I only recently (well, two years ago now) found this collection of essays:
Not that it Matters by A. A. Milne (1920). I love his whimsical way of speaking/writing.
For a totally different mood I'd add my support for some of Orwell's essays, though I can't give you titles right now, it's been a while.
Charles Dickens has some good ones too (see for example
The Uncommercial Traveller).
To try and get a bit more modern (and, as it happens, biographical), I loved
A Man's Got to Have a Hobby by William McInnes. Also
Stargazing: Memoirs Of A Young Lighthouse Keeper by Peter Hill.