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The Best American Essays of the Century
This singular collection is nothing less than a political, spiritual, and intensely personal record of America's tumultuous modern age by our foremost critics, commentators, activists, and artists. In her introduction to this volume, Joyce Carol Oates describes her project as "a search for the expression of personal experience within the historical, the individual talent within the tradition." Along with Robert Atwan, who has overseen the acclaimed BEST AMERICAN ESSAYS series since its inception in 1986, Oates has chosen a list of works that are both intimate and important, essays that take on subjects of profound and universal significance while retaining the power and spirit of a personal address.
This collection honors some of the twentieth century's best-known and best-loved writers on a breathtaking variety of topics. In a journalistic mode, Ernest Hemingway covers the bullfights in Pamplona, H. L. Mencken reacts to the Scopes trial, and Michael Herr dodges bullets in a helicopter over Vietnam. Nowhere is the intersection of our personal and political histories more meaningful than when the subject is America’s enduring legacy of racial strife, as shown by Richard Wright’s "The Ethics of Living Jim Crow," James Baldwin’s "Notes of a Native Son," Zora Neale Hurston’s "How It Feels to Be Colored Me," and others. The wonders and horrors of science, nature, and the cosmos are explored with eloquence, bravery, and beauty when Lewis Thomas writes about "The Lives of a Cell," Rachel Carson mulls "The Marginal World," and Stephen Jay Gould preaches evolution and baseball in "The Creation Myths of Cooperstown." Taken together, these essays fit, in the words of Joyce Carol Oates, "into a kind of mobile mosaic suggest[ing] where we've come from, and who we are, and where we are going."
Mark Twain • W.E.B. Du Bois • Henry Adams • John Muir • William James • Randolph Bourne • John Jay Chapman • Jane Addams • T. S. Eliot • Ernest Hemingway • H. L. Mencken • Zora Neale Hurston • Edmund Wilson • Gertrude Stein • F. Scott Fitzgerald • James Thurber • Richard Wright • James Agee • Robert Frost • E. B. White • S. J. Perelman • Langston Hughes • Katherine Anne Porter • Mary McCarthy • Rachel Carson • James Baldwin • Loren Eiseley • Eudora Welty • Donald Hall • Martin Luther King, Jr. • Tom Wolfe • Susan Sontag • Vladimir Nabokov • N. Scott Momaday • Elizabeth Hardwick • Michael Herr • Maya Angelou • Lewis Thomas • John McPhee • William H. Gass • Maxine Hong Kingston • Alice Walker • Adrienne Rich • Joan Didion • Richard Rodriguez • Gretel Ehrlich • Annie Dillard • Cynthia Ozick • William Manchester • Edward Hoagland • Stephen Jay Gould • Gerald Early • John Updike • Joyce Carol Oates • Saul Bellow
This collection honors some of the twentieth century's best-known and best-loved writers on a breathtaking variety of topics. In a journalistic mode, Ernest Hemingway covers the bullfights in Pamplona, H. L. Mencken reacts to the Scopes trial, and Michael Herr dodges bullets in a helicopter over Vietnam. Nowhere is the intersection of our personal and political histories more meaningful than when the subject is America’s enduring legacy of racial strife, as shown by Richard Wright’s "The Ethics of Living Jim Crow," James Baldwin’s "Notes of a Native Son," Zora Neale Hurston’s "How It Feels to Be Colored Me," and others. The wonders and horrors of science, nature, and the cosmos are explored with eloquence, bravery, and beauty when Lewis Thomas writes about "The Lives of a Cell," Rachel Carson mulls "The Marginal World," and Stephen Jay Gould preaches evolution and baseball in "The Creation Myths of Cooperstown." Taken together, these essays fit, in the words of Joyce Carol Oates, "into a kind of mobile mosaic suggest[ing] where we've come from, and who we are, and where we are going."
Mark Twain • W.E.B. Du Bois • Henry Adams • John Muir • William James • Randolph Bourne • John Jay Chapman • Jane Addams • T. S. Eliot • Ernest Hemingway • H. L. Mencken • Zora Neale Hurston • Edmund Wilson • Gertrude Stein • F. Scott Fitzgerald • James Thurber • Richard Wright • James Agee • Robert Frost • E. B. White • S. J. Perelman • Langston Hughes • Katherine Anne Porter • Mary McCarthy • Rachel Carson • James Baldwin • Loren Eiseley • Eudora Welty • Donald Hall • Martin Luther King, Jr. • Tom Wolfe • Susan Sontag • Vladimir Nabokov • N. Scott Momaday • Elizabeth Hardwick • Michael Herr • Maya Angelou • Lewis Thomas • John McPhee • William H. Gass • Maxine Hong Kingston • Alice Walker • Adrienne Rich • Joan Didion • Richard Rodriguez • Gretel Ehrlich • Annie Dillard • Cynthia Ozick • William Manchester • Edward Hoagland • Stephen Jay Gould • Gerald Early • John Updike • Joyce Carol Oates • Saul Bellow
596 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 2000
170 people are currently reading
3239 people want to read
About the author
Joyce Carol Oates
859 books9,691 followersJoyce Carol Oates is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963, and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. Her novels Black Water (1992), What I Lived For (1994), and Blonde (2000), and her short story collections The Wheel of Love (1970) and Lovely, Dark, Deep: Stories (2014) were each finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. She has won many awards for her writing, including the National Book Award, for her novel Them (1969), two O. Henry Awards, the National Humanities Medal, and the Jerusalem Prize (2019).
Oates taught at Princeton University from 1978 to 2014, and is the Roger S. Berlind '52 Professor Emerita in the Humanities with the Program in Creative Writing. From 2016 to 2020, she was a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where she taught short fiction in the spring semesters. She now teaches at Rutgers University, New Brunswick.
Oates was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2016.
Pseudonyms: Rosamond Smith and Lauren Kelly.
Oates taught at Princeton University from 1978 to 2014, and is the Roger S. Berlind '52 Professor Emerita in the Humanities with the Program in Creative Writing. From 2016 to 2020, she was a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where she taught short fiction in the spring semesters. She now teaches at Rutgers University, New Brunswick.
Oates was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2016.
Pseudonyms: Rosamond Smith and Lauren Kelly.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 92 reviews
March 19, 2013
What did I think? What didn't I think? Every essay in this beautifully curated collection is a home run, and most of them were
from writers I didn't know. John Muir? Sure, Muir woods, all that. But how would I in my lifetime have learned that he is a
sublime writer, pure humor, pure soul, and that he had written the best thing I've ever read about a man's relationship with a dog?
("Stickeen"). "The Moral Equivalent of War", by William James, speaks of how to turn the militaristic vision and people's need for
it to something positive in the world without a drop of sentimentality about War Being Bad. And I could go on. But you should take my
place, and get this book. If any part of your life is available to be changed, to whatever degree, you will find something in this book that
will change it.
from writers I didn't know. John Muir? Sure, Muir woods, all that. But how would I in my lifetime have learned that he is a
sublime writer, pure humor, pure soul, and that he had written the best thing I've ever read about a man's relationship with a dog?
("Stickeen"). "The Moral Equivalent of War", by William James, speaks of how to turn the militaristic vision and people's need for
it to something positive in the world without a drop of sentimentality about War Being Bad. And I could go on. But you should take my
place, and get this book. If any part of your life is available to be changed, to whatever degree, you will find something in this book that
will change it.
Read
December 3, 2020I'll cop to only having read 15 or 16 of these essays. They're pretty damn good - as the title of the collection would imply. I stuck mostly to essays written by or that were about women, though I enjoyed Robert Frost's famous essay on poetic form (once I started to understand it a couple of paragraphs in) and appreciated John Updike's take on the penis and all the utilitarian maleness that it springs from (and is). What stuck most with me was reading Zora Hurston's essay on a form of self-acceptance and agony, then reading Alice Walker's moving essay on locating and honoring Zora's forgotten grave. Due to the choice of authors, there are several one-liners in each of the essays I read that blew me away. Cynthia Ozick took the prize with an essay that was sound, solid and not particularly moving, until the final paragraph which broke open my mind and heart and silenced me for several long moments. This made me want to read and write more essays and of course - read more by these authors and then re-read some of the essays.
July 13, 2010
This is the kind of book you pick up every once in a while to read an essay here, an essay there. What I have read so far has been thrilling.
Mark Twain's "Corn-Pone Opinions" is a sardonic and hilarious look at what following sheep we humans are, and how impossible it is to form a unique opinion. The genius lies in his own inability to discern why this is; after all, Twain is human too, and he humbly confines himself to the masses.
John Muir's "Stickeen" will keep you on the edge of your seat-- has anyone ever described a storm so beautifully?-- and if you're a dog person, then you'll certainly be weeping by the end.
I can't say I've ever been a huge fan of Hemingway's dry, self-righteous style, but his "Pamplona in July" is certainly a unique look at a world I knew nothing about, in a country I yearn to visit.
Zora Neale Hurston's "How it Feels to Be Colored Me" is playful and joyous, William James's "The Moral Equivalent of War" is rather opaque but still interesting, and of course, Martin Luther King's "Letter From Birmingham Jail" is one of the greatest, most moving pieces of writing in existence. For these examples alone, the book is worth owning, but as I flip through the essays that still lie ahead-- Fitzgerald, E.B. White, Rachel Carson, Tom Wolfe, John McPhee, Annie Dillard, and on and on-- I know this book will become more and more valuable each time I pick it up.
Mark Twain's "Corn-Pone Opinions" is a sardonic and hilarious look at what following sheep we humans are, and how impossible it is to form a unique opinion. The genius lies in his own inability to discern why this is; after all, Twain is human too, and he humbly confines himself to the masses.
John Muir's "Stickeen" will keep you on the edge of your seat-- has anyone ever described a storm so beautifully?-- and if you're a dog person, then you'll certainly be weeping by the end.
I can't say I've ever been a huge fan of Hemingway's dry, self-righteous style, but his "Pamplona in July" is certainly a unique look at a world I knew nothing about, in a country I yearn to visit.
Zora Neale Hurston's "How it Feels to Be Colored Me" is playful and joyous, William James's "The Moral Equivalent of War" is rather opaque but still interesting, and of course, Martin Luther King's "Letter From Birmingham Jail" is one of the greatest, most moving pieces of writing in existence. For these examples alone, the book is worth owning, but as I flip through the essays that still lie ahead-- Fitzgerald, E.B. White, Rachel Carson, Tom Wolfe, John McPhee, Annie Dillard, and on and on-- I know this book will become more and more valuable each time I pick it up.
April 25, 2011
Obviously, this stuff is good. I discovered some new writers and some new favorites by old writers(The Crack Up, by Fitzgerald.) However, Joyce Carol Oates made these selections and she definitely did so with a historical sense. The collection could just as well have been called "Best Essays about America in the 20th Century." No surprises here, no experiments with form, and what to me felt like a sometimes annoyingly persistent "relevance." I guess I just have a thing for really, really, really, really well-written essays that don't have much to do with anything "important." Still, it's a don't miss.
March 3, 2015
Faves:
Mark Twain: "Corn-pone Opinions"
Henry Adams: "A Law of Acceleration"
John Muir: "Stickeen"
William James: "The Moral Equivalent of War"
Randolph Bourne: "The Handicapped"
Jane Addams: "The Devil Baby at Hull-House"
H.L. Mencken: "The Hills of Zion"
F. Scott Fitzgerald: "The Crack-Up"
Tom Wolfe: "Putting Daddy On"
Vladimir Nabokov: "Perfect Past"
Michael Herr: "Illumination Rounds"
Joan Didion: "The White Album"
Gretel Ehrlich: "The Solace of Open Spaces"
Edward Hoagland: "Heaven and Nature"
Stephen Jay Gould: "The Creation Myths of Cooperstown"
Mark Twain: "Corn-pone Opinions"
Henry Adams: "A Law of Acceleration"
John Muir: "Stickeen"
William James: "The Moral Equivalent of War"
Randolph Bourne: "The Handicapped"
Jane Addams: "The Devil Baby at Hull-House"
H.L. Mencken: "The Hills of Zion"
F. Scott Fitzgerald: "The Crack-Up"
Tom Wolfe: "Putting Daddy On"
Vladimir Nabokov: "Perfect Past"
Michael Herr: "Illumination Rounds"
Joan Didion: "The White Album"
Gretel Ehrlich: "The Solace of Open Spaces"
Edward Hoagland: "Heaven and Nature"
Stephen Jay Gould: "The Creation Myths of Cooperstown"
August 1, 2018
Many of these essays have heavy themes, and several are very similar--racism, violence... the many ways people can be cruel, especially to people who can't fight back. I would have liked it better if I could have spaced out the reading more, but as it is, the essays felt important, but like an anchor dragging my mood down.
June 24, 2021
This got me into reading again. Brown Wasps, A Drugstore in Winter and so many more beautiful essays. I think there's something very appealing about the essay format, to offer so much of lived experience in such a brief form.
Want to read
January 30, 2023Table of contents: https://search.schlowlibrary.org/Reco...
April 4, 2024
An excellent anthology of 20th Century American thought.
November 16, 2024
Surprised by the lack of variety. Definitely some knock outs that carried the rest of the collection though
August 12, 2023
I take issue with the superlative, because surely these can't be the "best" essays America has produced in the last century. Joyce Carol Oates's The Best American Essays of the Century would have been more apt a title. Then I wouldn't have held such high expectations reading it. In spite of some powerful selections here, it is also peppered with disappointments, and I was antsy to be done with the book. But unlike a novel I could easily chuck away, I couldn't risk missing out on what might be a better essay than the last.
My general takes:
1) Apart from John Muir's unforgettable Stickeen, the most unforgettable pieces here were written by women: Zora Hurston Neale, Joyce Carol Oates, Joan Didion, Cynthia Ozick, Gretel Ehrlich, Maya Angelou, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Annie Dillard.
2) Gertrude Stein's contribution is one of the few exceptions to #1; I wonder how her reading of it played out in Oxford and Cambridge back in 1936.
3) Potent essays on race relations and racial tension dominate the collection. If I were to sum up what I will recall from my reading of the book, foremost would be the African-American struggles so candidly documented here.
4) Martin Luther King's historic Letter from a Birmingham Jail was unexpectedly mediocre and hinted at vanity, especially when compared to the pieces written by Gerald Early, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and Zora Hurston Neale.
5) In a book chock-full of quotable quotes, it is Zora Hurston Neale's words, in How It Feels to Be Colored Me, which left an imprint; I came across it in the first quarter of the book. What a validating coincidence for Alice Walker to have pounced on the same quote when I read her essay, Looking for Zora, midway through the book!
"But I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a low-down dirty deal and whose feelings are all hurt about it. Even in the helter-skelter skirmish that is my life, I have seen that the world is to the strong regardless of a little pigmentation more or less. No, I do not weep at the world--I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife."
Zora Hurston Neale, 1928
My general takes:
1) Apart from John Muir's unforgettable Stickeen, the most unforgettable pieces here were written by women: Zora Hurston Neale, Joyce Carol Oates, Joan Didion, Cynthia Ozick, Gretel Ehrlich, Maya Angelou, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Annie Dillard.
2) Gertrude Stein's contribution is one of the few exceptions to #1; I wonder how her reading of it played out in Oxford and Cambridge back in 1936.
3) Potent essays on race relations and racial tension dominate the collection. If I were to sum up what I will recall from my reading of the book, foremost would be the African-American struggles so candidly documented here.
4) Martin Luther King's historic Letter from a Birmingham Jail was unexpectedly mediocre and hinted at vanity, especially when compared to the pieces written by Gerald Early, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and Zora Hurston Neale.
5) In a book chock-full of quotable quotes, it is Zora Hurston Neale's words, in How It Feels to Be Colored Me, which left an imprint; I came across it in the first quarter of the book. What a validating coincidence for Alice Walker to have pounced on the same quote when I read her essay, Looking for Zora, midway through the book!
"But I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a low-down dirty deal and whose feelings are all hurt about it. Even in the helter-skelter skirmish that is my life, I have seen that the world is to the strong regardless of a little pigmentation more or less. No, I do not weep at the world--I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife."
Zora Hurston Neale, 1928
May 22, 2018
When I couldn't get ahold of Gretel Erlich's The Solace of Open Spaces at the library, I did the next best thing: I found that namesake essay in this lovely book of essays and enjoyed not only it but many others besides. Compilations can be tricky and uneven, but editor Joyce Carol Oates has done an excellent job curating truly some of the finest short essays of (and about) the 20th century. (And by the way: The Solace of Open Spaces was an excellent piece, beautifully and poetically written, and I think her full book would be worth buying.)
I don't get into podcasts, but this book fills what is probably that same kind of void for me. It's like listening to one of the long-form-story NPR programs, only I get to READ these wonderful essays myself, taking my time discovering, sampling, and digesting. When my husband and I were first married, we vowed to not buy a TV for a year so we would spend that time with each other instead of lost in a screen. I remember that year with great fondness. We would talk or listen to the radio and discuss what we heard. We'd read the newspaper or books aloud to each other and have lively conversations.
As I read this, it took me back to that simpler time. I thought, this would be a good book to have on the coffee table for a quiet night when there's a fire in the fireplace, the TV's off, and the ever-present smartphones are set aside. Maybe if we had this book handy, we would feel inspired to read aloud to each other--as people did for enjoyment for many years before screens--at least from time to time. Sounds so lovely to me. It's worth a try!
I don't get into podcasts, but this book fills what is probably that same kind of void for me. It's like listening to one of the long-form-story NPR programs, only I get to READ these wonderful essays myself, taking my time discovering, sampling, and digesting. When my husband and I were first married, we vowed to not buy a TV for a year so we would spend that time with each other instead of lost in a screen. I remember that year with great fondness. We would talk or listen to the radio and discuss what we heard. We'd read the newspaper or books aloud to each other and have lively conversations.
As I read this, it took me back to that simpler time. I thought, this would be a good book to have on the coffee table for a quiet night when there's a fire in the fireplace, the TV's off, and the ever-present smartphones are set aside. Maybe if we had this book handy, we would feel inspired to read aloud to each other--as people did for enjoyment for many years before screens--at least from time to time. Sounds so lovely to me. It's worth a try!
May 8, 2020
Three stars for this huge collection of essays. I think the three stars are due to the book's nature: a collection. Naturally, a collection contains not only essays which I absolutely loved and would have given five stars, but also essays I found absolutely boring and would have given one or two stars.
Therefore, the sum of all essays is the middle rating.
The essays I really enjoyed were:
John Muir - Stickeen
Ernest Hemingway - Pamplona in July
James Thurber - Sex Ex Machina
Richard Wright - The Ethics of Living Jim Crow
James Baldwin - Notes of a Native Son
Martin Luther King Jr. - Letter From Birmingham Jail
N. Scott Momaday - The Way to Rainy Mountain
Maya Angelou - I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Maxine Hong Kingston - No Name Woman
Alice Walker - Looking For Zora
Richard Rodriguez - Aria: a Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood
Gretel Ehrlich - The Solace of Open Spaces (I guess my favorite)
William Manchester - Okinawa
Gerald Early - Life With Daughters: Watching the Miss America Pageant
Joyce Carol Oates - They All Just Went Away (interesting how I thought her writing style was horrible reading the Introduction, but then really liked her essay)
Therefore, the sum of all essays is the middle rating.
The essays I really enjoyed were:
John Muir - Stickeen
Ernest Hemingway - Pamplona in July
James Thurber - Sex Ex Machina
Richard Wright - The Ethics of Living Jim Crow
James Baldwin - Notes of a Native Son
Martin Luther King Jr. - Letter From Birmingham Jail
N. Scott Momaday - The Way to Rainy Mountain
Maya Angelou - I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Maxine Hong Kingston - No Name Woman
Alice Walker - Looking For Zora
Richard Rodriguez - Aria: a Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood
Gretel Ehrlich - The Solace of Open Spaces (I guess my favorite)
William Manchester - Okinawa
Gerald Early - Life With Daughters: Watching the Miss America Pageant
Joyce Carol Oates - They All Just Went Away (interesting how I thought her writing style was horrible reading the Introduction, but then really liked her essay)
July 10, 2015
With relatively few exceptions, there wasn't anything in here I didn't enjoy... Oates did a solid job of selecting not only the best essays, but also essays from a wide breadth of American life. Plenty of women, plenty of writers of color, articles on war, articles on poverty, articles on immigration, articles on culture, articles on science, articles on the environment, and all while staying pretty geographically diverse.
There are, of course, the less impressive articles, the ones that hit me the wrong way or struck me as pretentious, but for every one of those, there were three or four that were brilliant.
There are, of course, the less impressive articles, the ones that hit me the wrong way or struck me as pretentious, but for every one of those, there were three or four that were brilliant.
August 20, 2008
It was enlightening enough, but most of the essays deal with the pitfalls and triumphs of American tolerance, having to do mostly with what it is like to live in America as a minority (this is not a bad thing, though). It would have been nice to see more variety in topics. However, the subjects discussed did vary with each passing essay in at least one regard--being Jewish, being Hispanic, being black (three of the most moving essays in the series). Since this is only volume one, I think I should be expecting different explored topics for the second.
December 8, 2008
the best collection of essays from a wide range of writers.
March 1, 2020
An essay is such a rich treasure; I had forgotten how much I enjoy to read and write them. I have been struggling with writer's block, but now I remember why it is I love to write. Some of them made me laugh; some of them made me hold my breath until the end, when I let it out with one big WHOOSH. I was moved to tears, to anger. And with some I read the last sentence and looked up at the wall, struggling to believe the writer hadn't reached out and physically sucker punched me. Not everyone writes the same; we all shouldn't even strive to write the same. My art and your art are as unique as our fingerprints. They are as unique to our identities as our souls are to our bodies, and that is why I love the personal essay.
June 1, 2025
would give it 5 stars, but the plot seemed to jump around, almost as if each "chapter" (they really didn't feel like chapters tbh) was written by a different author with a completely different writing style and way of words.
October 12, 2017
There's a lot of great reading here. The carefully curated collection of essays starts strong with Twain's observation of natural American clanishness using the metaphor of "corne-pone opinions". This is almost the best of the best. For me the best here is muir's celebration of Stickeen the explorer dog. I can picture the plucky animal conquering his own fears at the glacier bridge and the twinkling in his eyes as he recollects the close call with Muir. Also very good is pioneer community organizer jane Addams seeing in women their personal struggles in their desires to see it purported "devil baby". For the Hemingway piece about the running of the bulls i am further confirmed that at this point in my life I am unimpressed with his fiction but find his nonfiction enjoyable enough. Mencken's gonzo reporting of the Scopes "Monkey Trial" reads like Hunter S. himself. I also am starting to see emerge from the dark night of my ignorance the constellation of brights in American literature: Sontag (brilliant disection of "camp" that I now know predates Friday the 13th), independent polymath Edmund Wilson, James Agee, etc. Didion discursive assaying and of the turbulent 60s is in the Montaigne tradition and Bellow's "Graven Images" is an insightful musing on photography that could extend from 1997 to today's struggles with 24hour news camers body cameras, etc.
These are chronologically arranged but I think topical could have been better: death (two on suicide), the arts, society. Even our long struggles with racism: Wright, Angelou, Hurston and even Alice Walker's poignant search for Hurston's grave.
These are chronologically arranged but I think topical could have been better: death (two on suicide), the arts, society. Even our long struggles with racism: Wright, Angelou, Hurston and even Alice Walker's poignant search for Hurston's grave.
August 11, 2009
I took a year to read this anthology of essays ranging from Mark Twain's "Corn-pone Opinions" to Saul Bellow's "Graven Images." In it, Joyce Carol Oats presents a collection of essays published throughout the century on topics both personal and public. Some are reflections on childhood, some ruminate on public events such as wars, civil rights events, and headline-grabbing crimes. The collection offers diversity of race and region, but it's shifted to represent writing by those who established their reputation as writers in the early to mid century. There are precious few essays published in the 1980s and 1990s by the under 40 crowd. There's a very strong presence of the 40s, 50s and 60s. Nevertheless, it's a strong collection with a helpful appendix of "also rans." My favorites are as follows: John Muir's "Stickeen," Jane Addams' "The Devil Baby at Hull-House," Mary McCarthy's "Artist in Uniform," "Rachel Carson's "The Marginal World," Loren Eiseley's "The Brown Wasps," Donald Hall's, "A Hundred Thousand STraightened Nails," John McPhee's "The Search for Marvin Gardens," Maxine Hong Kingston's "No Name Woman," Alice Walker's "Looking for Zora," Annie Dillard's "Total Eclipse," Stephen Jay Gould's "The Creation Myths of Cooperstown, and Gerald EArly's "Life with Daughters: Watching the Miss America Pageant."
October 2, 2013
This book is a large collection of 55 non-fiction essays spread over around 570 pages. The essays were all written by Americans in the twentieth century. Beyond that, there are few constraints.
A wide diversity of writing styles, motivations, themes and opinions are represented. Some were highly enjoyable, others difficult to get through - though the short average length means that no one essay is too hard. For me the best part of the book are the essays by African-American writers, whose work I have little experience of.
I find it hard to imagine the criteria that led to this set being the right chosen set. This isn't the essay equivalent of reading Pride and Prejudice or Romeo and Juliet. This is a decent selection, but with a few exceptions it is hard to say which of these will survive the test of time as classics.
I read this book end-to-end because that is my preference, but it is probably not a good way to tackle the material. Dipping in and out might have been better.
A decent read, but not great.
A wide diversity of writing styles, motivations, themes and opinions are represented. Some were highly enjoyable, others difficult to get through - though the short average length means that no one essay is too hard. For me the best part of the book are the essays by African-American writers, whose work I have little experience of.
I find it hard to imagine the criteria that led to this set being the right chosen set. This isn't the essay equivalent of reading Pride and Prejudice or Romeo and Juliet. This is a decent selection, but with a few exceptions it is hard to say which of these will survive the test of time as classics.
I read this book end-to-end because that is my preference, but it is probably not a good way to tackle the material. Dipping in and out might have been better.
A decent read, but not great.
September 21, 2017
After the election I barely read the news for a month - instead I read this book of essays. This was a good salve to understand the United States and all this country has been through. Here, "Corn Pone opinions" by Mark Twain:
Men think they think upon great political questions, and they do; but they think with their party, not independently; they read its literature, but not that of the other side; they arrive at convictions, but they are drawn from a partial view of the matter in hand and are of no particular value. They swarm with their party, they feel with their party, they are happy in their party's approval; and where the party leads they will follow, whether for right and honor, or through blood and dirt and a mush of mutilated morals.
p.s. if anyone in Seattle wants to borrow, happy to lend!
Men think they think upon great political questions, and they do; but they think with their party, not independently; they read its literature, but not that of the other side; they arrive at convictions, but they are drawn from a partial view of the matter in hand and are of no particular value. They swarm with their party, they feel with their party, they are happy in their party's approval; and where the party leads they will follow, whether for right and honor, or through blood and dirt and a mush of mutilated morals.
p.s. if anyone in Seattle wants to borrow, happy to lend!
October 8, 2012
It's hard to rate a collection of essays, but taken as a whole I thought they did a rather poor job of picking which ones were the best. I have no idea what John Muir's dog has to do with anything, but maybe I'm too dense to catch the subtle symbolism. However, some of the essays are solid and should be read by everybody. The ones I thought were worth my time and I would recommend are: "The Handicapped" by Randolph Bourne, "The Devil Baby at Hull House" by Jane Addams, "The Marginal World" by Rachel Carson, "Letter from Birmingham Jail" (Martin Luther King), and "Okinawa, the bloodies battle of all," by William Manchester.
May 20, 2018
Really a terrific, interesting collection.
I emerge as I went in with James Baldwin and Joan Didion my favorite essayists, honorable mentions for Susan Sontag, Lewis Thomas, Vladimir Nabokov and Annie Dillard (and editor Oates herself). Of the rest, the ones new to me, I liked some more than others of course; revelations for me here include John Muir (had no idea he was such a good prose stylist and storyteller), Jane Addams (really interesting cultural reading), Loren Eiseley, Cynthia Ozick, and Stephen Jay Gould. And as a whole the collection offers an interesting account, from a variety of perspectives, of the obsessions and predilections of 20th century America.
I emerge as I went in with James Baldwin and Joan Didion my favorite essayists, honorable mentions for Susan Sontag, Lewis Thomas, Vladimir Nabokov and Annie Dillard (and editor Oates herself). Of the rest, the ones new to me, I liked some more than others of course; revelations for me here include John Muir (had no idea he was such a good prose stylist and storyteller), Jane Addams (really interesting cultural reading), Loren Eiseley, Cynthia Ozick, and Stephen Jay Gould. And as a whole the collection offers an interesting account, from a variety of perspectives, of the obsessions and predilections of 20th century America.
May 2, 2019
While I found many of these essays to be lacking in merit to the extent that they be included in a book titled the "Best...of the Century" those were yet of high quality. Those that I did enjoy are of the very highest quality writing; these essays provided writing that transported the reader, evoked feelings, and clothed memories in the flesh of vivid imagery and rich description. I feel my perspective enlightened and my views expanded from reading this work, which I feel is the best that can be said for any piece of writing, but most especially the form of the essay. I cannot more highly recommend this book.
December 5, 2008
Joyce Carol Oates and Robert Atwan, the editors of "The Best American Essays of the Century," made many wonderful selections for this anthology. My personal favorites include Joan Didion's "The White Album," H.L. Mencken's "The Hills of Zion," and W.E.B. Du Bois's "Of the Coming of John." There also are fine pieces by John McPhee, Mark Twain, Rachel Carson, Richard Rodriguez and other writers, some of them journalists, some essayists, and some better known as novelists. This anthology is a well-rounded survey of some of the most notable nonfiction American writing of the 20th century.
May 10, 2016
I had to read this entire book for my Creative Nonfiction class and most of it was fantastic. I really enjoyed most of these essays and they really braid together well in terms of time. Especially with the things that matter most in today's time and how their relevance is shown. Some of these pieces are absolutely beautiful. I think I would've enjoyed this more if I didn't have to read it for class though. This book did however create really engaging conversations about how we craft our own pieces as well.
March 16, 2007
I have mixed reviews for this one: some of the essays were a bit tedious to get through, and perhaps the meaning was just lost on me; others were really incredible, and if I could be half as good a writer someday, I would be happy. The introduction, by Joyce Carol Oates, is written by someone who really knows the craft, and because I read it before reading the essays, I had more appreciation for them.
June 16, 2007
First time I was reading first hand accounts of much of America's history. Learnt a lot from this book in terms of where the style of the personal essay derives from. Some lovely passages from TS Eliot on writing, or other reminisces on the outdoors, or urban inequality, etc. Some of the essays I didn't like, either for style (too descriptive) or content (too self-indulgent), but I'd say 80 to 90% was excellent. Had to read essays seperately and give time to digest thought.
August 21, 2014
While I didn't read every essay I found many treasures here. Not to be missed "Letter from a Birmingham Jail", by Dr King, Je. Quintessential King calling us all to align our actions with our convictions. As a counter pose, John Muir's piece, "Stickeen" is a memorable story about Muir and his relationship with a unique dog at his campsite. Fanciful, suspenseful, and sentimental. All in all a wonderful collection.
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