I am a lover of essays. Every morning, shortly after dawn, I sit at my laptop, coffee at hand, and explore the internet looking for pieces to read for enjoyment or as a kickoff for an article of my own. On my bookshelves are scores of novels, once also a favorite genre, but over the years I have amassed equal numbers of volumes of essays, collections by such diverse writers as Joseph Epstein, Richard Mitchell, Alice Thomas Ellis, Hilaire Belloc, and Florence King. Here too are anthologies like Phillip Lopate’s “The Art of the Personal Essay” and Epstein’s “The Norton Book of Personal Essays.” Nearly all these writers share some common characteristics. They often interject humor into their work—some of it biting, some gentle, some self-deprecatory. They point out hypocrisy, they praise sincerity, and they reference facts, historical figures and events, and literature while at the same time inserting themselves …