Description:

With the work of reporters under fire worldwide, this year’s anthology of National Magazine Award finalists and winners is a timely reminder of the power of journalism. The pieces included here explore the fault lines in American society. Shane Bauer’s visceral “My Four Months as a Private Prison Guard” ( Mother Jones ) and Sarah Stillman’s depiction of the havoc wreaked on young people’s lives when they are put on sex-offender registries ( The New Yorker ) examine controversial criminal-justice practices. And responses to the shocks of the recent election include Matt Taibbi’s irreverent dispatches from the campaign trail ( Rolling Stone ), George Saunders’s transfixing account of Trump’s rallies ( The New Yorker ), and Andrew Sullivan’s fears for the future of democracy ( New York ). In other considerations of the political scene, Jeffrey Goldberg talks through Obama’s foreign-policy legacy with the former president ( The Atlantic ), and Gabriel Sherman analyzes how Roger Ailes’s fall sheds light on conservative media ( New York ). Linking personal stories to the course of history, Nikole Hannah-Jones looks for a school for her daughter in a rapidly changing, racially divided Brooklyn ( New York Times Magazine ), and Pamela Colloff explores how the 1966 University of Texas Tower mass shooting changed the course of one survivor’s life ( Texas Monthly ). A selection of Rebecca Solnit’s Harper’s commentary ranges from a writer on death row to the isolation at the heart of conservatism. Becca Rothfeld ponders women waiting on love from the Odyssey to Tinder ( Hedgehog Review ). Siddhartha Mukherjee depicts the art and agony of oncology ( New York Times Magazine ). David Quammen ventures to Yellowstone to consider the future of wild places ( National Geographic ), and Mac McClelland follows a deranged expedition to Cuba in search of the ivory-billed woodpecker ( Audubon ). The collection concludes with Zandria Robinson’s eloquent portrait of her father as reflected in the music he loved ( Oxford American ). **

From Publishers Weekly

All of the essays in the series' eighth year exhibit a timeless prose in the midst of meeting deadlines. But many also resonate with a special sense of timeliness, such as the insightful Rules of Engagement by William Langewiesche, a detailed study for Vanity Fair of the U.S. massacre of Iraqi citizens in the town of Haditha. Other essays have a similar sense of urgency: Inside Scientology by Janet Reitman for Rolling Stone —the result of a nine-month investigation—is a terrific and balanced look at an organization whose top leaders assert that false ideas, including the concepts of God, Christ, and organized religion, date back 75 million years to the work of an evil galactic warrior named Xenu. C.J. Chivers's The School for Esquire is a harrowing account of the three-day siege by Chechen terrorists of a grammar school in the Russian town of Beslan. Other, lighter pieces include Vanessa Grigoriadis's skillful depiction for New York of the crazy-like-a-fox business and personal lifestyle of Karl Lagerfeld, Boy Prince of Fashion. (Dec. 26)
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Review

If this anthology were a magazine, everybody would want to subscribe. ( Publishers Weekly )

As always, this collection offers readers the opportunity to catch up on the best magazine writing they may have missed. ( Booklist )

Diverse, brainy, and provocative. ( The Sacramento Bee )

Another exemplary collection of the finest magazine writing in the United States… A brilliant compilation. ( Kirkus Reviews )

This volume stands with the best... the compulsive readability of a good novel, but the immediacy and moral power of good journalism. (Colin Murphy Irish Times )

Balanced, comprehensive, thought-provoking, involving, and well-crafted... Highly recommended. ( Library Journal )