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

David James Duncan: Cherish This Ecstasy: from The Sun

Patricia Hampl:  The Dark Art of Description: from The Iowa Review

Garrett Keizer: And Such Small Deer: from Lapham's Quarterly

Verlyn Klinkenborg:  Our Vanishing Night: from National Geographic

You Be the Moon: from A Public Space

Michael Lewis:  The Mansion: A Subprime Parable: from Conde Nast Portfolio

Barry Lopez:  Madre de Dios: from Portland

James Marcus:  Faint Music: from Harvard Review

Jill McCorkle:  Cuss Time: from The American Scholar

Kathryn Miles:  Dog Is Our Copilot: from Ecotone

Gregory Orr:  Return to Hayneville: from The Virginia Quarterly Review

Cynthia Ozick:  Ghost Writers: from PEN America

Richard Rodriguez: The God of the Desert: from Harper's Magazine

Janna Malamud Smith:  Shipwrecked: from The American Scholar

John Updike:  The Writer in Winter: from AARP Magazine

Ryan Van Meter:  First: from The Gettysburg Review

Jerald Walker:  The Mechanics of Being: from The Missouri Review