A collection of the year's best essays, selected by award-winning
journalist and New Yorker staff writer Kathryn Schulz
"The world is abundant even in bad times," guest editor Kathryn Schulz
writes in her introduction, "it is lush with interestingness, and
always, somewhere, offering up consolation or beauty or humor or
happiness, or at least the hope of future happiness." The essays Schulz
selected are a powerful time capsule of 2020, showcasing that even if
our lives as we knew them stopped, the beauty to be found in them
flourished. From an intimate account of nursing a loved one in the early
days of the pandemic, to a masterful portrait of grieving the loss of a
husband as the country grieved the loss of George Floyd, this collection
brilliantly shapes the grief, hardship, and hope of a singular year.
The Best American Essays 2021 includes
ELIZABETH ALEXANDER - HILTON ALS - GABRIELLE HAMILTON - RUCHIR JOSHI -
PATRICIA LOCKWOOD- CLAIRE MESSUD - WESLEY MORRIS - BETH NGUYEN - JESMYN
WARD and others