The Best American Essays 1990

by Justin Kaplan (Editor), Robert Atwan (Series Editor)

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

Genres: Essays, Anthologies, Nonfiction

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Justin Daniel "Joe" Kaplan was an American writer and editor. The general editor of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, he was best known as a biographer, particularly of Samuel Clemens, Lincoln Steffens, and Walt Whitman.

Reviews

[Bibliophile10 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Editor Justin Kaplan was unknown to me so I was able to read this volume with little bias based on who curated it. That being said, this collection didn't stand out from its predecessors. Many selections felt familiar, but not in memorable ways; other selections were certainly not essays, at least not in the classical sense, and one or two seemed to be picked because of weird content as opposed to writerly achievement (e.g. "No Wonder They Call Me a Bitch"). There were, however, some good pieces here, though not all essays perhaps--Epstein's "A Few Kind Words for Envy," Le Guin's "The Fisherwoman's Daughter," Pollan's "Why Mow? The Case Against Lawns," and "Randy Shilts's "Talking Aids to Death" (the latter, in particular, was affecting). The standout essay--one that I'll return to as a writer and teacher--was Annie Dillard's "The Stunt Pilot."