The Best American Travel Writing 2020

The year’s best travel writing, as chosen by series editor Jason Wilson and guest editor Robert Macfarlane. An eclectic compendium of the best travel writing essays published in 2019, collected by esteemed guest editor Robert Macfarlane, author of Mountains of the Mind and Underland. The Best American Travel Writing gathers together a satisfyingly varied medley of perspectives, all exploring what it means to travel somewhere new. For the past two decades, readers have come to recognize this annual volume as the gold standard for excellence in travel writing.

The year's best travel writing, as chosen by series editor Jason Wilson and guest editor Alexandra Fuller.

"The best travel writing essays of 2019 are collected in this volume that explores what it means to travel somewhere new"--

Everyone travels for different reasons, but whatever those reasons are, one thing is certain: they come back with stories. Each year, the best of those stories are collected in The Best American Travel Writing, curated by one of the top writers in the field, and each year they “open a window onto the strange, seedy, and beautiful world, offering readers glimpses into places that many will never see or experience except through the eyes and words of these writers” (Kirkus). This far-ranging collection of top notch travel writing is, quite simply, the genre’s gold standard.

The year’s top food writing from writers who celebrate the many innovative, comforting, mouthwatering, and culturally rich culinary offerings of our country. “These are stories about culture,” writes J. Kenji López-Alt in his introduction. “About how food shapes people, neighborhoods, and history.” This year’s Best American Food Writing captures the food industry at a critical moment in history — from the confrontation of abusive kitchen culture, to the disappearance of the supermarkets, to the rise and fall of celebrity chefs, to the revolution of baby food. Spanning from New York’s premier restaurants to the chile factories of New Mexico, this collection lifts a curtain on how food arrives on our plates, revealing extraordinary stories behind what we eat and how we live. THE BEST AMERICAN FOOD WRITING 2020 INCLUDES BURKHARD BILGER, KAT KINSMAN, LAURA HAYES, TAMAR HASPEL, SHO SPAETH, TIM MURPHY and others

The latest addition to the acclaimed series showcasing the best sports writing from the past year. For over twenty-five years, The Best American Sports Writing has built a solid reputation by showcasing the greatest sports journalism of the previous year, culled from hundreds of national, regional, and specialty print and digital publications. Each year, the series editor and guest editor curate a truly exceptional collection. The only shared traits among all these diverse styles, voices, and stories are the extraordinarily high caliber of writing, and the pure passion they tap into that can only come from sports.

Presents an anthology of the best travel writing published in the previous year, selected from magazines, newspapers, and web sites.

“The Best American Travel Writing has been the gold standard for short-form travel writing from newspapers, magazines, and the Internet since its inception.” —New York Times Book Review Everyone travels for different reasons, but whatever those reasons are, one thing is certain—they come back with stories. Each year, the best of those stories are collected in The Best American Travel Writing, curated by one of the top writers in the field, and each year they “open a window onto the strange, seedy and beautiful world, offering readers glimpses into places that many will never see or experience except through the eyes and words of these writers" (Kirkus Reviews). This far-ranging collection of top notch travel writing is, quite simply, the genre’s gold standard.

This collection gathers the best travel essays from The New Yorker, Harpers, GQ and more—featuring Paul Theroux, Alice Gregory, Dave Eggers and others. Why do I travel? Why does anyone of us travel? Bill Bryson poses these questions in his introduction to The Best American Travel Writing 2016, and though he admits, “I wasn’t at all sure I knew the answer,” these questions start us on the path of some fascinating explorations. While the various contributors to this collection travel for different reasons, they all come back with stories. Whether traversing the Arctic by dogsled, attending a surreal film festival in North Korea, or strolling the streets of a fast-changing Havana, some of today’s best travel writers share their experiences of the world and the human condition, offering, if not answers, than illumination and insight. The Best American Travel Writing 2016 includesMichael Chabon, William T. Vollmann, Helen Macdonald, Sara Corbett, Stephanie Pearson, Thomas Chatterton Williams, Pico Iyer, and others.

The latest addition to the acclaimed series showcasing the best sports writing from the past year For over twenty-five years, The Best American Sports Writing has built a solid reputation by showcasing the greatest sports journalism of the previous year, culled from hundreds of national, regional, and specialty print and digital publications. Each year, the series editor and guest editor curates a truly exceptional collection. The only shared traits among all these diverse styles, voices, and stories are the extraordinarily high caliber of writing, and the pure passion they tap into that can only come from sports.

New York Times best-selling author and James Beard Award winner Samin Nosrat collects the year’s finest writing about food and drink. Best-selling author and winner of numerous awards, Samin Nosrat, selects the year’s top food writing from writers who celebrate the many innovative, comforting, mouthwatering, and culturally rich culinary offerings of our country.

In his introduction, guest editor Andrew McCarthy says that the best travel writing is “the anonymous and solitary traveler capturing a moment in time and place, giving meaning to his or her travels.” The stories in The Best American Travel Writing 2015 demonstrate just that spirit, whether it is the story of a marine returning to Iraq a decade after his deployment, a writer retracing the footsteps of humanity as it spread from Africa throughout the world, or looking for love on a physics-themed cruise down the Rhone River. No matter what the subject, the writers featured in this volume boldly call out, “Yes, this matters. Follow me!” The Best American Travel Writing 2015 includes Iris Smyles, Paul Theroux, Christopher Solomon Patricia Marx, Kevin Baker, Benjamin Busch, Maud Newton Gary Shteyngart, Paul Salopek, and others ANDREW MCCARTHY, guest editor, is the author of the New York Times best-selling travel memoir The Longest Way Home. He has served as an editor at large at National Geographic Traveler and been named travel journalist of the year by the Society of American Travel Writers. He is also an actor and director. JASON WILSON, series editor, is the author of Boozehound: On the Trail of the Rare, the Obscure, and the Overrated in Spirits and the digital wine series Planet of the Grapes. He has written for the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the Philadelphia Daily News, and many other publications. He is the founding editor of The Smart Set and Table Matters.

"Jamison has done an exceptional job curating this volume, selecting essayists who are diverse in ideas and experiences, and essays that are challenging, passionate, sobering, and clever." --Publishers Weekly "The essay is political--and politically useful, by which I mean humanizing and provocative--because of its commitment to nuance, its explorations of contingency, its spirit of unrest, its glee at overturned assumptions; because of the double helix of awe and distrust--faith and doubt--that structures its DNA," writes guest editor Leslie Jamison in her introduction. From the Iraqi desert to an East Jerusalem refugee camp, from the beginnings of the universeto the aftermath of a suicide attempt, the genetic makeup of the eclectic and electric selections inThe Best American Essays 2017 "thrill toward complexity." The Best American Essays 2017 includes RACHEL KAADZI GHANSAH, LAWRENCE JACKSON, RACHEL KUSHNER, ALAN LIGHTMAN, BERNARD FARAI MATAMBO, WESLEY MORRIS, HEATHER SELLERS, ANDREA STUART and others

The Best American Magazine Writing 2020 brings together outstanding writing, from in-depth reporting to incisive criticism. The anthology features excerpts from major projects that challenge American certitudes: the Washington Post Magazine’s “Prison” issue, detailing the scope of mass incarceration, and the New York Times Magazine’s “The 1619 Project,” which recenters the nation’s history around slavery and its legacies. It includes extraordinary globe-spanning journalism, including pieces on the genocide against the Rohingya (New York Times Magazine) and the unintended consequences of a dengue fever vaccine (Fortune). Pamela Colloff details prosecutors’ reliance on an untrustworthy jailhouse informant (New York Times Magazine in partnership with ProPublica), and a ProPublica series investigates the disaster that befell the USS Fitzgerald. The anthology showcases the work of remarkable stylists, including Jia Tolentino’s cultural commentary (New Yorker) and Ligaya Mishan’s columns on food and culture (T: The New York Times Style Magazine). Columns by s.e. smith consider disability (Catapult), and the DeafBlind poet John Lee Clark writes about art he can touch (Poetry). Jordan Kisner visits a Martha Washington–themed debutante ball in Texas near the Mexican border for The Believer, and Jacob Baynham offers a moving portrait of his father-in-law (Georgia Review). Arundhati Roy excoriates the increasing authoritarianism of Modi’s India (The Nation in partnership with Type Media Center). The anthology concludes with Jonathan Escoffery’s short story of homesickness for Jamaica, “Under the Ackee Tree” (Paris Review).

A NATIONAL BESTSELLER Sy Montgomery, New York Times best-selling author and recipient of numerous awards, edits this year’s volume of the finest science and nature writing. “Science is important because this is how we seek to discover the truth about the world. And this is what makes excellent science and nature writing essential,” observes New York Times best-selling author Sy Montgomery. “Science and nature writing are how we share the truth about the universe with the people of the world.” And collected here are truths about nearly every corner of the universe. From meditations on extinction, to the search for alien life, to the prejudice that infects our medical system, the pieces in this year’s Best American Science and Nature Writing seek to bring to the people stories of some of the most pressing issues facing our planet, as well as moments of wonder reflecting the immense beauty our natural world offers.

Presents an anthology of the best travel writing published in the previous year, selected from magazines, newspapers, and web sites.

“To read their stories felt to me the way I suspect other people feel hearing jazz for the first time,” recalls Curtis Sittenfeld of her initial encounter with the Best American Short Stories series. “They were windows into emotions I had and hadn’t had, into other settings and circumstances and observations and relationships.” Decades later, Sittenfeld was met by the same feeling selecting the stories for this year’s edition. The result is a striking and nuanced collection, bringing to life awkward college students, disgraced public figures, raunchy grandparents, and mystical godmothers. To read these stories is to experience the transporting joys of discovery and affirmation, and to realize that story writing in America continues to flourish. THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES 2020 INCLUDES T. C. BOYLE • EMMA CLINE • MARY GAITSKILL ANDREA LEE • ELIZABETH McCRACKEN • ALEJANDRO PUYANA WILLIAM PEI SHIH • KEVIN WILSON and others

This 12th volume in the popular series presents the best travel writing by women for women that's been done in the past few years. Adventures range from a trip into a new neighborhood to expeditions to the far corners of the globe, always with the inner journey close at hand to give perspective and meaning. The voices are diverse, intimate, and engaging, as are the stories.

Since publishing the original edition of A Woman’s World in 1995, Travelers’ Tales has been the recognized national leader in women’s travel literature, and with the launch of the annual series The Best Travel Writing in 2004, the obvious next step was an annual collection of the best women’s travel writing of the year. This title is the tenth in that series—The Best Women’s Travel Writing—presenting stimulating, inspiring, and uplifting adventures from women who have traveled to the ends of the earth to discover new places, peoples, and facets of themselves. The common threads connecting these stories are a female perspective and fresh, compelling storytelling to make the reader laugh, weep, wish she were there, or be glad she wasn’t. The points of view and perspectives are global, and themes are as eclectic as in all of our books, including stories that encompass spiritual growth, hilarity and misadventure, high adventure, romance, solo journeys, stories of service to humanity, family travel, and encounters with exotic cuisine.

Presents an anthology of the best travel writing published in 2014, selected from magazines, newspapers, and web sites.