Table of Contents Gloria Anzaldúa, How to Tame a Wild Tongue Francis Bacon, Of Studies James Baldwin, If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me What Is Dave Barry, Road Warrior Roland Barthes, Toys Hilaire Belloc, On Sacramental Things Sven Birkerts, Into the Electronic Millennium Judy Brady, I Want a Wife Jacob Bronowski, The Nature of Scientific Reasoning Jane Brox, Influenza 1918 Angela Carter, The Wound in the Face G. K. Chesterton, The Fallacy of Success Judith Oriz Cofer, Casa: A Partial Remembrance of a Puerto Rican Childhood K. C Cole, Uncertainty Bernard Cooper, Labyrinthine Joan Didion, On Self-Respect Annie Dillard, Living Like Weasels John Donne, No Man is an Island Mark Doty, Souls on Ice Frederick Douglass, Learning to Read and Write Brian Doyle, Joyas Voladoras Andre Dubus, Lights of the Long Night Barbara Ehrenreich, Family Values Gretel Ehrlich, About Men Loren Eiseley, The Flow of the River Ralph Ellison, Living with Music Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature Richard Feynman, The Value of Science Ben Franklin, Arriving at Perfection Paul Fussell, Uniforms
Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point Ellen Goodman, The Company Man Mary Gordon, More Than Just a Shrine—Ellis Island Stephen Jay Gould, Sex, Drugs, Disasters, and the Extinction of the Dinosaurs Gordon Grice, The Black Widow J. B. S. Haldane, On Being the Right Size William Hazlitt, On the Pleasure of Hating Eva Hoffman, Lost in Translation Michael Hogan, The Colonel Barbara Holland, Naps Langston Hughes, Salvation Zora Neale Hurston, How It Feels to Be Colored Me Pico Iyer, Nowhere Man Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence Samuel Johnson, The Decay of Friendship Yoshida Kenko, Uncertainty Jamaica Kincaid, On Seeing England for the First Time Stephen King, Why We Crave Horror Movies Barbara Kingsolver,Stone Soup Maxine Hong Kingston, On Discovery August Kleinzahler, The Dog, The Family: A Household Tale Robin Topmach Lakoff, You Are What You Say Charles Lamb, A Bachelor’s Complaint D. H. Lawrence, On Ben Franklin’s Virtues Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address Niccolò Macchiavelli, The Morals of the Prince Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto John McPhee, Silk Parachute Herman Melville, The Advocate H.L. Mencken, Portrait of an Ideal World Laura Miller, Cat People vs. Dog People Horace Miner, Body Ritual Among the Nacirema
N. Scott Momaday, The Way to Rainy Mountain Michelle de Montaigne, Of Smells Nuala O’Faolain, Are You Somebody? George Orwell, Some Thoughts on the Common Toad Cynthia Ozick, The Seam of the Snail Plato, The Allegory of the Cave Katherine Anne Porter, The Necessary Enemy James Harvey Robinson, On Various Kinds of Thinking Richard Rodriguez, Heading into Darkness Once Again Scott Russell Sanders, The Men We Carry in Our Minds Luc Sante, What Secrets Tell Samuel H. Scudder, Look at Your Fish David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day Richard Selzer, The Masked Marvel’s Last Toe-hold G. B. Shaw, The Gospel of Andrew Undershaft Leonard Shlain, Nonverbal/Verbal Lee Siegel, The World Is All That Is the Case Leslie Marmon Silko, Landscape, History, and the Pueblo Imagination Susan Sontag, A Woman’s Beauty: Put-Down or Power Source? Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions Brent Staples, Just Walk on By Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal Paul Theroux, On Being a Man Lewis Thomas, Crickets, Cats, Bats, & Chaos Henry David Thoreau, Why I Went to the Woods Sojourner Truth, Ain’t I a Woman? Mark Twain, Reading the Mississippi River Alice Walker, Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self David Foster Wallace, Consider the Lobster Eudora Welty, Clamorous to Learn E.B. White, Once More to the Lake Terry Tempest Williams, A Shark in the Mind of One Contemplating Wilderness
E. O. Wilson, The Bird of Paradise: The Hunter and the Poet Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff Geoffrey Wolff, The Duke of Deception Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman Virginia Woolf, The Death of the Moth Fareed Zakaria, The Rise of the Rest
