Since 1986, the Best American Essays series has gathered the best nonfiction writing of the year and established itself as the best-selling anthology of its kind. In this year's edition, essay veteran Katha Pollitt writes about learning to drive, and Adam Gopnik describes his daughter's peculiar take on our culture of busyness. Other creative-nonfiction luminaries are featured as well: Andre Aciman explores the emotional and nostalgic resonances of scents, and Michael Pollan considers the various ways of understanding animal rights. Culled from well-known magazines like The New Yorker and the New York Times Magazine, and smaller periodicals like Raritan and the Georgia Review, these diverse and wide-ranging essays are sure to thrill fans of the genre. Since its inception in 1915, the Best American series has become the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. For each volume, a series editor reads pieces from hundreds of periodicals, then selects between fifty and a hundred outstanding works. That selection is pared down to the twenty or so very best pieces by a guest editor who is widely recognized as a leading writer in his or her field. This unique system has helped make the Best American series the most respected -- and most popular -- of its kind. From The New Yorker to the Threepenny Review, from the Atlantic Monthly to DoubleTake, the editors of The Best American Essays have scoured the country's best magazines in search of the most artful and powerful writing around. This thoughtful, provocative collection is the result of their search. Andre Aciman Donald Antrim Atul Gawande Adam Gopnik Michael Pollan Katha Pollitt Susan Sontag John Edgar Wideman

The very best writing from one of America's most groundbreaking literary magazines. When Creative Nonfiction debuted in 1994, the literary genre it championed was largely the target of skepticism or downright ridicule. But at a time when few editors were interested in the personal essay, the magazine doggedly explored new ideas and fresh modes of expression, and over the next three decades, its contributors pioneered what would come to be known as the "fourth genre." The thirty-two essays collected here bring together some of the finest work Creative Nonfiction published over its seventy-eight issues. Read Pulitzer Prize-winner Charles Simic's boyhood remembrances of the bombing of Belgrade, Carolyn Forche's haunting, lyric catalog of her daily life as she faced down a cancer diagnosis, and John Edgar Wideman's meditation on the photo of a murdered boy his same age--Emmett Till--and how the image haunted him forever. Here, you'll find work by such luminaries as Adrienne Rich and John McPhee, but also essays from more contemporary voices like Brian Broome, Elizabeth Fortescue, and Anne McGrath. With an introduction by Lee Gutkind, Creative Nonfiction's founder and editor, this collection captures the evolution of a genre and the amazing work of the little magazine that helped make it all happen.