The Best American Essays 2007 [Paperback]

David Foster Wallace (Editor), Robert Atwan (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Best American Essays | Publication Date: October 10, 2007

The twenty-two essays in this powerful collection -- perhaps the most diverse in the entire series -- come from a wide variety of periodicals, ranging from n + 1 and PMS to the New Republic and The New Yorker, and showcase a remarkable range of forms. Read on for narrative -- in first and third person -- opinion, memoir, argument, the essay-review, confession, reportage, even a dispatch from Iraq. The philosopher Peter Singer makes a case for philanthropy; the poet Molly Peacock constructs a mosaic tribute to a little-known but remarkable eighteenth-century woman artist; the novelist Marilynne Robinson explores what has happened to holiness in contemporary Christianity; the essayist Richard Rodriguez wonders if California has anything left to say to America; and the Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson attempts to find common ground with the evangelical community.

In his introduction, David Foster Wallace makes the spirited case that “many of these essays are valuable simply as exhibits of what a first-rate artistic mind can make of particular fact-sets -- whether these involve the 17-kHz ring tones of some kids’ cell phones, the language of movement as parsed by dogs, the near-infinity of ways to experience and describe an earthquake, the existential synecdoche of stagefright, or the revelation that most of what you’ve believed and revered turns out to be self-indulgent crap.”

Editorial Reviews

Review

"If there's a better reading companion for a long flight or a short vacation, I can't think what it might be." (Buffalo News )

"universal insights [that] take us deep inside the writers' minds" (Miami Herald )

About the Author

ROBERT ATWAN has been the series editor of The Best American Essays since its inception in 1986. He has edited numerous literary anthologies and written essays and reviews for periodicals nationwide.

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books; None edition (October 10, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618709274
• ISBN-13: 978-0618709274
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #262,213 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Collection for 2007 Is Worthy of Its "Best" Title, November 17, 2007

By 

M. JEFFREY MCMAHON "herculodge" (Torrance, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Best American Essays 2007 (Paperback)

The diverse collection of 22 essays address some of the most urgent issues we're facing today. Here are some highlights:

"A Carnivore's Credo" by Roger Scruton: He writes a unique defense of meat-eating and rebukes vegetarianism.

"What Should a Billionaire Give--and What Should You?" by Peter Singer. He presents what many will find to be an extreme view of charity.

"Dragon Slayers"by Jarald Walker. The author, an African American, refutes a definition of embattled victimization as too limiting to African Americans.

"Apocalypse Now" by Edward O. Wilson. Wilson's attempt to bridge the gulf between science and religion in a "letter" to Baptists challenges the practices of both the scientific and religious community.

"An Orgy of Power" by George Gessert. The author shows the disturbing use of torture in US policy as being out of bounds historically.

"Loaded" by Garret Keizer. A "progressive" defense of gun ownership rooted in a Hobbesian worldview lays out the gun debate in a way I've never seen.

"What the Dog Saw" by Malcolm Gladwell. The author profiles "dog whisperer"and shows that many American dog owners unwittingly harm their dogs when they treat their pets like humans.

"Petrified" by John Lahr. He shows the curse of stage-fright and self-consciousness and why there is a moral imperative to overcome these afflictions.

"Onward, Christian Liberals" by Marilynne Robinson. The author rebukes "fundamentalism" by arguing that it is a betrayal of real Christianity.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Like all anthologies, a mixed bag., January 29, 2008

By 

David M. Giltinan (San Francisco) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Best American Essays 2007 (Paperback)

A typical anthology in this series has about two dozen essays and merits a 3-star rating. This book is no exception. With essays by Ian Buruma, Malcolm Gladwell, Cynthia Ozick, Marilynne Robinson, Richard Rodriguez, Elaine Scarry, Louis Menand, John Lahr, Peter Singer, Edward O. Wilson, and an introduction by David Foster Wallace, there is no shortage of big-name contributors. Unfortunately, name recognition doesn't always guarantee quality and, for me, the gems in this collection came from authors I was unfamiliar with until now.

In addition to a terrific introduction by DFW, there were four essays among the 22 in this collection that I found exceptional:

"Werner" by Jo Ann Beard
"Shakers" by Daniel Orozco
"Dragon Slayers" by Jerald Walker
"Fathead's Hard Times" by W.S. DiPiero

Several essays covered political topics: Mark Danner on Iraq, George Gessert on torture, Garret Keizer on gun control, Phillip Robertson on Iraq, Elaine Scarry on America's compliance with the Geneva Convention, Roger Scruton's "A Carnivore's Credo", Ian Buruma on multiculturalism, Edward O. Wilson on responsible environmental stewardship, Peter Singer's "What should a millionaire give - and what should you?" It might be just a testament to my shallowness, but the only two of these essays that didn't feel like homework were those by Elaine Scarry and Peter Singer.

Gladwell's profile of Cesar Millan (The Dog Whisperer) is interesting, but only moderately so. Personal reminiscences are provided by John Lahr, Molly Peacock, Cynthia Ozick, and Marione Ingram. Of these, only that by Lahr rises above the average; Ingram's account of her family's experience during WWII during air raids on Hamburg, which should be moving, is told in a way which manages to be oddly flat and unaffecting.

Essays by Mark Greif ("Afternoon of the Sex Children") and Richard Rodriguez ("Disappointment") were just irritating. Greif ruminates for 20 pages on the unappealing topic of pedophilia, without managing to express a single coherent thought, while Rodriguez argues that California's heyday is over in an essay that is nothing more than an extended, solipsistic whine.

Finally, it pains me to report that the musings of Marilynne Robinson, a writer I greatly admire, on personal holiness, did not coalesce to form a particularly successful essay.

27 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great, November 9, 2007

By 

SORE EYES - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Best American Essays 2007 (Paperback)

After reading Best American Non-Required Reading 2007 and being disappointed, I was reluctant to buy Best American Essays 2007. I am happy to report that I wasn't disappointed with this book. What a difference great editing makes!

The essays in this book are daring. "Afternoon of the Sex Children" reprinted from N+1 was very good. I am suprised that anyone has the courage to put sex and children in the same sentence much less explore Nabakov's themes in the age of Britney Spears grinding in pigtails and "no sex education in schools". It's been refreshing to read essays that don't go over the same tired themes that magazines repeatedly explore. When this book did reprint essays that explored some unoriginal people or themes, they were the best essays on those subjects I'd read. For example, I didn't think I would want to read another essay on Cesar The Dog Whisperer because I 've read something about this guy everywhere and I was disappointed to see this book include another story about him. But "What The Dog Saw" was so well written I begged my husband to read it so that we could discuss it.

This is a good collection of essays. I took off one star because I felt there were too many short stories in a collection that should have been devoted to essays. Not that the short stories weren't good. The collection opens with a short "Malcolm" which was one of my favourite pieces in the book. A good argument is made by David Foster Wallace that these are narratives and therefore eligible for inclusion. But these contributions read and felt like short stories to me and I really wanted essays as there is another book in this series devoted to short stories.