"People who read are not too lazy to flip on the television," writes Annie Dillard, "they prefer books." Read her brief but compelling defense of the written word at www.the-humble-essayist.com. We take off the month of December, but will be back with a new feature on January 9, 2026.

We're back! Once again we honor the work of poet, critic, and essayist Judith Kitchen with an annual feature. This time we look at her thoughts about the “lyric essay,” a term which she did much to define and critique. Check it out at www.the-humble-essayist.com. #Booksky

The Paragraph of the Week at The Humble Essayist goes to Mark Doty who shows how the world can ease a grief that never ends. At www.the-humble-essayist.com. #grief

The Paragraph of the Week by Joan Didion and the commentary by Sigrid Nunez present competing views of the 1960's,offering insights into our own troubled times. Check it out at www.the-humble-essayist.com.

The Paragraph of the Week is from The Meadow by James Galvin, a prose meditation on the landscape of the Wyoming-Colorado border and the people who live there. Check it out at www.the-humble-essayist.com. #Writingcommunity

The Paragraph of the Week goes to The Möbius Book by Catherine Lacey, a unique mixture of memoir and fiction that struggles with the word "spiritual" while on a spiritual quest. At www.the-humble-essayist.com.

The Paragraph of the Week from The Humble Essayist Book Club goes to George Orwell who argues that the art of a political essay is based on the child-like desire to create a make-believe world and on a love of the sound of words. Check it out at www.the-humble-essayist.com. #BookSky

Should the writer refrain from political activities? George Orwell argues that all citizens, including writers, are free to champion political causes but should do so “as a human being, not as a writer” who has a more nuanced task. What is it? At www.the-humble-essayist.com. #Booksky #Orwell

This week The Humble Essayist Book Club takes on George Orwell's classic essay “Politics and the English Language,” a warning in the period immediately following World War II against the dangers of euphemisms used by politicians and the press. At www.the-humble-essayist.com. #BookSky

The Humble Essayist Book Club begins with George Orwell's classic essay "Shooting an Elephant" which does more than state its theme about “the futility of the white man’s dominion in the East.” It makes us feel it as well. At www.the-humble-essayist.com. #Writer #Orwell

The Paragraph of the Week goes to Robert Root whose essay "Place" catches the essence of our paradoxical relationship with the natural world. Check it out at www.the-humble-essayist.com. #Writing

The Paragraph of the Week goes to The Mind's Eye by Oliver Sacks, a collection of essays about the ability of the brain to adapt to the loss of mental ability due to disease and age. Check it out at www.the-humble-essayist.com. #Blueskybooks

Arboreal obsession: “a very simple way to stay in love with our world” says Vivian Keh in our Paragraph of the Week. Check it out as www.the-humble-essayist.com #Writing #Trees

One essay in Stewart's book stood out for me: the story of playwright Vivian Keh and her persimmon trees, describing the way trees can reach into our past, offer consolation for our losses, and restore our love of the world. At www.the-humble-essayist.com. #tree #writers

The Paragraph of the Week goes to “Salvos into the World of Hummers” by Beth Ann Fennelly, an essay which sacrifices straight-forward narrative to create a sense of the zig-zagging ways of its subject, the hummingbird. Check it out at www.the-humble-essayist.com

This week the Paragraph of the Week goes to Maureen Stanton's The Murmur of Everything Moving and our commentary focuses on the beguiling title. Learn more at www.the-humble-essayist.com. Steve

Did the capacity of Leslie Jamison to "pay attention" to the pain of others end in the shape of a warm bathtub in her mind somewhere in Kalamazoo during an author tour promoting The Empathy Exams? Find out at www.the-humble-essayist.com/. #Essay

"But although it wasn't wild, it was a fairly large and undisturbed lake and there were places in it which, to a child at least, seemed infinitely remote and primeval."—E. B. White at www.the-humble-essayist.com

This week we do our annual feature on "Once More to the Lake" by E. B. White. We are on paragraph eleven in this endlessly rich and rewarding essay with only two more paragraphs to go. Please check it out at www.the-humble-essayist.com and spread the word. #BookSky

For over ten years The Humble Essayist website has promoted the personal essay by featuring a Paragraph of the Week at www.the-humble-essayist.com. This week we offer our annual tribute to Henry David Thoreau. We are new to Bluesky and excited about joining. Please follow us. #writer #essay