The Best American Essays Of The Century

Fifty five unforgettable essays by the finest American writers of the twentieth century.

A collection of the year's best essays selected by Robert Atwan and guest editor Rebecca Solnit. Award-winning writer, cultural critic, and activist, Rebecca Solnit, an "unparalleled high priestess of nuance and intelligent contemplation" (Maria Popova), selects the best essays of the year from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites.

Presents an anthology of the best literary essays published in 2014, selected from American periodicals.

A monumental, canon-defining anthology of three centuries of American essays, from Cotton Mather and Benjamin Franklin to David Foster Wallace and Zadie Smith—selected by acclaimed essayist Phillip Lopate "Not only an education but a joy. This is a book for the ages." —Rivka Galchen, author of Atmospheric Disturbances The essay form is an especially democratic one, and many of the essays Phillip Lopate has gathered here address themselves—sometimes critically—to American values. We see the Puritans, the Founding Fathers and Mothers, and the stars of the American Renaissance struggle to establish a national culture. A grand tradition of nature writing runs from Audubon, Thoreau, and John Muir to Rachel Carson and Annie Dillard. Marginalized groups use the essay to assert or to complicate notions of identity. Lopate has cast his net wide, embracing critical, personal, political, philosophical, literary, polemical, autobiographical, and humorous essays. Americans by birth as well as immigrants appear here, famous essayists alongside writers more celebrated for fiction or poetry. The result is a dazzling overview of the riches of the American essay.

Compiles the best literary essays of the year 2019 which were originally published in American periodicals.

A collection of the year's best essays, selected by award-winning journalist and New Yorker staff writer Kathryn Schulz "The world is abundant even in bad times,"guest editor Kathryn Schulz writes in her introduction, "it is lush with interestingness, and always, somewhere, offering up consolation or beauty or humor or happiness, or at least the hope of future happiness."The essays Schulz selected are a powerful time capsule of 2020, showcasing that even if our lives as we knew them stopped, the beauty to be found in them flourished. From an intimate account of nursing a loved one in the early days of the pandemic, to a masterful portrait of grieving the loss of a husband as the country grieved the loss of George Floyd, this collection brilliantly shapes the grief, hardship, and hope of a singular year. The Best American Essays 2021 includes ELIZABETH ALEXANDER - HILTON ALS - GABRIELLE HAMILTON - RUCHIR JOSHI - PATRICIA LOCKWOOD- CLAIRE MESSUD - WESLEY MORRIS - BETH NGUYEN - JESMYN WARD and others

Nonfiction from Malcolm Gladwell, Francine Prose, Jonathan Franzen, and more: “There is not a dud in the bunch. [An] exhilarating collection.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) Whether a personal reflection on a wife’s decline from Alzheimer’s, a critique of the overdiagnosis of mood disorders, a lighthearted look at menopause, a friend’s commentary on David Foster Wallace’s heartbreaking suicide, or a memoir of teaching underprivileged children, this collection highlights the best essays of the year with contributions from: Benjamin Anastas • Marcia Angell • Miah Arnold • Geoffrey Bent • Robert Boyers • Dudley Clendinen • Paul Collins • Mark Doty • Mark Edmundson • Joseph Epstein • Jonathan Franzen • Malcolm Gladwell • Peter Hessler • Ewa Hryniewicz-Yarbrough • Garret Keizer • David J. Lawless • Alan Lightman • Sandra Tsing Loh • Ken Murray • Francine Prose • Richard Sennett • Lauren Slater • Jose Antonio Vargas • Wesley Yang “A trove of fine writing on big issues.” —Kirkus Reviews

Here is another "splendid array of unpredictable and delectable essays" ("Booklist") chosen by the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Louis Menand. "The Best American Essays" once again earns its place as the liveliest and leading annual of its kind.

A compilation of 114 classic essays from Gore Vidal. "A marvelous compendium of sharp wit and independent judgment that confirms his status as a man of letters." —Publishers Weekly From the age of Eisenhower to the dawning of the Clinton era, Gore Vidal’s United States offers an incomparably rich tapestry of American intellectual and political life in a tumultuous period. It also provides the best, most sustained exposure possible to the most wide-ranging, acute, and original literary intelligence of the post–World War II years. United States is an essential book in the canon of twentieth-century American literature and an endlessly fascinating work.