The Best American Essays 2007 (Edition 001)

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Creators: David Foster Wallace, Robert Atwan
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Category: Book

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Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars

9 reviews
Sales Rank: 4195

Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.4 x 1

ISBN: 0618709274
Dewey Decimal Number: 814.008
EAN: 9780618709274
ASIN: 0618709274

Publication Date: October 29, 2008
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Also Available In:

•	Hardcover - The Best American Essays 2007 (The Best American Series)
•	Library Binding - The Best American Essays 2007

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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
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."

Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...

2 out of 5 stars

Try Best American Magazine Writing instead December 29, 2008
I admit I bought this books only because David Foster Wallace was this year's guest editor. Although I really likes several of the essays in this collection, there were many that I skimmed or didn't read. From now on, I'll stick with the Best American Magazine Writing collection, which never fails to impress. But that makes me wonder what qualifies a piece of work for one collection or the other. All of the essays are from magazines...all of the magazine articles are essays. I guess the thing that separates them are the editors: Magazine is edited by magazine editors (presumably a panel of selectors), Essays is edited by Robert Atwan. Clearly Mr. Atwan and I don't agree on what essays should make the short list.

5 out of 5 stars

Eclectic collection December 12, 2008
First, a warning: I read this collection as a DFW fan. This definitely colors my opinion (for instance: I thought the best essay was DFW's intro), but I really enjoyed most of the pieces.

The essays cover a fairly broad range of topics (with Iraq getting extra attention), and, at times, I had the gut sense that some of the essays were picked not only because they were well written and clear and interesting (as nearly all were), but because DFW agreed with the opinion expressed therein. I'm not totally sure if this is a problem.

I've seen Jo Ann Beard's "Werner" praised over and over, but it didn't really make an impact on me. This leads me to believe that making a mini-list of favorite essays is not really all that useful. Besides, the editors (who strike me as delightfully anal) seem to have pretty stringent standards for good writing, so every single essay is well done.

Recommended, particularly for DFW fans.

4 out of 5 stars

Had to... November 2, 2008
I had to get this for an English class. I ordered it off Amazon because the University Book Store didn't have any. It is, however, pretty good considering it's required reading...

1 out of 5 stars

the voice of dissent March 4, 2008
0 out of 12 found this review helpful

I don't hate to be the voice of dissent in this case. I'm not a fan of Wallace, so I suppose I wasn't that surprised that his choice of essays was at best mediocre and at worst really, really (really) bad. Lately the Best American series has been disappointing. I'm hoping it will get better.

3 out of 5 stars

Like all anthologies, a mixed bag. January 29, 2008
12 out of 13 found this review helpful

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.

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