It doesn't take much to write a half-decent essay. The internet is full of them, and there's plenty of material on Medium that's worth checking out. The question is - what separates a good essay from a great essay? What makes an essay worth including in a book celebrating the form - especially if all of those essays spring forth from the same mind?

The answer in the present case is that the essays must represent the possibilities of the form. There are a multitude of different essay types, from the exploratory, meandering essays of Montaigne, the exclamatory, iconoclastic works of recent masters such as Christopher Hitchens.

A. C. Grayling covers much of that territory in this superb book. His writing has a timeless quality, and very literally so: reading it, I at first forgot that Grayling is a contemporary writer (and in fact he appears in many YouTube videos, so if you want to put a voice to the man it's easily done). But when you read Grayling you might imagine a writer of antiquity stepping forth to offer elucidation on a philosophical point - his sentences are so well-constructed, his paragraphs so well-crafted, and his point so well-made that it feels very much like reading from the pantheon of great essayists already. ( )

The Form of Things is A.C. Grayling’s fifth collection “of Things:, following “The Meaning…”, “The Reason…” and “The Heart…”. Each collects a miscellany of essays he has published elsewhere, and then groups them according to common themes. Grayling – considered one of Britain’s pre-eminent leading philosophers – states his intention with the essays to “offer something to the conversation humankind has with itself about what matters”. Each of the preceding collections has been a pleasure to read, offering stimulating and entertaining thinking on a huge range of topics from the simple to the profound, from the mundane to the extraordinary, and from those things that matter not that much to those that go to the core of what it means to be here, now.
The books are designed to be dipped into, and as such they make perfect companions for public transport, or the bedside table, and even the bath, with each individual essay able to be polished off in a few minutes, but its effects often lingering on for a good while afterwards.

I love books like this that actively exercise the mind, and Grayling is well aware that that’s what he’s doing; while some of the essays are completely developed arguments arguing for or against particular positions – in this book, ‘incitement to religious hatred’ and identity cards get this treatment – many are designed simply to get you to start thinking for yourself.

I’m a strong believer in the idea that a life lived without religion does not mean a life lived without meaning; that secular morals and beliefs are as powerful – to me more powerful – than those derived from ancient religious rulings. Central to that though is that life is something that needs to be examined; that beliefs and morals need to be challenged and evaluated in the face of what is happening to us and around us. If we champion taking our moral focus from ourselves – on an individual and societal level - rather than from thousands of years old religious tradition disguised as deity, as I do, then we need to be very sure of how and why we reach our conclusions. Grayling’s books provide a stimulus for that.

I’ve been dipping in and out of this volume all week – just before falling asleep, or travelling on the train, or during quieter moments when on-call – and each

The only complaint would be that sometimes it feels as if Grayling descends to the levels of truisms and platitudes – but then, that may just be where I agree with him so completely that it seems obvious. What’s a truism to me may be anathema to someone else. I don’t always agree with him, but thinking about why I don’t is always worthwhile.

I’ve mentioned some of the preceding books here before and, like each of those, I’d recommend picking this up if you want to do a bit of thinking about life, the universe and everything, and need something to kick-start your thought processes. ( )