October 2025
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    A concise version of my question: what would you add to this list of creative nonfiction, essays, etc.:

    • The Book of Delights and The Book of (More) Delights. (Ross Gay)
    • Get Me Through the Next Five Minutes (James Parker)
    • 300 Arguments (Sarah Manguso)
    • Bluets (Maggie Nelson)
    • Little Labors (Rivka Galchen)
    • 100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write (Sarah Ruhl)
    • Delight (J. B. Priestley)
    • The Best of Brevity (Edited by Zoë Bossiere & Dinty W. Moore)
    • Life is Short— Art is Shorter (Edited by David Shields & Elizabeth Cooperman)

    A bit of elaboration:

    I've recently really enjoyed Ross Gay's collections The Book of Delights and The Book of (More) Delights. Serendipitously, I then stumbled across James Parker's book of odes (of a sort), Get Me Through the Next Five Minutes. I highly recommend all three (and Gay's Inciting Joy). All are delightful and insightful without veering into the self-help genre.

    So I'm looking for, from the smallest net to the largest:

    1. More collections and anthologies in that vein: brief, lyrical, personal essays exploring our emotional landscape, delight, despair, gratitude, happiness, beauty.

    2. Collections and anthologies of brief essays and creative nonfiction of any sort, with an emphasis on brief, right down to flash nonfiction or books like Sarah Manguso's 300 Arguments. The more variety, the better. I'm interested in exploring the form, regardless of subject. If it's concise and well written, I'm interested. Bonus if the prose is beautiful or the mode leaning toward the experimental.

    Thanks!

    by ChrisL64Squares

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