Read three interesting collections of essays recently by three wildly different essayists
Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands, by Michael Chabon: Mr. Chabon can write the living @#$% out of whatever he turns his talent toward. This is even true when the subject matter (Sherlock Holmes as fan fiction, a battlefield account of a flame war about the Yiddish language) is esoteric, dense, or so deeply personal as to leave the reader with few comfortable points of entry.
Not That You Asked: Rants, Exploits, and Obsessions, by Steve Almond: Whether talking about his role as the Red Sox Antichrist, his battle with the right wing noise machine, or his experience having a VH-1 camera crew film an ultimately deferred 15 minutes of fame — to say nothing of the parts about sex and parenthood — Mr. Almond’s strength lies in balancing outrage and discomfort, usually in the service of uncomfortable self-revelation.
[Note: I'm not 100% certain I'm 100% certain what that means.]
When You Are Engulfed in Flames, by David Sedaris: Much as I enjoy Mr. Sedaris’s work, especially when I hear it performed on This American Life or other programs, I find his collections to be an exercise in diminishing returns. Naked is an amazing, hilarious book, but I find I’ve enjoyed every subsequent collection slightly less. It’s not that his writing is of any lesser quality, but rather that with each new piece, the balance between humor and sadness seems to tip in favor of sadness. Perhaps hearing the pieces in this collection as performed works would change this opinion, but on paper these stories kind of depressed me.
