The Best American Essays 2016

Jonathan Franzen, Jonathan Franzen

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9780544812178
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Essays
• Index: Literature

The National Book Award–winning author compiles a "thought-provoking volume" of essays by Joyce Carol Oates, Oliver Sacks, Jaquira Diaz and others ( Publishers Weekly ).

As Jonathan Franzen writes in his introduction, his main criterion for selecting The Best American Essays 2016 "was whether an author had taken a risk." The resulting volume showcases authorial risk in a variety of forms, from championing an unpopular opinion to the possibility of ruining a professional career, or irrevocably alienating one's family. What's gained are essential insights into aspects of the human condition that would otherwise remain concealed—from questions of queer identity, to the experience of a sibling's autism and relationships between students and college professors.

The Best American Essays 2016 includes entries by Alexander Chee, Paul Crenshaw, Jaquira Diaz, Laura Kipnis, Amitava Kaumar, Sebastian Junger, Joyce Carol Oates, Oliver Sacks, George Steiner, Thomas Chatterton Williams, and others.

Notable Essays and Literary Nonfiction of 2015

Selected by Robert Atwan

Raymond Abbott

Seymour Krim, Oyez Review, Spring

Sufiya Abdur-Rahman

Surrender at the Cinema, Ummah Wide, February 15

Hannah Dela Cruz Abrams

Dog and Wolf: The Time Between, Southern Humanities Review, vol. 48, no. 3

Steve Adams

Border Crossing, Grist, no. 8

Tamara Adelman

Rustic Canyon, Rubbertop Review, no. 7

Marcia Aldrich

The Blue Dress, Hotel Amerika, Winter

Tariq al Haydar

Machine Language, Crab Orchard Review, Summer/Fall

Cynthia Allen

When the Walls Came Down, So to Speak, Fall

Lauren Alwan

Eldorado, ZYZZYVA, Winter

Zay Amsbury

Immersive Theater, New York: A Report from the Field, The Labletter, no. 17

Kate Angus

My Catalog of Failures, The Southeast Review, vol. 33, no. 1

Kwame Anthony Appiah

Race in the Modern World, Foreign Affairs, March/April

Aaron Apps

The Formation of This Grotesque Fatty Figure, Passages North, no. 36

Amye Archer

Slow Motion, PMS, no. 14

Chris Arthur

Memory Sticks, The Literary Review, Spring

Glass, Tahoma Literary Review, vol. 2, no. 2

Rilla Askew

Trail, This Land, Spring

Howard Axelrod

Into the Blind Spot, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Winter

Matthew James Babcock

Boogaloo Too, Small Print Magazine, Spring/Summer

C. Morgan Babst

Death Is a Way to Be, Guernica, June 15

Julianna Baggott

A Portrait of My Father Mapping a Plane Crash, The Cincinnati Review, Summer

Ronald Bailey

Eternal Youth for All, Reason, March

Sarah E. Baker

Every Western Is a Ghost Story, Ninth Letter, Spring/Summer

Poe Ballantine

No Talking to Imaginary People, The Sun, October

Russell Banks

Last Days Feeding Frenzy, Conjunctions, no. 64

Barret Baumgart

The Mountain, The Gettysburg Review, Autumn

Elizabeth Benedict

What We Talk About When We Talk About Money, Salmagundi, Winter/Spring

Geoffrey Bent

John Singer Sargent: The Great Good Painter, Boulevard, Fall

Stephen Benz

A Grave on the High Plain, River Teeth, Fall

Laurel Berger

The Magic of Untidiness, The Point, September 23

Emily Bernard

Black Is the Body, Creative Nonfiction, Spring

Sven Birkerts

Double Take, Agni, no. 82

Eula Biss

White Debt, The New York Times Magazine, December 6

Mary Clearman Blew

What My Hands Know, The Gettysburg Review, Summer

Paul Bloom

The Lure of Luxury, Boston Review, November/December

Will Blythe

Five Encounters with Vegetation, Oxford American, Summer

Ken Bode

Settling Scores: Revenge Louisiana Style, The Antioch Review, Winter

Kyle Boelte

Reluctant Citizens: A Juror’s Education, ZYZZYVA, Spring/Summer

Belle Boggs

Baby Fever, Orion, November/December

Leslie Bohem

What Everybody Wants, Parcel, Summer

Benedicte Boisseron

Afro-Dog, Transition, no. 118

Marc Bookman

“That’s What That N——​ Deserved,” Mot...