The Best American Essays 2008 (Paperback)

by Robert Atwan (Editor), Adam Gopnik (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"Reliable and yet still surprising--the best of the best." (Kirkus Reviews )

Product Description

Here you will find the finest essays “judiciously selected from countless publications” (Chicago Tribune), ranging from The New Yorker and Harper’s to Swink and Pinch. In his introduction to this year’s edition, Adam Gopnik finds that great essays have “text and inner text, personal story and larger point, the thing you’re supposed to be paying attention to and some other thing you’re really interested in.” David Sedaris’s quirky, hilarious account of a childhood spent yearning for a home where history was properly respected is also a poignant rumination on surviving the passage of time. In “The Ecstasy of Influence,” Jonathan Lethem ponders the intriguing phenomenon of cryptomnesia: a person believes herself to be creating something new but is really recalling similar, previously encountered work. Ariel Levy writes in “The Lesbian Bride’s Handbook” of her efforts to plan a party that accurately reflects her lifestyle (which she notes is “not black-tie!”) as she confronts head-on what it means to be married. And Lauren Slater is off to “Tripp Lake,” recounting the one summer she spent at camp—a summer of color wars, horseback riding, and the “wild sadness” that settled in her when she was away from home.
In the end, Gopnik believes that the only real ambition of an essayist is to be a master of our common life. This latest installment of The Best American Essays is full of writing that reveals, in Gopnik’s words, “the breath of things as they are.”

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (October 8, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618983228
• ISBN-13: 978-0618983223
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #30,457 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing., December 4, 2008

By	David M. Giltinan (San Francisco) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I thought this was a pretty disappointing effort this year. Adam Gopnik's meandering, pretentious introduction is a painful reminder of just how much David Foster Wallace's brilliance, wit, and low tolerance for BS will be missed (DFW was last year's editor).

Really slim pickings this year. I'd break it down roughly as follows.

Brilliant essays:
Anthony Lane on the Leica camera;
Hugh Raffles on cricket fighting in Shanghai

Engaging:
Atul Gawande on geriatric medicine;
Emily Grosholz on necklaces

Moving personal reminiscence:
Separate essays by Patricia Brieschke and Bernard Cooper, though be warned that each documents the horrific suffering of a terminally ill child and life-partner respectively.

Personal reminiscences that were only mildly amusing:
Ariel Levy ("The lesbian bride's handbook");
David Sedaris mining his adolescence for yuks according to his standard formula (if you've read any of his previous books, you probably could have written the essay yourself).

There were also two personal reminiscences that came across as just whiny and self-indulgent.

A number of "quirky" essays just didn't succeed - the author simply failed to transmit his own enthusiasm to the reader:
Albert Goldbarth on science-fiction comics of the 1950's;
Sam Shaw on trying to attain transcendence through extreme long-distance running;
John Updike (?!) on dinosaurs (it's only my admiration for Updike as a critic that is keeping this out of the "embarrassing" category).

Three essays had a reasonable idea, but were poorly executed, marred by excessive cleverness, smugness, or implied condescension (the 'elite writing for the elite' tone):
Jonathan Lethem on plagiarism (some interesting points, buried in 30 pages of undisciplined prose);
Louis Menand ("Notable Quotables");
Ander Monson ("Solipsism" - a thin idea, pushed way too far)

Cringeworthy, embarrassing, annoying, and/or just plain stupid:
Rick Moody "On Celestial Music".
Rich Cohen on how his neighbors reacted when he grew a Hitler moustache
Joe Wenderoth on -- well, it's hard to know what it was about, actually. Something to do with a strip club; largely incoherent.

The remaining two essays, by Jamal Mahjoub and Charles Simic were inoffensive, but also completely unmemorable.

I am annoyed at Adam Gopnik for this subpar selection. He forces me to be mean in public.

Give this one a miss. 2 out of 21 home runs is pathetic. You may think I'm being unduly harsh. But there was very little joy in reading this book. Life is short. We have a right to expect more joy than is provided by this sorry collection.

Now, here's the good news. Probably right next to this volume, on the same shelf in the bookstore, you are likely to find a book called "The Best American Magazine Writing 2008". It's roughly twice the length of the Gopnik disappointment, and is introduced by Jacob Weisberg. It might cost you a few bucks more. No matter. Buy it!

27 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not the best in this series, October 8, 2008

By	Michael (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews

The Best American Essays series usually provides funny, insightful, poignant, incisive, (or all of the above) reading suitable for snatching on the bus or on a lazy afternoon. Although there are usually a few duds, the batting average is quite high. However, past Jonathan Lethem's polemic on plagiarism and a few others, I found this edition basically unreadable. I doubt it was really "a bad year for essays" so the selection had to be subpar.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Save your money for next year's collection, February 14, 2009

By	K. G. Schneider "Librarian, Writer, and Booka... (Tallahassee, FL) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I bought this book anyway, and not only are the reviewers correct but so are several other people I've since discussed this book with. I've read every Best American Essays collection (I made it a project to do so several years ago) and own ten of them, and this collection is by far the least interesting, and that includes several bumpy years in the early days. I also read many literary journals as well as other magazines, and can reassure readers that Best American Essays 2008 doesn't reflect on the state of the genre; there are many wonderful essays that could have been in this book. But good news: you can buy earlier editions used or new on Amazon, or find them at your library. While you're waiting for next year's collection, try the 1987 BAE, edited by Gay Talese.