Writing an essay is like catching a wave, posits guest editor Ariel Levy. To catch a wave, you need skill and nerve, not just moving water. The writers featured in this volume are certainly full of nerve, and have crafted a wide range of pieces awash in a diversity of moods, voices, and stances.
Leaving an abusive marriage, parting with a younger self, losing your sanity to Fitbit, and even saying goodbye to a beloved pair of pants are just some of the experience probed by essays that are unified in the daring of their creation. As Levy notes, Writing around an idea you think is worthwhile—an idea you suspect is an insight—requires real audacity.”
The Best American Essays 2015 includes entries by Hilton Als, Roger Angell, Justin Cronin, Meghan Daum, Anthony Doerr, Margo Jefferson, David Sedaris, Zadie Smith, Rebecca Solnit and others.
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Publisher
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Release date
December 15, 2020 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9780544579217
- File size: 1207 KB
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9780544579217
- File size: 1767 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Publisher's Weekly
August 31, 2015
Assembled by New Yorker staff writer Levy (Female Chauvinist Pigs), the 30th Best American Essays collection maintains the series’ standards of excellence. The 22 contributors explore a wide range of experiences, with the theme of aging taking an especially prominent part. Ninety-three-year-old Roger Angell’s “This Old Man,” about the trials of old age, is poignant, funny, and surprisingly reassuring. Mark Jacobson’s (mostly) humorous observations in “Sixty-Five: Learning to Love Middle Old Age” have a similar effect. It is a sheer pleasure to read David Sedaris, still funny but less excitable, describe a life-affirming relationship with his Fitbit in “Stepping Out.” Also worth noting is Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Crooked Ladder,” a novel take on capitalism and institutional racism as seen through a comparison of Italian-American and African-American criminal enterprises. Novelist Justin Cronin covers the aftermath of his wife and daughter’s near-fatal car accident, Anthony Doerr imagines the lives of the first family to settle in his hometown of Boise, Idaho, and Kelly Sundberg writes movingly about living through domestic violence. These and many of the other selections offer illuminating, invaluable glimpses into lives that might otherwise remain outside the reader’s ken. -
Library Journal
September 15, 2015
Levy (staff writer, The New Yorker; Female Chauvinist Pigs) gathers works published in prestigious literary magazines and journals to produce this year's Best collection. Creating a coherent anthology within a genre that by definition defies definition is no easy task, but Levy succeeds so well as to leave no trace of her efforts. Despite disparate voices, tones, structures, and content, these essays flow naturally into one another and are cinched by a recurring theme on aging. Roger Angell's "This Old Man" is literally a meditation on what it's like to be 93, with a whole catalog of deceased friends and loved loves and still wanting--thankfully--love and intimacy. In "Find Your Beach," Zadie Smith describes the changing face of her New York City neighborhood and reflects on how commercialization has marked the end of an age in its history. VERDICT A mixture of the philosophical and the humorous, all of these essays are compelling to read and resonate deeply. Works by new voices, such as Kelly Sundberg's haunting "It Will Look Like a Sunset," about her struggle to leave her physically abusive husband, also stand out. Memoir fans will not want to miss.--Meagan Lacy, Guttman Community Coll., CUNY
Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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Formats
- Kindle Book
- OverDrive Read
- EPUB ebook
Languages
- English
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