David Brooks Names the Best Magazine Essays of 2010

Click here to read this list of seven prepared by New York Times columnist David Brooks (includes links to the essays).

Best American Essays Editors

Christopher Hitchens

2010 Christopher Hitchens (1949)
2009 Mary Oliver (1935)
2008 Adam Gopnik (1956)
2007 David Foster Wallace (1962-2008)
2006 Lauren Slater (1963)
2005 Susan Orlean (1955)
2004 Louis Menand (1952)
2003 Anne Fadiman (1953)
2002 Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002)
2001 Kathleen Norris (1947)
2000 Alan Lightman (1948)

2010 Best American Essays

Elif Batuman

Edited by Christopher Hitchens

Harper's (2), NY Review of Books (3), The Sun, Oregon Humanities, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Atlantic (2), The American Scholar, The New Yorker (3), The NY Times Book Review, The Weekly Standard, Harvard Review, Wilson Quarterly, NY Times Magazine, Gettysburg Review, The New Republic

Elif Batuman (1977) (Author of The Possessed)- The Murder of Leo Tolstoy (Harper’s);

Toni Bentley- The Bad Lion (NY Review of Books)
Jane Churchon- The Dead Book (The Sun)
Brian Doyle- Irreconcilable Dissonance (Oregon Humanities)
John Gamel- The Elegant Eyeball (Alaska Quarterly Review)

2009 Best American Essays

Chris Arthur

Edited by Mary Oliver

Mid-American Review; The Literary Review; Harper's (3); Orion; The Sun; The Iowa Review; Lapham's Quarterly; National Geographic; A Public Space; Conde Naste Portfolio; Portland; Harvard Review; The American Scholar (2); Ecotone; Virginia Quarterly Review; PEN America; AARP; The Gettysburg Review; The Missouri Review

Sue Allison:  "Taking a Reading" from Mid-American Review

Chris Arthur:  "(En)trance" from The Literary Review

John Berger:  "Portrait of a Masked Man" from Harper's Magazine

Wendell Berry:  "Faustian Economics" from Harper's Magazine

Brian Doyle:  "The Greatest Nature Essay Ever" from Orion

2008 Best American Essays

Rich Cohen

Edited by Adam Gopnik

PMS, Vanity Fair, Los Angeles Magazine, The New Yorker (4), Georgia Reviews, Prairie Schooner, Harper's (2), New York Magazine, Transition, The Pinch, Salmagundi, Granta, New York Review of Books,  Swink, National Geographic, Open City, Southern Humanities Review

"Cracking Open" by Patricia Brieschke in PMS:  Poem, Memoir, Story
"Becoming Adolf" by Rich Cohen in Vanity Fair
"The Constant Gardener" by Bernard Cooper in Los Angeles Magazine
"The Way We Age Now" by Atul Gawande in The New Yorker
"Everybody's Nickname" by Albert Goldbarth in Georgia Review

2007 Best American Essays

Ian Buruma

Edited by David Foster Wallace


Tin House, The New Republic (2), The New York Review of Books, Threepenny Review, Northwest Review, New Yorker (2), n + 1, Granta, Harpers (2) , StoryQuarterly, New York Times Book Review, PMS, TriQuarterly, The American Scholar, California, Boston Review, New York Times Magazine, THe Iowa Review

Jo Ann Beard. Werner from Tin House
Ian Buruma. The Freedom to Offend from The New Republic
Mark Danner. Iraq: The War of the Imagination from The New York Review of Books
W. S. di Piero. Fatheads Hard Times from The Threepenny Review
George Gessert. An Orgy of Power from Northwest Review

2006 Best American Essays

Laurie Abraham

Edited by Lauren Slater

Elle, The Sun, The American Scholar, Manoa, Creative Nonfiction, The Weekly Standard, The Sewanee Review (2), The New Yorker (3), Hotel Amerika, Crab Orchard Review, Southwest Review, Black Clock, The New York Times Magazine, The Literary Review, The Cincinnati Review, The Hudson Review, Atlantic Monthly

Laurie Abraham. "Kinsey and Me" from Elle
Poe Ballantine. "501 Minutes to Christ" from The Sun
Emily Bernard. "Teaching the N-Word" from The American Scholar
Ken Chen. "City Out of Breath" from MÁnoa
Toi Derricotte. "Beginning Dialogues" from Creative Nonfiction

2005 Best American Essays

Edited by Susan Orlean

New Yorker (6), Kenyon Review, Southern Humanities Review, The American Scholar (2), Harpers (3), The Atlantic Monthly, n + 1, River Teeth (2), Salmagundi, Flyway, New York Times, Missouri Review, Meridian, North American Review, Gourmet, PMS

Roger Angell. La Vie en Rose from The New Yorker
Andrea Barrett. The Sea of Information from The Kenyon Review
Paul Crenshaw. Storm Country from Southern Humanities Review
Brian Doyle. Joyas Voladoras from The American Scholar
Kitty Burns Florey. Sister Bernadettes Barking Dog from Harpers Magazine

2004 Best American Essays edited by Louis Menand

Oxford American, Granta (2), Harpers (2), American Scholar, New Yorker (7), Artforum, Threepenny Review (2), Raritan, Gingko Tree Review, Harvard Review, New York Review of Books, Georgia Review, Michigan Quarterly Review


"America, Look at Your Shame!" from Oxford American by James Agee 1
"Envy" from Granta 9 by Kathryn Chetkovic
"The Last Americans" from Harper's Magazine 30 by Jared M. Diamond
"The Arctic Hedonist" from The American Scholar 48 by James Crow
"Caught" from The New Yorker 61 by Jonathan Franzen
"The Unreal Thing" from The New Yorker 86 by Adam Gopnik
"A Sudden Illness" from The New Yorker 96 by Lauren Hillenbrand
"Passover in Baghdad" from Granta 114 by Tim Judah
"My '80s" from Artforum 128 by Sylvere Lotringer
"My Yiddish" from The Threepenny Review 138 by Leonard Michaels
"Bix and Flannery" from Raritan 152 by Ben Miller
"Against Cool" from Gingko Tree Review 160 by Rick Moody
"Yarn" from Harvard Review 194 by Kyoko Mori
"Lifelike" from The New Yorker 203 by Joan Acocella
"Rock 101" from The New Yorker 213 by Alex Ross
"The Mind's Eye" from The New Yorker 225 by Oliver Sacks
"My Lost City" from The New York Review of Books 246 by Luc  Sante
"Arrow and Wound" from Harper's Magazine 257 by Mark Slouka
"My Father is a Book" from The Threepenny Review 269 by Janna Malamud Smith
"Bullet in My Neck" from The Georgia Review 277 by Gerald Stern
"Amor Perdida" from Michigan Quarterly Review 287 by Tennessee Williams
"An Enlarged Heart" from The New Yorker 293 by Cynthia Zarin