“The ‘right to be left alone?’ Far from disappearing, it’s exploding. It’s the essence of modern American architecture, landscape, transportation, communication and mainstream political philosophy. The real reason that Americans are apathetic about privacy is so big as to be almost invisible: We’re flat-out drowning in privacy.”

This is the crux of Jonathan Franzen’s collection of essays “How to Be Alone,” though each of the essays explore isolation in a completely different manner.

“How to Be Alone” is comprised of 14 essays with a wide variety of topics: how Franzen remembers his father’s struggle with Alzheimer’s, the inefficiency of the Chicago postal system and smoking, just to name a few.

In “Why Bother,” Franzen takes on the most philosophical (or “theory-minded,” in his words) tone of the collection.

He attempts to answer the question of why one bothers to write serious literature today. The piece itself shows signs of his struggle to get to an answer and the depression that had stopped him from writing in the early ’90s.

Set in Colorado, “Control Units” is written in a journalistic style that describes the economic and social impacts of prisons on the rural communities nearby.

He interviews two political prisoners in a maximum security prison, talks to local shop proprietors and takes tours of various facilities, in which he describes both the prison itself and prison life as described by the inmates.

After the release of his novel “The Corrections,” Franzen enjoyed a brief inclusion as an author on the Oprah’s book club list. “Meet Me in St. Louis” tells of his return to his hometown of St. Louis, during which a film crew from “Oprah” is getting shots of his conflicted return.

Franzen’s explanation of his subsequent “disinvitation” from the television show is given a minimal role in this essay, most of it being devoted to how he feels about returning to St. Louis and seeing all of his late parents’ friends, and his wish not to revisit his childhood home, despite pressure from the film crew.

“How to Be Alone” is not a light read: Most of the essays take a heavy philosophical bend, and Franzen is verbose at times.

That said, the book is a brilliant collection of diverse essays whose themes are eye-opening. Franzen has a way of teasing out deep questions from innocent concepts — smoking, for example — and does so with cool-headed bravado.

His frequent disillusionment with society and feelings of isolation and depression are at the fore of many of the essays, but Franzen presents his complicated emotions without whining — he may complain, yes, but his complaints are valid and thoughtful.

“Control Units” and “Lost in the Mail,” are testaments to Franzen’s talents as a journalist. He takes on a colder and more factual tone as he relates the history of prisons in the former, and the problems that beset the Chicago postal system in the latter.

Though this is the first book I’ve read by Franzen, if his skills as a social critic carry over into his works of fiction, I’ll be reading much more of his work.