Ralph Waldo Emerson
2 books
- Essays non-fictionEmerson works best read slowly, a paragraph at a time, because he's constantly nudging you to trust your own mind. Self-Reliance alone will have you underlining half the pages.
- Representative Men non-fictionYou spend time with Emerson thinking through Plato, Swedenborg, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Napoleon, and Goethe, less as biographies than as sparks for his own ideas about genius and character. The essays can wander and occasionally feel grandiose, but his sharp, generous sentences make you look at familiar minds in a freshly useful way.