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thetomegnome's review
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
3.0
eileen_critchley's review
3.0
I usually get to this collection much earlier in the year, but it took me longer to get through this set. Good thing I'm done though, as I have pre-ordered 2019's which comes out in October.
***½ this year for me. Definitely some standouts, and some were harder to get through. But I'm always glad I took the time to read this collection.
***½ this year for me. Definitely some standouts, and some were harder to get through. But I'm always glad I took the time to read this collection.
carsonrmowery's review
4.0
I had to read this anthology for an advanced composition class this semester, and I'm grateful that I did. From it, I was able to enjoy works by authors I already love, as well as discover new authors.
whitneyborup's review
3.0
Someone in one of these essays says something about being allergic to style....I don’t remember which one....and I think that’s indicative of the collection. I might also be allergic to style, which in many of these essays feels like a tangent.
ostrowk's review
4.0
Here were my two favorite essays from BAE2018:
—Leslie Jamison's "The March on Everywhere" (https://harpers.org/archive/2017/04/the-march-on-everywhere/2/) about the the Women's March, but more broadly the shape of activism in one's life
—Kathryn Schulz's "Losing Streak" (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/13/when-things-go-missing) about 'loss', mostly that of her father
I loved several more. An essay about a memory of a UFO, for example, changed the way I think about the relationship between parents and children. Others I skipped or skimmed; it's hard, I imagine, for an essay collection by various writers to please every reader every time. Plus, I don't have the stamina I did when I was younger and in college and trying to prove that I could, should, and would learn everything about everything. Still, BAE2018 reminded me that an essay I wouldn't otherwise read can surprise me. Maybe this reminder will push me to tackle the downright insulting pile of New Yorkers in my kitchen. Probably not.
—Leslie Jamison's "The March on Everywhere" (https://harpers.org/archive/2017/04/the-march-on-everywhere/2/) about the the Women's March, but more broadly the shape of activism in one's life
—Kathryn Schulz's "Losing Streak" (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/13/when-things-go-missing) about 'loss', mostly that of her father
I loved several more. An essay about a memory of a UFO, for example, changed the way I think about the relationship between parents and children. Others I skipped or skimmed; it's hard, I imagine, for an essay collection by various writers to please every reader every time. Plus, I don't have the stamina I did when I was younger and in college and trying to prove that I could, should, and would learn everything about everything. Still, BAE2018 reminded me that an essay I wouldn't otherwise read can surprise me. Maybe this reminder will push me to tackle the downright insulting pile of New Yorkers in my kitchen. Probably not.
mwparker2's review
3.0
Good collection
Skipped a few essays on topics that didn't grab me, but that Hannah Arendt one is 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥
Skipped a few essays on topics that didn't grab me, but that Hannah Arendt one is 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥
meowpompom's review
2.0
“A couple of years ago, I spent the summer in Portland, Oregon, losing things.”
— Kathryn Schulz
— Kathryn Schulz
dellegeller's review
2.0
I love reading Best American series while I travel because they feel less prone to interruption. I can finish a story or an essay while I'm sitting at the gate, waiting for take-off, in the time before beverages are served. I have time to puzzle over what I just read. But I found myself becoming increasingly impatient with the essays selected for BAE 2018. Hilton Als writes in his introduction: "Indeed, the essays I'm attracted to ... have something unfinished about them, a circle that cannot be closed, filled with dread ..." I'm not sure I would call the essays in this series unfinished, but there was something ponderous and slow and, ultimately, unsatisfying about the whole.
I loved Kathryn Schulz's "Losing Streak." I enjoyed David Wong Louie's "Eat, Memory" and Steven Harvey's "The Other Steve Harvey." And then I pined for the notables.
I loved Kathryn Schulz's "Losing Streak." I enjoyed David Wong Louie's "Eat, Memory" and Steven Harvey's "The Other Steve Harvey." And then I pined for the notables.
ctgt's review
3.0
Like most collections some of these essays really struck a chord while others never moved me. I will say there was a nice variety of essays including art, fashion, wine, politics, fashion....life. Hopefully you will find something you enjoy.
Here were my favorites;
The Other Steve Harvey by Steven Harvey from Michigan Quarterly Review. An inner examination by the author of his attitudes toward race and race relations.
The March on Everywhere by Leslie Jameson from Harper's Magazine about the author's experiences in the Women's March.
But already, we were made of nerves and excitement. We were buzzed on coffee. We were breastfeeding babies. We were part of a creature with four million faces. We were a bunch of strangers intoxicated by our shared purpose, which is to say: we were a we.
There is no activism that isn't full of logistics and resentments and boring details. Commitment to anything larger than your own life often looks mythic in retrospect. But on the ground, it's all in-box pileup and childcare guilt; it's a lot of wondering if you're having the right feelings or the wrong ones, or confusion about which is which. It's messy and chaotic and imperfect-which isn't the flaw of it but the glory of it. It trades the perfect for the necessary, for the something, for the beginning and the spark.
Land of Darkness by Suki Kim from Lapham's Quarterly Suki Kim is the only known writer who lived undercover in North Korea. A short piece on fear and waiting.
It often seems to me that the desire to comprehend fear strikes at a mystery at the center of life. We breathe toward death; each moment alive is a clock tick toward not living any longer. There is no happy ending, and to help all this make sense to us, we repeat histories, fight needless wars, recite prayers, and fall in love, often more than once, with people who will break our hearts. Life is born from those blind spots, with each mishap, every accident.
Eat, Memory by David Wong Louie from Harper's Magazine. For all you foodies out there, imagine losing the capability to eat.
The Big Thing on His Mind by Thomas Powers from The New York Review of Books on Faulkner and his treatment of race in his novels.
Clothes That Don't Need You by David Salle from The New York Review of Books, listen I know absolutely nothing about fashion but I thought this was an interesting look at fashion and its intersection with art.
Losing Streak by Kathryn Schulz from The New Yorker this might be my favorite as it starts out humorous and fairly light about misplacing items but then turns more serious as it deals with the loss of a loved one.
Meanwhile, I had lost, along with everything else, all the motivation; day after day, I did as close as humanly possible to nothing. In part, this was because I dreaded getting farther away from the time when my father was still alive. But it was also because, after all the obvious tasks of mourning were completed-the service over, the bureaucratic side of death dispatched, the clothing donated, the thank-you cards written- I had no idea what else to do. Although I had spent a decade worrying about losing my father, I had never once thought about what would come next. Like a heart, my imagination had always stopped at the moment of death.
Disappearance reminds us to notice, transience to cherish, fragility to defend. Loss is a kind of external conscience, urging us to make better use of our finite days.
6/10
Here were my favorites;
The Other Steve Harvey by Steven Harvey from Michigan Quarterly Review. An inner examination by the author of his attitudes toward race and race relations.
The March on Everywhere by Leslie Jameson from Harper's Magazine about the author's experiences in the Women's March.
But already, we were made of nerves and excitement. We were buzzed on coffee. We were breastfeeding babies. We were part of a creature with four million faces. We were a bunch of strangers intoxicated by our shared purpose, which is to say: we were a we.
There is no activism that isn't full of logistics and resentments and boring details. Commitment to anything larger than your own life often looks mythic in retrospect. But on the ground, it's all in-box pileup and childcare guilt; it's a lot of wondering if you're having the right feelings or the wrong ones, or confusion about which is which. It's messy and chaotic and imperfect-which isn't the flaw of it but the glory of it. It trades the perfect for the necessary, for the something, for the beginning and the spark.
Land of Darkness by Suki Kim from Lapham's Quarterly Suki Kim is the only known writer who lived undercover in North Korea. A short piece on fear and waiting.
It often seems to me that the desire to comprehend fear strikes at a mystery at the center of life. We breathe toward death; each moment alive is a clock tick toward not living any longer. There is no happy ending, and to help all this make sense to us, we repeat histories, fight needless wars, recite prayers, and fall in love, often more than once, with people who will break our hearts. Life is born from those blind spots, with each mishap, every accident.
Eat, Memory by David Wong Louie from Harper's Magazine. For all you foodies out there, imagine losing the capability to eat.
The Big Thing on His Mind by Thomas Powers from The New York Review of Books on Faulkner and his treatment of race in his novels.
Clothes That Don't Need You by David Salle from The New York Review of Books, listen I know absolutely nothing about fashion but I thought this was an interesting look at fashion and its intersection with art.
Losing Streak by Kathryn Schulz from The New Yorker this might be my favorite as it starts out humorous and fairly light about misplacing items but then turns more serious as it deals with the loss of a loved one.
Meanwhile, I had lost, along with everything else, all the motivation; day after day, I did as close as humanly possible to nothing. In part, this was because I dreaded getting farther away from the time when my father was still alive. But it was also because, after all the obvious tasks of mourning were completed-the service over, the bureaucratic side of death dispatched, the clothing donated, the thank-you cards written- I had no idea what else to do. Although I had spent a decade worrying about losing my father, I had never once thought about what would come next. Like a heart, my imagination had always stopped at the moment of death.
Disappearance reminds us to notice, transience to cherish, fragility to defend. Loss is a kind of external conscience, urging us to make better use of our finite days.
6/10
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