The Best American Series
14 Short Stories & Essays
by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Part of the Best American ® series
The Best American series is the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction.
This special edition contains selections from the following 2015 editions:
The Best American Essays edited by Ariel Levy
The Best American Mystery Stories edited by James Patterson
The Best American Science and Nature Writing edited by Rebecca Skloot
The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy edited by Joe Hill
The Best American Short Stories edited by T.C. Boyle
The Best American Travel Writing edited by Andrew McCarthy
The Best American Sports Writing edited by Wright Thompson
Each volume's series editor selects notable works from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites. The special guest editor then chooses the 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 Science and Nature Writing 2013
Part of the Best American ® series
Pulitzer Prize–winning author Siddhartha Mukherjee, a leading cancer physician and researcher, selects the year's top science and nature writing from journalists who dive into their fields with curiosity and passion, delivering must-read articles from a wide array of fields.
The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015
Part of the Best American ® series
Science fiction and fantasy enjoy a long literary tradition, stretching from Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, and Jules Verne to Ray Bradbury, Ursula K. Le Guin, and William Gibson. In The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, 2015 award-winning editor John Joseph Adams delivers a diverse and vibrant collection of stories published in the previous year. Featuring writers with deep science fiction and fantasy backgrounds, along with those who are infusing traditional fiction with speculative elements, these stories uphold a longstanding tradition in both genres looking at the world and asking, What if...? The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, 2015 includes Kelly Link, Neil Gaiman, Karen Russell T. C. Boyle, Sofia Samatar, Jo Walton, Cat Rambo Daniel H. Wilson, Seanan McGuire, Jess Row and others.
The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017
Part of the Best American ® series
Science fiction and fantasy can encompass so much, from far-future deep-space sagas to quiet contemporary tales to unreal kingdoms and beasts. But what the best of these stories do is the same across the genres-they illuminate the whole gamut of the human experience, interrogating our hopes and our fears. With a diverse selection of stories chosen by series editor John Joseph Adams and guest editor Charles Yu, The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017 continues to explore the ever-expanding and changing world of SFF today, with Yu bringing his unique view-literary, meta, and adventurous-to the series' third edition.
The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020
Part of the Best American ® series
The best science fiction and fantasy stories from 2019, guest-edited by author of the mega-best-selling Outlander series, Diana Gabaldon.
Today's readers of science fiction and fantasy have an appetite for stories that address a wide variety of voices, perspectives, and styles. There is an openness to experiment and pushing boundaries, combined with the classic desire to read about spaceships and dragons, future technology and ancient magic, and the places where they intersect. Contemporary science fiction and fantasy looks to accomplish the same goal as ever-to illuminate what it means to be human. With a diverse selection of stories chosen by series editor John Joseph Adams and Diana Gabaldon, The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020 explores the ever-expanding and changing world of SFF today.
The Best American Short Stories 2020
Part of the Best American ® series
"To read their stories felt to me the way I suspect other people feel hearing jazz for the first time," recalls Curtis Sittenfeld of her initial encounter with the Best American Short Stories series. "They were windows into emotions I had and hadn't had, into other settings and circumstances and observations and relationships." Decades later, Sittenfeld was met by the same feeling selecting the stories for this year's edition. The result is a striking and nuanced collection, bringing to life awkward college students, disgraced public figures, raunchy grandparents, and mystical godmothers. To read these stories is to experience the transporting joys of discovery and affirmation, and to realize that story writing in America continues to flourish.
THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES 2020 INCLUDES T. C. BOYLE • EMMA CLINE • MARY GAITSKILL
ANDREA LEE • ELIZABETH McCRACKEN • ALEJANDRO PUYANA WILLIAM PEI SHIH • KEVIN WILSON and others
The Best American Comics 2018
Part of the Best American ® series
"I love comics. Comics is (Comics ARE?) a perfect language, robustly evolving and expanding like any other living language," writes Phoebe Gloeckner in her Introduction to The Best American Comics 2018. This year's collection includes work selected from the pages of graphic novels, comic books, periodicals, zines, online, and more, highlighting the kaleidoscopic diversity of the comics language today.
Featuring GABRIELLE BELL • TARA BOOTH • GEOF DARROW • GUY DELISLE • EMIL FERRIS • JULIA GFRÖRER • SARAH GLIDDEN • SIMON HANSELMANN • JAIME HERNANDEZ • JULIA JACQUETTE • GARY PANTER • ARIEL SCHRAG, and others
The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2012
Part of the Best American ® series
The Best American Series®
First, Best, and Best-Selling
The Best American series is the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. Each volume's series editor selects notable works from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites. A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the 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 Nonrequired Reading 2012 includes
Kevin Brockmeier, Judy Budnitz, Junot Díaz, Louise Erdrich,
Nora Krug, Julie Otsuka, Eric Puchner, George Saunders,
Adrian Tomine, Jess Walter, and others
The Best American Travel Writing 2017
Part of the Best American ® series
"The Best American Travel Writing has been the gold standard for short-form travel writing from newspapers, magazines, and the Internet since its inception." -New York Times Book Review
Everyone travels for different reasons, but whatever those reasons are, one thing is certain-they come back with stories. Each year, the best of those stories are collected in The Best American Travel Writing, curated by one of the top writers in the field, and each year they "open a window onto the strange, seedy and beautiful world, offering readers glimpses into places that many will never see or experience except through the eyes and words of these writers" (Kirkus Reviews). This far-ranging collection of top notch travel writing is, quite simply, the genre's gold standard.
The Best American Short Stories 2013
Part of the Best American ® series
"As our vision becomes more global, our storytelling is stretching in many ways. Stories increasingly change point of view, switch location, and sometimes pack as much material as a short novel might," writes guest editor Elizabeth Strout. "It's the variety of voices that most indicates the increasing confluence of cultures involved in making us who we are." The Best American Short Stories 2013 presents an impressive diversity of writers who dexterously lead us into their corners of the world.
In "Miss Lora," Junot Díaz masterfully puts us in the mind of a teenage boy who throws aside his better sense and pursues an intimate affair with a high school teacher. Sheila Kohler tackles innocence and abuse as a child wanders away from her mother, in thrall to a stranger she believes is the "Magic Man." Kirstin Valdez Quade's "Nemecia" depicts the after-effects of a secret, violent family trauma. Joan Wickersham's "The Tunnel" is a tragic love story about a mother's declining health and her daughter's helplessness as she struggles to balance her responsibility to her mother and her own desires. New author Callan Wink's "Breatharians" unsettles the reader as a farm boy shoulders a grim chore in the wake of his parents' estrangement.
"Elizabeth Strout was a wonderful reader, an author who knows well that the sound of one's writing is just as important as and indivisible from the content," writes series editor Heidi Pitlor. "Here are twenty compellingly told, powerfully felt stories about urgent matters with profound consequences."
The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2021
Part of the Best American ® series
New York Times best-selling author and renowned science journalist Ed Yong compiles the best science and nature writing published in 2020.
"The stories I have chosen reflect where I feel the field of science and nature writing has landed, and where it could go," Ed Yong writes in his introduction. "They are often full of tragedy, sometimes laced with wonder, but always deeply aware that science does not exist in a social vacuum. They are beautiful, whether in their clarity of ideas, the elegance of their prose, or often both." The essays in this year's Best American Science and Nature Writing brought clarity to the complexity and bewilderment of 2020 and delivered us necessary information during a global pandemic. From an in-depth look at the moment of the virus's outbreak, to a harrowing personal account of lingering Covid symptoms, to a thoughtful analysis on how the pandemic will impact the environment, these essays, as Yong says, "synthesize, evaluate, dig, unveil, and challenge," imbuing a pivotal moment in history with lucidity and elegance.
THE BEST AMERICAN SCIENCE AND NATURE WRITING 2021 INCLUDES • SUSAN ORLEAN • EMILY RABOTEAU • ZEYNEP TUFEKCI • HELEN OUYANG • HEATHER HOGAN BROOKE JARVIS • SARAH ZHANG and others
The Best American Travel Writing 2018
Part of the Best American ® series
Everyone travels for different reasons, but whatever those reasons are, one thing is certain: they come back with stories. Each year, the best of those stories are collected in The Best American Travel Writing, curated by one of the top writers in the field, and each year they "open a window onto the strange, seedy, and beautiful world, offering readers glimpses into places that many will never see or experience except through the eyes and words of these writers" (Kirkus). This far-ranging collection of top notch travel writing is, quite simply, the genre's gold standard.
The Best American Food Writing 2023
Part of the Best American ® series
A collection of the year's top food writing, selected by prolific food writer and author of “How to Cook Everything” Mark Bittman.
The Best American Sports Writing 2020
Part of the Best American ® series
The latest addition to the acclaimed series showcasing the best sports writing from the past year.
For over twenty-five years, The Best American Sports Writing has built a solid reputation by showcasing the greatest sports journalism of the previous year, culled from hundreds of national, regional, and specialty print and digital publications. Each year, the series editor and guest editor curate a truly exceptional collection. The only shared traits among all these diverse styles, voices, and stories are the extraordinarily high caliber of writing, and the pure passion they tap into that can only come from sports.
The Best American Essays 2018
Part of the Best American ® series
The Pulitzer–Prize winning and Guggenheim-honored Hilton Als curates the best essays from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites, bringing "the fierce style of street reading and the formal tradition of critical inquiry, reads culture, race, and gender" (New York Times) to the task.
"The essay, like love, like life, is indefinable, but you know an essay when you see it, and you know a great one when you feel it, because it is concentrated life," writes Hilton Als in his introduction. Expertly guided by Als's instinct and intellect, The Best American Essays 2018 showcases great essays as well as irresistibly eclectic ones. Go undercover in North Korea, delve into the question of race in the novels of William Faulkner, hang out in the 1970s New York music scene, and take a family road trip cum art pilgrimage. These experiences and more immersive slices of concentrated life await.
The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2019
Part of the Best American ® series
An eclectic collection of fiction, essays, poetry, and graphic work selected by high school students with the help of New York Times best-selling author Edan Lepucki.
Over the past year, a group of high school students have held weekly discussions in the basement conference room of a publishing house in San Francisco. Tasked with finding the best, most revealing, honest, and astonishing writing of the last twelve months, they pored over hundreds of published poems, stories, comics, and essays. With the help of guest editor Edan Lepucki, they selected the contents of this anthology, a collection of work they feel looks a lot like 2019. The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2019 features comics about war and butts and stories about pizza-delivery women, family, dolls giving birth, anthropomorphic lakes, and more. It was a successful year. Read on to see for yourself.
The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2019 includes Viet Thanh Nguyen, Charles Johnson, Robin Coste Lewis, Garth Greenwell, Nathaniel Russell, Britteney Black Rose Kapri, Andrea Long Chu, Deborah Taffa, Renée Branum, and others.
The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2010
Part of the Best American ® series
Freeman Dyson, renowned physicist and public intellectual, edits this year's volume of the finest science and nature writing.
The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2018
Part of the Best American ® series
"This is one of the most exciting times in the history of science," New York Times-bestselling author Sam Kean proclaims in his introduction to The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2018. "Things aren't perfect by any means. But there are more scientists making more discoveries in more places about more things than ever before." The twenty-six pieces assembled here chart the full spectrum of those discoveries. From the outer reaches of space, to the mysteries of the human mind, to the changing culture in labs and universities across the nation, we see time and again the sometimes rocky, sometimes revelatory road to understanding, and along the way catch a glimpse of all that's left to learn.
The Best American Science Fiction And Fantasy 2016
Part of the Best American ® series
From quiet, elegiac, contemporary tales to far-future, deep-space sagas, the stories chosen by series editor John Joseph Adams and guest editor Karen Joy Fowler for TheBest American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2016 demonstrate the vast spectrum of what science fiction and fantasy aims to illuminate, displaying the full gamut of the human experience, interrogating our hopes and our fears-of not just what we can accomplish or destroy as a person, but what we can accomplish or destroy as a people-and throwing us into strange new worlds that can only be explored when we shed the shackles of reality.
The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2016 includes Rachel Swirsky, Sofia Samatar, Charlie Jane Anders, Ted Chiang, Kelly Link, Maria Dahvana Headley, Kij Johnson, Catherynne M. Valente, Dexter Palmer and others
KAREN JOY FOWLER, guest editor, is the author of six novels and four short story collections, including We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves. She is the winner of the 2014 PEN/Faulkner Award, a finalist for the Man Booker Prize, and has won numerous Nebula and World Fantasy awards.
JOHN JOSEPH ADAMS, series editor, is the best-selling editor of more than two dozen anthologies, including Brave New Worlds and Wastelands. He is the editor and publisher of the digital magazines Lightspeed and Nightmare and is the editor of John Joseph Adams Books, a new science fiction/fantasy novel imprint from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018
Part of the Best American ® series
Sheila Heti, author of the acclaimed How a Person Should Be? and coeditor of the best-selling anthology Women in Clothes, along with the students of 826 Valencia writing lab will edit this year's anthology. Their compilation includes new fiction, nonfiction, poetry, comics, and the category-defying gems that have become one of the hallmarks of this lively collection.
The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2011
Part of the Best American ® series
The Best American Series®
First, Best, and Best-Selling
The Best American series is the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. For each volume, the very best pieces are selected by a leading writer in the field, making the Best American series the most respected-and most popular-of its kind.
The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2011 includes
Daniel Alarcón, Clare Beams, Sloane Crosley, Anthony Doerr, Neil Gaiman, Mohammed
Hanif, Mac McClelland, Michael Paterniti, Olivier Schrauwen,
Gary Shteyngart, and others
The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2013
Part of the Best American ® series
Dave Eggers and his students at the 826 Valencia and 826 Michigan writing labs compile fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and comics, as well as category-defying gems that have become one of the hallmarks of this lively collection.
The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2018
Part of the Best American ® series
Today's readers of science fiction and fantasy have an appetite for stories that address a wide variety of voices, perspectives, and styles. There is an openness to experiment and pushing boundaries, combined with the classic desire to read about space ships and dragons, future technology and ancient magic, and the places where they intersect. Contemporary science fiction and fantasy looks to accomplish the same goal as ever-to illuminate what it means to be human. With a diverse selection of stories chosen by series editor John Joseph Adams and guest editor N. K. Jemisin, The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2018 explores the ever-expanding and changing world of SFF today, with Jemisin bringing her lyrical, endlessly curious point of view to the series' latest edition.
The Best American Essays 2019
Part of the Best American ® series
A collection of the year's best essays selected by Robert Atwan and guest editor Rebecca Solnit.
"Essays are restless literature, trying to find out how things fit together, how we can think about two things at once, how the personal and the public can inform each other, how two overtly dissimilar things share a secret kinship," contends Rebecca Solnit in her introduction. From lost languages and extinct species to life-affirming cosmologies and literary myths that offer cold comfort, the personal and the public collide in The Best American Essays 2019. This searching, necessary collection grapples with what has preoccupied us in the past year-sexual politics, race, violence, invasive technologies-and yet, in reading for the book, Solnit also found "how discovery can be a deep pleasure."
The Best American Essays 2019 includes Michelle Alexander, Jabari Asim, Alexander Chee, Masha Gessen, Jean Guerrero, Elizabeth Kolbert, Terese Marie Mailhot, Jia Tolentino, and others.
The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2014
Part of the Best American ® series
"Lively, eclectic and surprising." - Minneapolis Star Tribune
Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket, author of the enormously popular young adult series A Series of Unfortunate Events, takes over as editor for this volume. He will work with the students of 826 Valencia and 826 Michigan writing labs to compile new fiction, nonfiction, poetry, comics, and other category-defying gems, ensuring that "if you need to fall in love with reading again - or just want a reminder that high school students deserve a lot more than their reading lists give them - then this is the book for you" (Bust).
The Best American Sports Writing 2011
Part of the Best American ® series
The Best American Series®
First, Best, and Best-Selling
The Best American series is the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. Each volume's series editor selects notable works from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites. A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the 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 Sports Writing 2011 includes:
Paul Solotaroff, Sally Jenkins, Wells Tower, John McPhee, David Dobbs, Wright Thompson, P. J. O'Rourke, Selena Roberts, and others.
The Best American Mystery Stories 2019
Part of the Best American ® series
New York Times best-selling author of ten genre-bending novels Jonathan Lethem helms this collection of the year's best mystery short fiction.
For Jonathan Lethem, "crime stories are deep species gossip." He writes in his introduction that "they're fundamentally stories of power, of its exercise, both spontaneous and conspiratorial, stories of impulse and desire, and of the turning of tables." The Best American Mystery Stories 2019 has its full share of salacious intrigue, guilt, and retribution. The twists and bad decisions pile up when a thief picks the wrong target or a simple scavenger hunt takes a terrible turn. What happens when you befriend a death row inmate, or just how does writing Internet clickbait became a decidedly dangerous occupation? "How can we not hang on their outcomes?" asks Lethem. "Are we innocent ourselves, or complicit?" Read on to find out.
The Best American Mystery Stories 2019 includes Sharon Hunt, Harley Jane Kozak, Mark Mayer, Jennifer McMahon, Joyce Carol Oates, Brian Panowich, Tonya D. Price, Ron Rash, Robb T. White, and others.
The Best American Travel Writing 2012
Part of the Best American ® series
The Best American Series®
First, Best, and Best-Selling
The Best American series is the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. Each volume's series editor selects notable works from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites. A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the 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 Travel Writing 2012 includes
Bryan Curtis, Lynn Freed, J. Malcolm Garcia, Peter Gwin,
Pico Iyer, Mark Jenkins, Dimiter Kenarov, Robin Kirk,
Kimberly Meyer, Paul Theroux, and others
The Best American Travel Writing 2020
Part of the Best American ® series
The year's best travel writing, as chosen by series editor Jason Wilson and guest editor Robert Macfarlane.
Writing, reading, and dreaming about travel have surged, writes Robert MacFarlane in his introduction to the Best American Travel Writing 2020. From an existential reckoning in avalanche school, to an act of kindness at the Mexican-American border, to a moral dilemma at a Kenyan orphanage, the journeys showcased in this collection are as spiritual as they are physical. These stories provide not just remarkable entertainment, but also, as MacFarlane says, deep comfort, "carrying hope, creating connections, transporting readers to other-worlds, and imagining alternative presents and alternative futures."
The Best American Travel 2020 includes
HEIDI JULAVITS • YIYUN LI • PAUL SALOPEK • LACY JOHNSON • EMMANUEL IDUMA • JON MOOALLEM • EMILY RABOTEAU and others
The Best American Travel Writing 2014
Part of the Best American ® series
A far-ranging collection of the best travel writing pieces published in 2013, collected by guest editor Paul Theroux. The Best American Travel Writing consistently includes a wide variety of pieces, illuminating the wonder, humor, fear, and exhilaration that greets all of us when we embark on a journey to a new place. Readers know that there is simply no other option when they want great travel writing.
The Best American Sports Writing 2013
Part of the Best American ® series
J. R. Moehringer, a Pulitzer Prize—winning feature writer and the author of The Tender Bar, has selected the best in sports writing from the past year. Chosen from more than 350 national, regional, and specialty publications and, increasingly, the top sports blogs, this collection showcases those journalists who are at the top of their game.
The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2019
Part of the Best American ® series
"Science and nature writing are how we share the truth about the universe with the people of the world." And collected here are truths about nearly every corner of the universe. From meditations on extinction, to the search for alien life, to the prejudice that infects our medical system, the pieces in this year's Best American Science and Nature Writing seek to bring to the people stories of some of the most pressing issues facing our planet, as well as moments of wonder reflecting the immense beauty our natural world offers.
The Best American Essays 2012
Part of the Best American ® series
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
The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2011
Part of the Best American ® series
The New York Times—bestselling author of Packing for Mars presents fascinating essays by Jonathan Lethem, Jaron Lanier, Malcom Gladwell and others.
Good science writing, as Mary Roach explains in her introduction, is a cure for ignorance and fallacy. But great science writing adds honey-in the form of engaging characters, stories, and wit-to make the medicine go down. This anthology reveals the essential humanity in our endless quest for knowledge and understanding.
From a study of avian mating habits with unintended political implications to a sober exploration of the panic surrounding artificial intelligence, The Best Science and Nature Writing 2011 offers food for thought in a variety of flavors.
The Best Science and Nature Writing 2011 includes entries by Deborah Blum, Burkhard Bilger, Ian Frazier, David H. Freedman, Atul Gawande, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Ketcham, Jill Sisson Quinn, Oliver Sachs, and others.
The Best American Essays 2011
Part of the Best American ® series
The acclaimed author of Breath, Eyes, Memory presents an anthology of personal essays by Hilton Als, Christopher Hitchens, Zadie Smith and others.
In her selection process for this sterling volume, Edwidge Danticat considers the inherent vulnerability of the essay form-a vulnerability that seems all the more present in today's spotlighted public square. As she says in her introduction, "when we insert our 'I' (our eye) to search deeper into someone, something, or ourselves, we are always risking a yawn or a slap, indifference or disdain."
Here are intimate personal essays that examine a range of vital topics, from cancer diagnosis to police brutality, and from devastating natural disasters to the dilemmas of modern medicine.
The Best American Essays 2017
Part of the Best American ® series
From the Iraqi desert to an East Jerusalem refugee camp, and from the beginnings of the universe to the aftermath of a suicide attempt, these essays bring us, time and again, to the thorny intersection of personal experience and public discourse.
The Best American Essays 2017 includes entries by Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah, Lawrence Jackson, Rachel Kushner, Alan Lightman, Bernard Farai Matambo, Wesley Morris, Heather Sellers, Andrea Stuart, and others.
The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2014
Part of the Best American ® series
Synopsis currently unavailable.
The Best American Travel Writing 2013
Part of the Best American ® series
Number-one New York Times best-selling author of Eat, Pray, Love and Committed: A Love Story, Elizabeth Gilbert transports readers to far-flung locales with this collection of the year's lushest and most inspiring travel writing.
The Best American Sports Writing 2017
Part of the Best American ® series
For a quarter century, the annual Best American Sports Writing has showcased the greatest sports journalism of the previous year. This year's guest editor, acclaimed author Howard Bryant, continues the tradition, seeking out writing that best captures the unpredictable journey of sports. Triumphantly and painfully, these stories reflect on that journey, asking difficult questions about who we are, as individuals and as a nation: What does it mean when a football player takes a knee during the national anthem, who decides where the remains of an American legend should rest, and how far will people go to reclaim dreams that have long slipped away? Spanning different sports, disciplines, and styles, these pieces are, above all, inspirational to readers, writers, and athletes around the world, proof of the bonds and breaking points that exist between and within us all.
The Best American Sports Writing 2018
Part of the Best American ® series
For more than twenty-five years, The Best American Sports Writing has built a solid reputation by showcasing the greatest sports journalism of the previous year, culled from hundreds of national, regional, and specialty print and digital publications. Each year, the series editor and guest editor curate a truly exceptional collection. The only shared traits among all these diverse styles, voices, and stories are the extraordinarily high caliber of writing, and the pure passion they tap into that can only come from sports.
The Best American Short Stories 2021
Part of the Best American ® series
A collection of the year's best stories selected by celebrated two-time National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward
In her introduction to The Best American Short Stories 2021, guest editor Jesmyn Ward says that the best fiction offers the reader a "sense of repair." The stories in this year's collection accomplish just that, immersing the reader in powerfully imagined worlds and allowing them to bring some of that power into their own lives. From a stirring portrait of Rodney King's final days to a surreal video game set in the Middle East, with real consequences, to an indigenous boy's gripping escape from his captors, this collection renders profoundly empathetic depictions of the variety of human experience. These stories are poignant reminders of the possibilities of fiction: as you sink into world after world, become character after character, as Ward writes, you "forget yourself, and then, upon surfacing, know yourself and others anew."
The Best American Short Stories 2021 includes
GABRIEL BUMP • BRANDON HOBSON • DAVID MEANS • JANE PEK • TRACEY ROSE PEYTON • GEORGE SAUNDERS • BRYAN WASHINGTON • KEVIN WILSON • C PAM ZHANG and others.
The Best American Sports Writing 2012
Part of the Best American ® series
The Best American Series®
First, Best, and Best-Selling
The Best American series is the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. Each volume's series editor selects notable works from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites. A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the 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 Science Fiction and Fantasy 2022
Part of the Best American ® series
Award-winning, New York Times bestselling author and guest editor Rebecca Roanhorse and series editor John Joseph Adams select twenty pieces that represent the best examples of the form published the previous year and explore the ever-expanding and changing world of SFF today.
Today's readers of science fiction and fantasy have an appetite for stories that address a wide variety of voices, perspectives, and styles. There is an openness to experiment and pushing boundaries, combined with the classic desire to read about spaceships and dragons, future technology and ancient magic, and the places where they intersect. Contemporary science fiction and fantasy looks to accomplish the same goal as ever, to illuminate what it means to be human.
The Best American Mystery Stories 2012
Part of the Best American ® series
The Best American Series®
First, Best, and Best-Selling
The Best American series is the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. Each volume's series editor selects notable works from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites. A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the 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 Mystery Stories 2012 includes
Peter S. Beagle, Kathleen Ford, Mary Gaitskill, Lou Manfredo, Thomas McGuane,
Gina Paoli, T. Jefferson Parker, Kristine Kathryn Rusch,
Charles Todd, Daniel Woodrell, and others.
The Best American Travel Writing 2011
Part of the Best American ® series
The Best American Series®
First, Best, and Best-Selling
The Best American series is the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. Each volume's series editor selects notable works from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites. A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the 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 Science and Nature Writing 2016
Part of the Best American ® series
This anthology collects some of the year's best science and nature writing-from climate change to killer beetles, an exposé of nail salons, and more.
As guest editor, Amy Stewart says in her introduction, "science writers get into the game with all kinds of noble, high-minded ambitions. We want to educate. To enlighten...But at the end of the day, we're all writers. We're just like novelists, memoirists, and poets. We're entertainers." The writers in this anthology pull off that wonderful feat of turning hard research into page-turning narrative.
The Best American Mystery Stories 2016
Part of the Best American ® series
The Best American Mystery Stories 2016 is a feast of both literary crime and hard-boiled detection, featuring a seemingly innocent murderer, a drug dealer in love, a drunken prank gone terribly wrong, and plenty of other surprising twists and turns.
The Best American Mystery Stories 2016 includes entries by Steve Almond, Megan Abbott, Matt Bell, Lydia Fitzpatrick, Tom Franklin, Stephen King, Elmore Leonard, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and others.
The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2012
Part of the Best American ® series
Synopsis currently unavailable.