A review by areader09
The Best American Travel Writing 2021 by Padma Lakshmi, Jason Wilson

4.0

3.5 stars rounded up to 4. As I say with every volume of "Best American" that I review, the edition lives and dies by the guest editor. In my opinion, the best volumes are ones that are the most representative, in terms of gender, race, publication, etc. A good volume is also one that thinks broadly about the subject at hand, in this case, travel writing. Fortunately, Padma Lakshmi thought liberally about what constitutes travel writing and selected pieces that contributed to a well-represented volume. I also appreciate that, while this edition explored the pandemic, it was not overly fixated on it.

Some of my favorite pieces in this edition were: "To the Swimmer in the Borneo Rainforest" by Meghan Daum; "The People of Las Vegas" by Amanda Fortini, "Mississippi: A Poem in Days" by Kiese Makeba Laymon, and "Good Bread" by Bill Buford (also in this year's edition of Best Food Writing).