The Essays We Keep Re-Reading
Ten pieces of writing that have survived a decade of bookmarks, shared drives and half-remembered recommendations.
A good essay is a good friend: it is always there, it does not mind being revisited, and it tells you something different each time. We asked everyone on the team to name the essay they return to, and the list says as much about us as it does about the writing.
- An essay on walking, by a writer who does it for hours and notices everything.
- An essay on housework, which is really about love.
- An essay about a dying friend’s bookshelf, and what it means to inherit someone else’s taste.
- An essay on a cheap pair of shoes, and the economics of beauty.
- An essay on how to be alone, and why it is not the same as being lonely.
What they have in common is not subject but sound. Each is written in a voice you could pick out in a room: intimate, precise, funny where it counts. They are all short enough to read in an evening and good enough to read again the next morning.
Written by
Tomás Reyes
Culture editor. Books, film and the occasional long train journey. Believes every exhibition should have somewhere to sit.
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