Robert Atwan

Susan Orlean

Compiles the best literary essays of the year originally published in American periodicals

The Best American Essays 2005

Pranav Mutatkar

Hard to judge an essay collection, but overall pretty strong pieces in here. Joyas Voladoras by Brian Doyle blew me away, a short piece that packed a lot of heart that most essays find difficult to do. I also really enjoyed Sea of Information by Andrea Barrett and Mastering the Art of French Cooking by E.J. Levy. Oliver Sacks was good and Sedaris good in his light, amusing way especially in this short of a piece. 

David Foster Wallace had one of his great short stories in here which of course can't be understated. They were a couple other interesting ones, but those are the ones that really stood out. I would recommend you peruse this if you are interested in essays.

Kathryn Schulz

A collection of the year’s best essays, selected by award-winning journalist and New Yorker staff writer Kathryn Schulz “The world is abundant even in bad times,”guest editor Kathryn Schulz writes in her introduction, “it is lush with interestingness,and always, somewhere, offering up consolation or beauty or humor or happiness, or at least the hope of future happiness.”The essays Schulz selected are a powerful time capsule of 2020, showcasing that even if our lives as we knew them stopped, the beauty to be found in them flourished. From an intimate account of nursing a loved one in the early days of the pandemic, to a masterful portrait of grieving the loss of a husband as the country grieved the loss of George Floyd, this collection brilliantly shapes the grief, hardship, and hope of a singular year. The Best American Essays 2021 includes ELIZABETH ALEXANDER • HILTON ALS • GABRIELLE HAMILTON • RUCHIR JOSHI • PATRICIA LOCKWOOD• CLAIRE MESSUD • WESLEY MORRIS • BETH NGUYEN • JESMYN WARD and others

The Best American Essays 2005

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