This Week in Essays
A weekly roundup of essays we’re reading online!
...morePosts Tagged: Esquire
The Rumpus Interview with Terry McDonell
Terry McDonell talks about his new memoir The Accidental Life and his career in the magazine business, which spans the beginning of New Journalism through the digital revolution.
...moreNew Year, New Reading List
When Esquire released a list of “The 80 Best Books Every Man Should Read,” the magazine provoked ire and excoriation. But hey, at least Esquire has recognized its mistake. For its new list of “80 Books Every Person Should Read,” the magazine consulted women readers who know what they’re talking about, from authors like Lauren Groff […]
...moreThe Books Women Shouldn’t Read
Let me prove that I’m not a misandrist by starting [my book list] with Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, because any book Paul Ryan loves that much bears some responsibility for the misery he’s dying to create. Have you read Esquire’s list of “The 80 Best Books Every Man Should Read”? Don’t. Instead, read Rebecca Solnit’s […]
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The Rumpus Interview with Marian Thurm
Prolific author Marian Thurm talks about her new collection of stories, Today is Not Your Day, being a true New Yorker, and the importance of sympathetic characters.
...moreRetracing Steps
Like so many silenced publications before them, Esquire has gone the way of the ear with a new Classics podcast that unearths articles from the magazine’s illustrious eighty-year history. In their latest installment, Rumpus friend and contributor Nick Flynn discusses a series of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s essays published in 1936. Listen here.
...moreVernon Reid Digs James Baldwin
At Esquire, sci-fi author Jeff VanderMeer and Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid discuss genre fiction, and how one art form can inspire another. Reid says: Fiction has always evoked pictures and provoked ideas and sounds in my mind. James Baldwin, who was a powerful writer of fiction and non-fiction was a haunted witness of American dysfunction. […]
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The Rumpus Interview with Tomi Ungerer
Writer and illustrator Tomi Ungerer discusses his exile in Ireland, being a target of censorship, and his work’s recent resurgence of popularity in the US.
...moreMr. Bad News Who?
It can be a harrowing experience, Whitman knows, requiring that the writer become an instant historian, assessing in a few hours the dead man’s life with lucidity, accuracy, and objectivity. Gay Talese believes “Mr. Bad News” is one of the best pieces he ever wrote. Talese wrote the profile on New York Times obituary writer Alden Whitman […]
...moreJason Novak Draws Monkeys for Esquire
Sending a monkey into space, as Iran will do later this month, is only one of many bad ideas involving monkeys and technology. Luckily, our very own Jason Novak has an illustrated essay in Esquire about some of the other things you shouldn’t let monkeys do. (Though we have to politely disagree that monkey shouldn’t be allowed near […]
...moreBoston Marathon Roundup
If you’re looking for a token of solace after the Boston marathon bombings, please check out Roxane Gay’s words if you haven’t already. And Thomas Page McBee reflects on ways to help when feeling helpless. At the Guardian, Rumpus columnist Steve Almond comments on the histrionic attitude the media has taken on in the wake of […]
...moreTalking with Tosches
Nick Tosches’ writing is dark, gritty, and has guts. Tosches has written 18 books, and is best know for his Dean Martin biography, Dino. In a recent Esquire interview by Scott Raab, Tosches discusses his new book, boozing, opium, poetry, and the weather.
...moreWriters: Victims of a Dying Industry or Myopic Whiners?
“Writers have always been whiners,” begins Stephen Marche’s essay in the latest issue of Esquire. Fighting words! Brandish your swords! Then he describes the proliferation of excellent writing (both fiction and nonfiction), the increased access to the marketplace technology has granted new writers, and the hefty sums of money big-name authors make. Good points! Warily […]
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