Twenty-Five Great Essays (Penguin Academics Series)

This books brings some of the greatest essays to you, as well as provide various reflective questions. This would be a great book to use in your first year of college or if you were homeschooling your child. One of the things I found extremely valuable about this iteration of essays is that they provide a brief history of each of the great authors. This is one of the best short essay books of our time.

The seller said it was new and when we got it, it looked pretty new but it had pencil writings. It would have been nice if it was mentioned on the sale.

If you are an instructor of English Composition or an introductory literature class, this slim volume, edited by Robert DiYanni, is fairly comprehensive and represents a wide range of subjects and styles. Much lighter in weight and price than most anthologies (and, face it, how many pages of those fat anthologies do you really teach from?), TWENTY-FIVE GREAT ESSAYS is extremely practical. The anthology includes writers like: James Baldwin, Stephen Jay Gould, E.B. White, Langston Hughes, Gertrude Ehrlich, George Orwell, and Maxine Hong Kingston.I don't always agree with the commentaries that precede each essay, and I don't find all the "Possibilities for writing" questions after each essay that valuable. Still, it is a worthwhile and practical collection that will appeal to teachers and students alike.Rocco DormarunnnoInstructor, The College of New Rochelle