This year's collection is edited by Christopher Hitchens. It doesn't have the usual few whimsical essays, but there is a terrific piece on George Orwell, and how his desire for a class-free society bumps up against his mixed feelings about the lower classes, and there's an appreciation of William F. Buckley by his buddy Garry Wills (Buckley didn't like to read books!).

Hitchens selections are a little on the esoteric side. Example: an essay on Einstein's first trip to America sounds interesting, but it turned out to be heavy on details about the inner conflicts of America's post-war Zionist movement.
The David Foster Wallace collection from a few years ago is still the one to beat.

I can keep up with Harper's and the Atlantic and the New Yorker and even The American Scholar, but for the little ones like Oregon Humanities and the Alaska Quarterly Review, I rely on this yearly compendium of the best non-fiction magazine writing--and this volume does not disappoint: a doctor talks about the early days of laser eye surgery, an essay on Einstein's relationship with American Zionists, a reporter spends several exhausting days with Marion Berry, Steven Pinker gets his genome mapped, an art critic reflects on his own and Van Gogh's attacks of vertigo, Zadie Smith on Obama's audiobook and verbal mimicry as empathy, notes from a tiny conference on Tolstoy (at Tolstoy's house) and remembering a long-ago lunch with a shy and gracious E.M. Forester.

As with any compilation, some essays were definitely better than others. My favorites blended the personal with the public; Gyromancy by Rindo (about his own diagnosis of Meniere's disease and the possibility that Van Gogh suffered from it as well) and Speaking in Tongues by Zadie Smith (about language, being biracial, and the US President) were brilliant, five-star essays. Go read them now. A few other good, but not great ones, were The Murder of Leo Tolstoy by Batuman, The Elegant Eyeball by Gamel, and My Genome, My Self by Pinker. These succeeded, though to a lesser degree than the first two because, again, they blended the personal with the science or history and made an engaging read. The essays I really didn't care for didn't do that: How Einstein Divided America's Jews by Isaacson read like a very dry chapter from a very dry history of early 20th century Zionism; Me, Myself, and I's (Kramer) exploration of the father of the essay, Montaigne, was sadly lacking the personal, too (so ironic, I know!). And the essays on Updike, Orwell, and Buckley, though well written, are really only for already-existing fans.

So a mixed bag, but on the whole interesting. Well worth the $1 I paid for it at the used book sale. :)

Hard (actually impossible) to give an overall ranking to a disparate set of essays but the pleasure I got from reading "The Murder of Leo Tolstoy" grants this at least 4 stars.

In general, the “Best American” series is more often than not, a mixed bag and gamble. I find that whether or not I find the series successful is solely dependent on the Guest Editor’s taste in reading matching up with my own. The way the series is structured, a series editor (in this case Robert Atwan) whittles down a veritable pool of submissions from various publications for the best 100 or so essays from any given year, and the guest editor picks, in his/her own personal opinion, the best 20 for the book. I read the 2005 edition of the “Best American Short Stories” and found that Michael Chabon and I have vastly differing taste in fiction, and therefore found the experience rather uninspired.

I had higher hopes this time around as I generally admire Christopher Hitchens as a writer. Overall, I was pleased, but by no means blown away. All of the pieces are well written, but Matt Labash’s “A Rake’s Progress” is the only one whose writing really left a lasting impression and reminded me very much of Gay Talese. Essays covered a wide variety of intellectual topics ranging from eyeballs to sadistic necrophiliac lions to a discourse on how Einstein divided America’s Jewish population. I’d recommend this book to anyone wanting to brush up on long-form essay writing, or looking for inspiration for creative non-fiction writing with the caveat that some of the pieces will probably be uninteresting for those with no desire to read about sometimes obscure topics such as 18th century French poets or George Orwell’s political and literary evolutions.

I buy this or receive as a gift each year; I love essays, and these are always insightful and worth reading.