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Overview
The Best American series has been the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction since 1915. Each volume's series editor selects notable works from hundreds of periodicals. A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the very best twenty or so pieces to publish. This unique system has made the Best American series the most respected—and most popular—of its kind.
The Best American Essays 2005 includes
Roger Angell Andrea Barrett Jonathan Franzen Ian Frazier Edward Hoagland Ted Kooser Jonathan Lethem Danielle Ofri Oliver Sacks Cathleen Schine David Sedaris Robert Stone David Foster Wallace and others
Susan Orlean, guest editor, is the author of My Kind of Place, The Orchid Thief, The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup, and Saturday Night. A staff writer for The New Yorker since 1982, she has also written for Outside, Esquire, Rolling Stone, and Vogue.
Synopsis
The Best American series has been the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction since 1915. Each volume's series editor selects notable works from hundreds of periodicals. A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the very best twenty or so pieces to publish. This unique system has made the Best American series the most respected--and most popular--of its kind.
The Best American Essays 2005 includes
Roger Angell • Andrea Barrett • Jonathan Franzen • Ian Frazier • Edward Hoagland • Ted Kooser • Jonathan Lethem • Danielle Ofri • Oliver Sacks • Cathleen Schine • David Sedaris • Robert Stone • David Foster Wallace • and others
Susan Orlean, guest editor, is the author of My Kind of Place, The Orchid Thief, The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup, and Saturday Night. A staff writer for The New Yorker since 1982, she has also written for Outside, Esquire, Rolling Stone, and Vogue.
Publishers Weekly
Author and New Yorker staff writer Orlean (The Orchid Thief) says in her introduction that the best essays are not mere records of a subject but are, rather, extraordinary accounts that "reflect the thinking and emotions of the writer." While many (perhaps too many) of the 25 essays here come from the New Yorker, small magazines are represented, and the writing is anything but conventional. Each work pulls the reader deep into the author's world; each is a remarkable first-person account of a life. Only one, Mark Greif's sharp rant "Against Exercise," deviates from this form. Food is a recurring theme. E.J. Levy remembers his mother by way of the romantic Julia Child meals she prepared while he was growing up. David Foster Wallace details everything the reader could possibly want to know about the lobster. Other topics vary from Cathleen Schine's moving discussion of attempting to save her dangerous and self-destructive dog to David Sedaris's humorous tribute to his boyfriend, "Old Faithful." Whatever the topic, this popular series continues to delight and surprise, and per Orlean's definition of an excellent essay, provides a singular glimpse into the authors' lives. (Oct. 5) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.