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Absurdly good as usual. Two skipped articles: the one about dogfighting (I used to have a pit bull) and the one at the end (stream-of-consciousness gibberish). Other than that, fantastic. On short-form true crime: http://www.whatbookshouldireadtoday.c...
This anthology lost the crime-writing focus of earlier editions. All you need for a good crime story is just the facts. Esoteric / artistic / stream-of-consciousness writing has its place, but not in crime stories.
As one could tell by how long it took me to read this, it was only so-so. It may be the worst edition so far. There were only two stories that really engaged me, one of which was the dog fighting one, which was really difficuly to read because of the subject matter.
I was disappointed with the selections this year; I usually love this series.
This anthology is one of the best so far. All the articles were great, but these are the standouts:At The Train Bridge by Calvin TrillinAn angry and remorseless man intentionally seeks out to destroy innocence and peace.Trial By Fire by David GrannA man is convicted of burning down his house and children based on shoddy science. Also covered in an episode of Frontline.Flesh and Blood by Pamela ColloffA man who loses his family refuses to accept the truth of who caused their deaths. The Snatchbac...
Another excellent book in the series.
good review on unshelved.com
Placing it on my to-read list based upon this review from "Unshelved"Source: http://www.unshelved.com/2010-12-24/B...The Best American Crime Reporting 2010 edited by Stephen J. Dubner. Ecco, 2010. 9780061490866. Reviewed by Sarah HuntThis collection of US magazine stories on crime includes abduction, murder, dogfighting, Ponzi schemes, smashing a buffalo skeleton, and more.Why I picked it up: I love the insight into the lives of people who do things I never could, and who do things I might consi...
Excellent collection of the best in crime reporting from 2010. Some of these definitely stay with you. Two in particular are very haunting: Flesh & Bone looks at the case of a man falsely arrested for the arson of his family home. The fire resulted in the death of his 3 young children. He was executed recently in Texas. Evidence has surfaced showing that the fire was most likely the result of exposed electrical wiring. The final article, The Sicario, has a hitman recount his brutal 30 year caree...
All the volumes in this series are good. Non-fiction crime from a variety of sources, and covering a multitude of sins. I was very sorry to see this series end. I enjoyed them all. Well, except for the 2009 volume. This is an improvement over that book. Two articles giving different perspectives on the arrest of Roman Polanski (Calvin Trillin, who is represented by two pieces, and one by Jeffrey Toobin), the classic "What Happened to Etan Patz?" by Lisa R. Cohen, and an unusually interesting int...
These collections are almost always great. Not a bad piece in this set. (I was pissed because halfway through I swore I'd already purchased and read this one -- turned out I just happened to have read three of the articles that made it into this collection from their original magazine sources. Phew.) I don't know of any other series (or individual author's work, except maybe that of Reginald Hill) where I eagerly await the coming year's output so intensely.
I think of these "Best American Reporting" books as the text equivalent of a really long This American Life episode. Mostly I was left wanting more, especially on the more recent cases. My favorite, predictably, was about two of the more famous Ponzi schemers before Madoff, and what that suggests about Madoff's so-far murky beginnings and motives. My least favorite was the last one, about a Mexican crime family member, which was just too arty for my taste.
This is a great series of books. You should read them all.
This was a great selection of long form magazine articles. There's really nothing at all tying the articles together other than the nominal designation of "crime reporting." Even then, it's a pretty broad definition. So, for instance, there's an article on the guy who hunted down John Wilkes Booth, another on the Roman Polanski saga, and of course many more traditional crime reporting stories. If interesting magazine articles are your thing, I definitely recommend this.
I look forward to this book every year. It did not disappoint. It never does, but this year was maybe the best, as there was only one story I was not that into (the writing style was not for me, though the subject was interesting.) I wish this series went back fifty years so I could read old editions of it.
Outstanding collection of articles. If you've ever been sucked into a Dateline or 48 Hours mystery you'll love this book. Not to mention it features articles by some of today's best non-fiction writers.
An excellent collection of spectualarly varied, highly detailed magazine reporting about an assortment of crimes. I particularly liked the articles about Roman Polanski, the Snatchback Mercenary, the 'Chessboard' killer of Russia and the undercover operation conducted to nab a dog-fighting ring.