I’ve always loved Houghton Mifflin’s “Best American” anthologies and find myself dipping in and out of most of them during the course of the year — especially Best American Short Stories, which is flavored differently each year, thanks to the varied guest editors. Here, below, is Houghton’s lineup for 2010. I loved that they tapped Bill Buford (Heat) to edit Best American Travel Writing, and I’m pretty excited about Richard Russo and Lee Child, too.
The Best American Short Stories 2010: Richard Russo
The Best American Essays 2010: Christopher Hitchens
The Best American Comics: Neil Gaiman
The Best American Nonrequired Reading: Dave Eggers (guest introducer: David Sedaris)
The Best American Science and Nature Writing: Freeman Dyson
The Best American Mystery Stories: Lee Child
The Best American Travel Writing: Bill Buford
The Best American Sports Writing 2010: Peter Gammons
The Best American Noir of the Century: Otto Penzler and James Ellroy (this title, a hardcover, won’t be a part of the annual series — it’s a stand-alone)
How about it, Shelf Lifers? which one will you be most interested in?
Best American Nonrequired Reading? The title alone is fantastic, but with Eggers and Sedaris? I’m there.
I’ve had many of the others on standing order for my library (I’m the technical services librarian) for many years now, so I can’t wait for them to start trailing in.
the non-required reading series is the best. it’s actually edited by a high school class at 826 valencia, and they do such a good job…
Where’s Best American Poetry?
and Best American Food Writing,
Best American Science/scientific Writing ?
I think they are also part of the series but maybe they are a riff on them by a competing publisher…
There is no best of poetry series. The science is listed (Dyson)it is Science and nature.
There isn’t a best of food either. De Capo press has put out something regarding best of food writing.
Ant is incorrect – see http://www.amazon.com/Best-American-Poetry-2010-Editor/dp/1439181454/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267259318&sr=8-1
And I thought they were just a paper company in Scranton.
Hitchens? Blecch. Thumbs up for the rest, though–can’t wait to read that noir collection.
Ummm… Poetry???
Essay, but Non-Required Reading is a close second, for sure … I have plenty of friends who are going to be psyched at the choice of Neal Gaiman for comics.
Non-Required, short stories and comics
Best American Short Stories will be amazing..Richard Russo is sure to pick some quality stories..I read them every year, can’t wait!!
Neil Gaiman for the comics collection!!!
While I am excited to read some of these (non-required reading, short stories, essays), I must admit that I am a bit let down by the guest editors all being male (and I think white, but not fully sure about that one). I’d like to see a more diverse list, because then we’d might get more diverse literature.
Agreed! maybe another series entirely edited by women is in order …though i don’t mean to seperate the one collection into two , it would be interesting to see the different choices they would each make…
There’s been a LOT of diversity over the years… Last two editors of Best Stories were Alice Sebold and Salman Rushdie… I think the fact that they didn’t care or notice that it was a year of all white men is more a sign of how open they usually are than anything else — they’re so diverse they don’t even have to worry about it.
Eggers and Sedaris, I’m laughing already. On the other hand, Dyson is a heavy weight. Not my usual choice of reading but I may have to check it out.
What, no women or blacks were available to be editor? I for one am interested in diversity of opinion. Bleh, you people…
…or Asians, or hispanics
Where’s the Best American Poetry?
The Best American Poetry series is completely unrelated/unconnected to the others, like Best American Music Writing. David Lehman started it on his own volition with Scribner in 1988.