The Best American Essays 2012 Kindle Edition

Every year I look forward to diving into the Best American Essays volume. It is usually the most intelligent and educational book that I read all year, which is why I call this series "brain food". This year is no exception, although I wouldn't quite rate this year's volume as highly as others. I still strongly urge readers to give it a try because if you actually make it all the way through it, your brain will feel as though it had a good workout.

Guest Editor David Brooks appears to have utilized a fairly broad definition of "essay" for this volume. Some of the selected works are what I would call "traditional essays": first-person narratives in which the experiences, emotions and thoughts of the author dominate, such as Wesley Yang's "Paper Tigers", in which he confesses to being an illegal immigrant and explains exactly how he has gone about concealing his nationality. Others selections are dispassionate fact-based articles about a topic, such as Alan Lightman's "The Accidental Universe", which discusses some of the latest scientific thinking about dark energy and the laws of physics. Because of this spectrum of essay types, and because the selections are organized by the author's last name, you don't know what you are going to read next as you traverse this volume. One way to view this book is that you are reading a selection of some of the best non-fiction magazine articles published in the U.S. in the past year.Read more ›

The real truth behind non-fiction, is that you can't make it up--the emotions, the stories, the thoughts--the best fiction can do, at its very best, is approximate. Read these essays, and you will be touched, outraged, amused and above all jolted into thought. Read, think, and rebut if you don't agree or argue in support if you do--reading non-fiction may not make you smarter, but it will make your brain work--so readers; read, think and write--an essay really is thinking on paper.

All but the most mindless readers will find one story here that will speak to them in a way even the best fiction can't--try it and enjoy a new kind of read.

The collection contains its share of essays that are strong enough, with a shortage of "Wow" and an excess of relative lightweights, such as the worst contribution, a dud by Mark Doty on Bram Stoker. My favorites included:

* Wesley Yang on Asian stereotypes and attempts to break them by Asians themselves (he really means east Asians) who want to move beyond academic success.

* Ewa Hryniewicz-Yarbrough on connection to her grandmother in Poland through her attachment to objects and other artifacts. Sweet story.

* Dr. Don is not your usual druggist, this time in rural Colorado, tending to the various needs of his isolated cohort.

* The examination of Edward Hopper works best with a computer at hand for viewing the art along the way.

* You Owe Me - how could it not be difficult to teach writing to children dying of cancer? She writes strongly in an area susceptible to going over the top.

* The Crazy State of Psychiatry is distressed about the rise of medication as the central force in the field.

* Who Are You and What Are You Doing Here? - with a third offspring finishing college, there seems to be enough truth in here to be solid. One thing for sure: you can get by even in elite colleges without doing a whole lot, but the opportunity to get a lot more out of it is there for the motivated.

Sandra Tsing Loh is clearly a writer who can yield high negatives. Her aggressive and loud style is entertaining in The Atlantic, from where this piece came.

Sure, Jonathan Franzen's personal travel memoir is well crafted, but is not interesting enough to be notable, perhaps because David Foster Wallace means little to me.

The essay on a father's dementia, more of a story with mostly dialog rather than an essay, is another one that is uncomfortable, about that possibly terrifying future.

I read this annual annually and usually love at least one of the essays so much I'd never consider giving away or donating the book because I know I'll want to revisit at least the one great one -- but often there are more than just one. This year (or last year --2012) none of the essays really grabbed me. Many were too short to go deep; many were boring; many were okay but not my cup of tea. But that doesn't mean I won't eagerly await and read when it becomes available the collection for 2013. This is a wonderful series and even when I am disappointed, as I was with 2012, I'm glad to have had the opportunity to read what was considered important enough to include.

This book has a few good reads and if you get a good deal on it, pick it up.

Pros:

Great for short waits, hot baths, plane trips, and "also reading" lists.

Cons:

No underlying theme. Pretty diverse subjects which means you will probably not want to chain read these essays. You'll find it hard to suddenly switch gears when a new essay goes in a different direction with totally different tone and feel.

Overall, I feel there is some contemporary merit in these essays, but only the sort of merit that lightly titillates the ruminating mind and not the sort of merit that knocks your socks off.