, 2009

If you’re new to this blog, let me give you a heads-up: this is the monthly post in which I bore most of you silly by writing about an essayist that I’ve been reading. I’m calling the project My Year of Excellent Essayists, and you can read more about it here. random notes: I have [...]

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september: notes on m.f.k. fisher

October 9, 2009

random notes: This has been a tough month for my essayist project. I’ve told you how I got distracted reading Spunk & Bite. I also have a seventeen-year-old applying to college this fall, so I’m suddenly busy with that, and reading books with ridiculous titles like How to Get Into the Top Colleges.  I seemed to [...]

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august: notes on pico iyer

September 8, 2009

Boy howdy, here we go again–try not to jump out of your skin! It’s time for yet another entry in my year of excellent essayists project. random notes: In August I read Pico Iyer, who is widely known as a travel writer, although he writes on a variety of topics, and often on globalism. He [...]

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july: notes on e.b. white

August 14, 2009

There has been a lot of new folks poking around this blog lately; I hope this post doesn’t make you run for the hills! It’s part of a little project I’ve undertaken, a year-long attempt to read twelve essayists in depth, and to study their styles. You can read more about the project here. I’m [...]

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