I started reading a book about how to write a memoir or a short story. Won't be writing one soon... The author, whose name I now forget, suggested reading a book from this series of The Best American Essays. I randomly chose 2016, no rationale at all behind it. Each year has a different editor, and there is quite a strict criteria on essays which are eligible within any one year for selection. Editor Jonathan Franzen in his Forward picks the idea of risk as the theme of the essays that he chooses. He has a broad definition of risk: encompassing any decision or process that could be threatening to the writer or someone in the story. The stories that stick in my mind come from a university professor who may or may not be sabotaging her career through relationships with students, a man doing US/Mexico border patrol work, a journalist reporting on PTS following a stint in Afghanistan, writer Joyce Carol Oates on her younger autistic sister. Some stories I didn't finish, one or two I just did not get at all. But they were all written from the heart, the writers taking moments from their lives and crafting intriguing and revealing reading.
The quality of writing as one would expect is outstanding, at times words so beautifully put together, I just did not want the essays to end. I read on line that this 2016 edition is not the best; this first timer certainly enjoyed it, and I have now got the 2015 edition, which apparently is better than 2016. Looking forward to that.
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