Wednesday, December 31, 2003
I've been a fan of the Best American Essays series for a long time-- it used to be the book I'd pick up to sustain me on my Thanksgiving holiday travels, but now I'm too pressed for time, and I find that I am obliged to read it by dipping into it from time to time when I have time. It'll probably sustain me thus through February this year, which is probably also the better way to read it. For a long time I would do the Best American Short Stories as well, and I think our protocol was that my brother would buy one, and I'd buy the other, and we'd trade. This would account for why I do not have a complete run of either-- the ones I am missing are, presumably, lost to the Antipodes. In any event, the advantage to reading either collection in that giant killing stride way is that the individual essays are still fresh enough to discuss with the reader who gets the book next. This year's Essays, guest edited by Anne Fadiman is as good as any I can recall, and I would love to be able to share them-- different essays with different people, not everyone I know would like all of the ones I've read so far, but everyone I care about would like some aspect of some of them. Is it true, I wonder, that the closest Gaelic comes to the word "yes" is "it is"?
// posted by Bill @ 10:25 AM 
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