The Best American Magazine Writing 2021

by Sid Holt (Editor)

The Best American Magazine Writing 2021 presents outstanding journalism and commentary that reckon with urgent topics, including COVID-19 and entrenched racial inequality. In “The Plague Year,” Lawrence Wright details how responses to the pandemic went astray ( New Yorker ). Lizzie Presser reports on “The Black American Amputation Epidemic” ( ProPublica ). In powerful essays, the novelist Jesmyn Ward processes her grief over her husband’s death against the backdrop of the pandemic and antiracist uprisings ( Vanity Fair ), and the poet Elizabeth Alexander considers “The Trayvon Generation” ( New Yorker ). Aymann Ismail delves into how “The Store That Called the Cops on George Floyd” dealt with the repercussions of the fatal call ( Slate ). Mitchell S. Jackson scrutinizes the murder of Ahmaud Arbery and how running fails Black America ( Runner’s World ).

The anthology features remarkable reporting, such as explorations of the cases of children who disappeared into the depths of the U.S. immigration system for years ( Reveal ) and Oakland’s efforts to rethink its approach to gun violence ( Mother Jones ). It includes selections from a Public Books special issue that investigate what 2020’s overlapping crises reveal about the future of cities. Excerpts from Marie Claire ’s guide to online privacy examine topics from algorithmic bias to cyberstalking to employees’ rights. Aisha Sabatini Sloan’s perceptive Paris Review columns explore her family history in Detroit and the toll of a brutal past and present. Sam Anderson reflects on a unique pop figure in “The Weirdly Enduring Appeal of Weird Al Yankovic” ( New York Times Magazine ). The collection concludes with Susan Choi’s striking short story “The Whale Mother” ( Harper’s Magazine ).

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Journalism

544 pages, Paperback

Published January 11, 2022

Reviews

[Kristine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent! I love to read these magazine articles each year and this year’s articles are especially worth reading. They are outstanding. I would recommend this to just about everyone who likes to keep up to date by wonderful authors, interesting topics, and diversified stories.

It starts with The Plague Years, by Lawrence Wright which is chilling because it recaptures Covid from the start. He does such an excellent job here explaining how Covid started, ways to detect the virus, and the low early estimates of deaths in the US would be, perhaps 100,000. I don’t see how anyone could read this and say this Pandemic was handled well. We did not have a Federal Policy. It became a Political Issue that divided our nation.

There were also fantastic articles by Lizzie Presser in The Black American Amputation Epidemic. I was aware this was a problem, but did not know it can often be prevented. Ta-Nehisi Coates speaks of all the black Americans shot and killed. He offers hope that Americans may be changing. Megan DiTrolio discusses how important it is to protect yourself on-line. That was enlightening. Last, Susan Choi wrote a fascinating short-story that was such a treat. These were the articles I enjoyed the most, but there are many more.

This is reporting at it’s best and not to be missed. I am glad to be included in gaining more knowledge.

Thank you, NetGalley, Sid Holt, and Columbia Random House for granting me a copy of this collection.

[Brandon Westlake · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's a little something here for everyone, I really liked the earlier writings the best. As a subscribe and fan of The Atlantic, I was pleased to find some articles make their way into this collection. It's hard to classify and summarize something like this, although I don't think you should feel compelled to read every article that is in this collection. Nor do you need to do it in order. There's a lot here you can read, put down, and come back to later. Definitely one to soak in and let it bounce around your mind as you think about the implications and effects of the authors' ideas.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent compilation of journalism at its best. I’ll never like every story from any Best American anthology but the ones I did like were all ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Highly recommend to anyone interested in reading about how the world, and particularly the US, handled the pandemic. When we’re knee deep in it - I live in NYC and it was horrible here - we don’t see things through a clear lens. Good stuff!

[Andréa]

Note: I accessed a digital review copy of this book through Edelweiss.

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of magazine articles that won different categories of the National Magazine Award. Although it's an anthology, there is strong homogeneity in how the authors understand the pandemic, support or not support different policies related to the pandemic, and interpret problems and solutions of U.S. racial issues. As I progress into the book I began to feel as if every article and essay regarding U.S. racial tension in this collection were written by the same person -- like, didn't the other article I read earlier also say the same thing? I find it an interesting phenomenon that so many elite journalists and writers have almost the exact same set of thoughts and beliefs and all receive distinction and recognition by National Magazine Award. The homogeneity aside, the book did contain a couple of articles that left an impression or made me want to do something -- the one on the black amputee problem, the one on a teenage refugee getting lost in the system, the one on weird Al, and the one on the black jogger chased and shot by white men.

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is my articles between books book.