Best American Essays 1995 - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0395691834 ISBN 13: 9780395691830

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1995

Synopsis

An esteemed annual anthology assembles an eclectic collection of twenty essays drawn from periodicals across the country, including nonfiction by Grace Paley, Cynthia Ozick, William Gass, and others, about such subjects as AIDS, gardening, activism, and marriage. Simultaneous.

About this title

About the Author:

JAMAICA KINCAID is the author of numerous award-winning works, including the memoirs My Brother and The Autobiography of My Mother and the novel Annie John. A contributor to The New Yorker, she recently appeared in "The Sophisticated Traveler" in the New York Times, and her travelogue, Among Flowers: A Walk in the Himalaya, will be published in 2005, along with her new novel, My Favorite Tool.

From Booklist:

Each year, one reviewer or another raves about the latest volume in this outstanding series. That's because each editor of The Best American Essays, talented writers in their own right (and we're talking about people like Susan Sontag, Tracy Kidder, and Annie Dillard), truly does choose the most vital of that year's crop. Kincaid, a uniquely sensual and sensitive novelist as well as an essayist, bluntly explains that she chose each of these 20 essays because they pleased her--as they will please all essay enthusiasts and fans of such writers as Edna O'Brien, Cynthia Ozick, Harold Brodkey, William Gass, Grace Paley, Tobias Wolf, and John Edgar Wideman. The volume begins with a witty and masterful piece about antiquity by Joseph Brodsky and includes essays by two other poets, Maxine Kumin and Charles Simic. Bernard Cooper's essay about his first encounter with transvestites and recognition of his attraction to men is as supple and moving as essays get, and Edward Hoagland's discussion of marriage is gratifyingly candid. Kincaid writes, "Living is urgent, not to be taken lightly" ; we concur and praise essayists for giving voice to this urgency and import. Donna Seaman

About this edition

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0395691834
• ISBN 13: 9780395691830
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 263
• Editor: Kincaid Jamaica, Atwan Robert