I have some brief notes on several of the essays here, though I enjoyed them all to varying degrees. "His Last Game" is, I think, my favorite."The Girls In My Town" -- Angela Morales, Southwest ReviewStructured by 13 numbered sections. Set in Merced, California, in the valley between the Sierras and the coast; the town has a significant Latino population. Morales devotes section 1 to a description of the town, especially its depressed economy and moves in like manner through sections about a boy...

As an author, Cheryl Strayed tends toward the personal, as her memoir and Dear Sugar attest. It turns out that her taste in essays is also for the personal and the transformative, Although I can imagine that some readers may not like the heavy emphasis on personal essays, I enjoyed it quite a bit. Virtually all the essays held my attention in a vise; only a few were less than intriguing to me, and I'm again incredibly happy to have read this installment of the essays.

This annual released on a Tuesday. Two days later, Alice Munro was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2013 as a "master of the contemporary short story." Her essay "Night" appears in this volume. Out of the 26 essays in this volume, six noteworthy ones, including two about music: 4 stars— Some Notes on Attunement, about the writer's hate then love for Joni Mitchell's music — an attunement. The girl hated Joni, the woman loves her. — The Exhibit Will Be So Marked, about the mix CDs that th...

When did The Best American Essays become The Best American Personal Essays? I was eager to read this anthology edited by Cheryl Strayed, and though I enjoyed the essays she selected, I found it very perplexing, indeed disturbing, that all the essays anthologized in this volume hued to the strictly personal narrative. Remember Jo Ann Beard’s “Werner” from the 2007 volume? A great essay with no “I” in sight. What happened? The essay is a wonderful elastic form. And though, I repeat, I loved the es...

I have to admit I skipped some of the last essays by men because they seemed a little too repetitive in their excessive manliness (you know that kind of deeply manly sentimental writing where men are super sad but they only express it through elaborate metaphors about manly stuff like boxing and basketball). But I think I enjoyed most of the essays in this and I enjoyed that unlike the previous collection of these I read (I think that was the 2014 BAE), this one had fairly clear recurring themes...

The Best American Essays series is one of the best things that is happening in the already exciting area of creative nonfiction. The 2013 issue edited by Cheryl Strayed didn’t disappoint. I am thinking of purchasing all, or most, of the volumes I don’t yet own. In this issue it was wonderful to read yet another essay of the writer I first discovered through the 2006 anthology – Poe Ballantine. In this volume, I discovered another writer with equally darkly powerful voice (and just bought his boo...

"The Art of Being Born" was a particularly good read

This was my first time reading a 'Best American Essays' collection. I chose this one as Cheryl Strayed was the editor, despite disliking her book 'Wild'.I really enjoyed reading this, and found most of the essays fascinating, moving, or an interesting experience into culture. I particularly enjoyed: Sometimes a Romantic Notion, Highway of Lost Girls, Keeper of the Flame, My Father's Women, Triage, Pigeons, Channel B, and The Book of Knowledge. I personally did not enjoy: Some Notes on Attunement...

So many great essays in this collection. Cheryl Strayed has assembled a treasure chest of essays that lean heavily to the personal, transformative, life-altering side of the genre and it makes for a heavy and rewarding reading experience. My favorites are Tod Goldberg'sessay on Duk Koo Kim, Vanessa Veselka's serial killer meditation, the essays by Megan Stielstra and Michelle Mirsky about their children, the Steven Harvey essay about his mom's suicide, and so many others (already feeling guilty

This collection is dominated by the kind of personal narrative that is very close to memoir. Creative non-fiction. Something like that anyway. Some of them are beautiful and moving, while others are more humorous. All of them are shadowed by various gradations of darkness. I wished there'd been one without that shadow. Still, all of the essays in this collection are beautifully written and compelling.

This series is a great way to stay linked to the best essay writing in America. This particular volume is full of really good pieces. My favorite is "The Book of Knowledge" by Steve Harvey, "Highway of Lost Girls" by Vanessa Veselka and Night by Alice Munroe.

Good:"Night" by Alice Munro"Highway of Lost Girls" by Vanesa Veleska"My Father's Women" by Mako Yoshikawa "Confessions of an Ex-Mormon" by Walter Kirn "Pigeons" by Eileen Pollack "The Exhibit Will Be So Marked" by Ander Monson "When They Let Them Bleed" by Tod Goldberg "Field Notes on Hair" by Vicki Weiqi Yang "Channel B" by Megan Stielstra "Epilogue: Deadkidistan" by Michelle Mirsky "The Book of Knowledge" by Steven Harvey Less Good: "Free Rent at the Totalitarian Hotel" by Poe Ballentine "Some...

I'm really surprised that this is my first time reading any collection of Best American Essays. I picked this as my starting attempt to try to clear all the anthologies I have in my possession.It's daunting but hey, goals!As always, I'll point out the essays I found interesting. A number of essays started off good but fishtailed as they went along---sometimes you don't really need to go in five different directions or wax poetic about everything to make your point. Out of 26 essays, I found the

Anthologies are always hard to rate and review, but this one I liked a lot. While few of the essays blew my mind, I enjoyed most of them largely because of Strayed's aesthetic, which favors the personal. Some of the best ones were by Matthew Vollmer, Mako Yoshikawa, Eileen Pollack, Jon Kerstetter, Ander Monson, and Tod Goldberg. The standout essay was the last, Steven Harvey's "The Book of Knowledge," and I think the editors considered it the standout as well since they let it conclude the colle...

Didn’t read all the way thru but enjoyed bits and pieces. Thanks Mr Ziegler

Very readable. Interesting how each made me think of something in strayed's work and appreciate how her preferences worked when choosing pieces for the book.

Great collection of essays, much better than some other editions in this series, especially the 2015 one.Highlights include "Free Rent at the Totalitarian Hotel" by Poe Ballantine, an essay about his formative years and how he got by when he was first starting out, "Triage" by Jon Kerstetter, an essay dealing with the author's time spent as a combat medic and how he had to decide sometimes which soldiers got care and could live and who was too injured and would have to die, and "The Book of Know...

After starting out the series with Danticat as the editor, I was disappointed with the selections in this series. I had read Strayed before and realized that I only connect with Strayed from that one book and moment in her life.

Last year I was very disappointed in this series--the essays seemed to be almost exclusively reviews, which is not representative of what a good essay can do. Similar to last year's editor, Cheryl Strayed tends towards a certain form of the essay, the personal essay. Luckily for Strayed, the personal essay does have a wide breadth of approaches and I was much more taken with this edition. Strayed mentions that she chose essays that transported her, and these personal essays do. They are poignant...

By and large this was quite an interesting set of essays. Remarkable essays, diverse stories, thrilling tales. My standout essay from the bunch is “My Father’s Women.” Others that deserve a mention include “Sometimes a Romantic Notion, When They Let them Bleed, The Art of Being Born, The Book of Knowledge, Highway of Lost Girls” among other titles. This collection truly has some of the best essays.