The Best American Essays

by Robert Atwan (Editor)

The college version of The Best American Essays, Fourth Edition, is a collection of essays for first-year composition courses, loosely arranged by broad aims of discourse, including narrative, informative, and argumentative essays. In addition to its rhetorical organization, the reader also offers flexibility for instructors who prefer a thematic or alphabetical organization. The editor introduces students to various types of essays, followed by commentary from well-known writers on such subjects as "Essayists Must Tell the Truth" and "Essays Are Not Scientific Documents."

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction

428 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Robert Atwan has been the series editor of The Best American Essays since its inception in 1986. He has edited numerous literary anthologies and written essays and reviews for periodicals nationwide.

Reviews

[Wendy]

Some very good stuff here -- much less interesting than the "regular" annual, and stupidly expensive (exploiting that textbook market), but the essays are ideal for undergraduates: short, from a range of voices, and connected to the issues that concern the 18yo set.

[Joe Lawrence]

I embarked on this anthology in college and finished here more than a decade later partly because maturity attaches to the body like an anemone to a rock and the response of reading is not unlike poking it with a stick: my brain folds and submits after even a single story and I'm left numb and unreceptive. It sounds like a dour note to make about an old and I guess well-conceived collection that took likely impossible odds to put together, but it's not my intention to denigrate this artful cacophony of literary spurts since I do highly prize shorter works and in fact prefer nonfiction over fiction partly because of classes I took that make books like these required. So finishing a collection like this feels somewhat like completing the entire works of Shakespeare. There's a blithe ambulation to the prose in most of the pieces that does resist a serious interpretation for purposeful candor and irreconcilable spriteliness, which are nevertheless qualities rarely attributed to essays of any form. Yet that's how Annie Dillard makes me feel! At least, in the 15 times I've read Joyas Voladoras, I've never not felt some sense of wonder and weightlessness and Jamaica Kinkaid etched the Cliffs of Dover on my soul in a brilliantly ominous way. This is the kind of literature people should read but never will. But I did.

[John Yi]

The variety of essays included in this collection rekindled the joy of discovering the different trajectories of everyone's lives. Thanks to the wide selection of authors from distinct times, places, and cultures, the journey was exciting, engaging, and eye-opening. Each observation encompassed a unique worldview and perspective, which made me appreciate the essay genre all over again. From a Lebanese child's story of how a telephone destroyed a town; a Brooklyn kid's glaring memory of a fire; a tale about an aerobatic pilot; and a a son's tale of succeeding to his father's craft of house-building—these are just a few stories that will grasp your attention and keep you reading.

[Sindre Homlong]

Alltid mange essays av høy kvalitet i denne serien.

[Alexis]

Each essay has an introduction and questions and writing prompts. Wonderful

[Kristine Ubben]

I read this one for a college class; they were all very good.

[Bella]

A good collection of essays, I would have probably never picked this up if it were for not being required to read this for school. This is a good book for a teacher to use for class.

[Ally Markovich]

Great stuff in here. Joyas Voladoras is one my favorites.