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Best American Essays
''The Best American Essays'' is a yearly anthology of magazine articles published in the United States.Robert Atwan (ed.), Adam Gopnick (guest ed.). ''The Best American Essays 2008'', Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008. It was started in 1986 and is now part of The Best American Series published by ''HarperCollins''. Articles are chosen using the same procedure with other titles in the Best American series; the series editor chooses about 100 article candidates, from which the guest editor picks 25 or so for publication; the remaining runner-up articles listed in the appendix. The series is edited by Robert Atwan, and Joyce Carol Oates assisted in the editing process until 2000 with the publication of ''The Best American Essays of the Century''. Guest editors * 1986: Elizabeth Hardwick * 1987: Gay Talese * 1988: Annie Dillard * 1989: Geoffrey Wolff * 1990: Justin Kaplan * 1991: Joyce Carol Oates * 1992: Susan Sontag * 1993: Joseph Epstein * 1994: Tracy Kidder * 1995: Jamaica Kin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Best American Series
''The Best American Series'' is a series of anthologies that is published annually by Mariner Books, an imprint of HarperCollins. Each title within the series covers a specific genre such as short stories or mysteries. The works for each year's edition are selected from those published elsewhere during the previous year. ''The Best American Short Stories'' has been published since 1915, making it the oldest continuous series of its type. Starting in 1986, additional titles were added for essays, sports writing, nature writing and more, at which time the broader ''The Best American Series'' moniker was introduced. The series was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt prior to HarperCollins acquiring HMH Books & Media in 2021. Editing Each title has a continuing series editor who makes an initial selection of notable works from which a guest editor chooses those for inclusion in that year's edition. Guest editors are established authors in the title's associated genre. A new gue ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alan Lightman
Alan Paige Lightman (born November 28, 1948) is an American physicist, writer, and social entrepreneur. He has served on the faculties of Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and is currently a professor of the practice of the humanities at MIT. Lightman was one of the first persons at MIT to hold a joint faculty position in both the sciences and the humanities. His thinking and writing explore the intersection of the sciences and humanities, especially the multilogues among science, philosophy, religion, and spirituality. Lightman is a member of the United Nations’ Scientific Advisory Board. The purpose of this Board is to advise UN leaders on breakthroughs in science and technology and mitigate potential risks, including ethical and social issues. Lightman is the author of the international bestseller ''Einstein's Dreams'', and his novel ''The Diagnosis'' was a finalist for the National Book Award. He is also the founder of Harpswell, a nonpro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cheryl Strayed
Cheryl Strayed (; née Nyland; born September 17, 1968) is an American writer and podcast host. She has written four books: the novel ''Torch'' (2006) and the nonfiction books '' Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail'' (2012), '' Tiny Beautiful Things'' (2012) and ''Brave Enough'' (2015). ''Wild'', the story of Strayed's 1995 hike up the Pacific Crest Trail, is an international bestseller and was adapted into the 2014 Academy Award-nominated film '' Wild''. Early life Strayed was born in Spangler, Pennsylvania, the second daughter of Barbara Anne "Bobbi" (née Young; 1945–1991) and Ronald Nyland. From age three to six, Strayed was sexually abused by her paternal grandfather. At age six, her family moved from Pennsylvania to Chaska, Minnesota. Her parents divorced soon after and Cheryl's father left her life. When Cheryl was 12 her mother married Glenn Lambrecht, and the following year the family moved to rural Aitkin County, where they lived in a house that th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Brooks (journalist)
David Brooks (born August 11, 1961) is a Canadian-born American book author and political and cultural commentator. Though he describes himself as an ideological moderate, others have characterised him as centrist, moderate conservative, or conservative, based on his record as contributor to the PBS NewsHour, and as opinion columnist for ''The New York Times''. In addition to his shorter form writing, Brooks has authored six non-fiction books since 2000, two appearing from Simon and Schuster, and four from Random House, the latter including '' The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement'' (2011), and '' The Road to Character'' (2015). Beginning as a police reporter in Chicago and as an intern at William F. Buckley's ''National Review'', Brooks rose to his positions at ''The New York Times'', NPR, and PBS after a long series of other journalistic positions (film critic for ''The Washington Times'', reporter and op-ed editor at ''The Wall Stree ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edwidge Danticat
Edwidge Danticat (; born January 19, 1969) is a Haitian American novelist and short story writer. Her first novel, '' Breath, Eyes, Memory'', was published in 1994 and went on to become an Oprah's Book Club selection. Danticat has since written or edited several books and has been the recipient of many awards and honors. Her work has dealt with themes of national identity, mother-daughter relationships, and diasporic politics. In 2023, she was named the Wun Tsun Tam Mellon Professor of the Humanities in the department of African American and African Diaspora Studies at Columbia University. Early life Danticat was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. When she was two years old, her father André immigrated to New York, to be followed two years later by her mother Rose. This left Danticat and her younger brother, also named André, to be raised by her aunt and uncle. When asked in an interview about her traditions as a child, she included storytelling, church, and constantly studying sc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was a British and American author and journalist. He was the author of Christopher Hitchens bibliography, 18 books on faith, religion, culture, politics, and literature. He was born and educated in Britain, graduating in 1970 from the University of Oxford with a degree in philosophy, politics, and economics. In the early 1980s, he emigrated to the United States and wrote for ''The Nation'' and ''Vanity Fair (magazine), Vanity Fair''. Known as one of the "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Four Horsemen" of New Atheism (along with Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett), he gained prominence as a columnist and speaker. Hitchens's razor, His epistemological razor, which states that "what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence", is still of mark in philosophy and law. Political views of Christopher Hitchens, Hitchens's political views evolved greatly throughout his life. Originally ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mary Oliver
Mary Jane Oliver (September 10, 1935 – January 17, 2019) was an American poet who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1984 and the National Book Award in 1992. She found inspiration for her work in nature and had a lifelong habit of solitary walks in the wild. Her poetry is characterized by wonderment at the natural environment, vivid imagery, and unadorned language. In 2007, she was declared the best-selling poet in the United States. Early life Mary Oliver was born to Edward William and Helen M. Oliver on September 10, 1935, in Maple Heights, Ohio, a semi-rural suburb of Cleveland. Her father was a social studies teacher and athletics coach in the Cleveland public schools. As a child, she spent a great deal of time outside, going on walks or reading. In an interview with the Christian Science Monitor in 1992, Oliver said of growing up in Ohio: It was pastoral, it was nice, it was an extended family. I don't know why I felt such an affinity with the natural world except that it was ava ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adam Gopnik
Adam Gopnik (born August 24, 1956) is an American writer and essayist, who was raised in Montreal, Canada. He is best known as a staff writer for ''The New Yorker,'' to which he has contributed nonfiction, fiction, memoir, and criticism since 1986. He is the author of nine books, including ''Paris to the Moon'', ''Through the Children's Gate'', ''The King in the Window'', and ''A Thousand Small Sanities: The Moral Adventure of Liberalism.'' In 2020, his essay "The Driver's Seat" was cited as the most-assigned piece of contemporary nonfiction in the English-language syllabus. Early life and education Gopnik was born to a American Jews, Jewish family in Philadelphia and raised in Montreal. His family lived at Habitat 67. Both his parents were professors at McGill University; father Irwin was a professor of English literature and mother Myrna Gopnik, Myrna was a professor of linguistics. During a storytelling session for The Moth in 2014, Gopnik explained that his paternal grandfat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Foster Wallace
David Foster Wallace (February 21, 1962 – September 12, 2008) was an American writer and professor who published novels, short stories, and essays. He is best known for his 1996 novel ''Infinite Jest'', which ''Time (magazine), Time'' magazine named one of the 100 best English-language novels published from 1923 to 2005. In 2008, David Ulin wrote for the ''Los Angeles Times'' that Wallace was "one of the most influential and innovative writers of the last twenty years". Wallace grew up in Illinois. He graduated from Amherst College and the University of Arizona. His honors thesis at Amherst, about modal logic, was adapted into his debut novel The Broom of the System, ''The Broom of the System'' (1987). In his writing, Wallace intentionally avoided Trope (literature), tropes of postmodern art such as irony or forms of metafiction, saying in 1990 that they were "agents of a great despair and stasis" in contemporary American culture. ''Infinite Jest'', his second novel, is known f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lauren Slater
Lauren Slater (born March 21, 1963) is an American psychotherapist and writer. She is the author of nine books, including ''Welcome To My Country'' (1996), ''Prozac Diary'' (1998), and ''Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir'' (2000). Her 2004 book ''Opening Skinner's Box, Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century,'' a description of psychology experiments "narrated as stories,"Slater, Lauren. ''Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century'', Norton 2004, has drawn both praise and criticism. Criticism has focused on Slater's research methods and on the extent to which some of the experiences she describes may have been fictionalized. ''The Village Voice'' called her "the closest thing we have to a doyenne of Psychiatry, psychiatric disorder." Education and career Slater graduated in 1985 from Brandeis University. Slater was a 2002–2003 Knight Science Journalism Fellowships, Knight Science Journalism Fellow at the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Susan Orlean
Susan Orlean (born October 31, 1955) is an American journalist, television writer, and bestselling author of '' The Orchid Thief'' and '' The Library Book''. She has been a staff writer for ''The New Yorker'' since 1992, and has contributed articles to many magazines including '' Vogue'', ''Rolling Stone'', ''Esquire'', and ''Outside''. In 2021, Orlean joined the writing team of HBO comedy series ''How To with John Wilson''. Orlean's 1998 non-fiction book ''The Orchid Thief'' was adapted into the film ''Adaptation'' (2002). Meryl Streep received an Academy Award nomination for her performance as Orlean. Early life Orlean born in Cleveland, Ohio, and was raised in nearby Shaker Heights, the daughter of Edith (née Gross 1923–2016) and Arthur Orlean (1915–2007). She has a sister and a brother. Her family is Jewish. Her mother's family is from Hungary and her father's family from Poland. Her father was an attorney and businessman. Orlean graduated from the University of Michiga ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louis Menand
Louis Menand (; born January 21, 1952) is an American critic, essayist, and professor who wrote the Pulitzer-winning book '' The Metaphysical Club'' (2001), an intellectual and cultural history of late 19th- and early 20th-century America. Life and career Menand was born in Syracuse, New York, and raised around Boston, Massachusetts. His mother, Catherine (Shults) Menand, was a historian who wrote a biography of Samuel Adams. His father, Louis Menand III, taught political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His grandfather and great-grandfather owned the Louis Menand House, located in Menands, New York, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985. The village of Menands is named after his great-grandfather, a 19th-century horticulturist. A 1973 graduate of Pomona College, Menand attended Harvard Law School for one year (1973–1974) before he left to earn Master of Arts (1975) and PhD (1980) degrees in English from Columbia University. He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
