“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.”
Joan Didion
In Episode 73, Gen and Jette discuss the broad category of essay collections. From Joan Didion to Chuck Klosterman to Samantha Irby, essay collections cover a wide range of topics in a wide variety of forms.
We love a good collection of essays, so we share a few of our favourites, discuss what works for us and what doesn’t, and talk about a few on our TBR lists.
Show Notes
We’ve covered a few essay collections on the podcast:
- Episode 9 – Eating the Dinosaur by Chuck Klosterman
- Episode 38 – Movies and Other Things by Shea Serrano
- Episode 65 – Like Streams to the Ocean by Jedidiah Jenkins
- Episode 68 – We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby
Essay writing opens up so many possibilities that we’d both love to explore in our own writing.
Check out Electric Lit for one off essays and sign up for their newsletter to get a curated list delivered to your inbox.
Gen’s Essay Collection Recommendation: anything Zadie Smith
Jette’s Essay Collection Recommendation: But What If We’re Wrong by Chuck Klosterman
Books and Authors Mentioned
Joan Didion – Slouching Towards Bethlehem; The White Album; South and West
Chuck Klosterman – But What If We’re Wrong; Eating the Dinosaur; Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs; I Wear the Black Hat; Killing Yourself to Live
Samantha Irby – We Are Never Meeting in Real Life; Wow, No Thank You
Zadie Smith – Intimations; Changing My Mind; Feel Free
Like Streams to the Ocean by Jedidiah Jenkins
Scratch: Writers, Money, and the Art of Making a Living edited by Manjula Martin
101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think by Brianna Wiest
Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino
The Collected Schizophrenias by Esmé Weijun Wang
They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib
How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
