The Best American Magazine Writing 2006 by The American The American Society of Magazine Editors (Editor), Asme (Editor), Graydon Carter (Introduction), Graydon Carter (Introduction)

From the Publisher

In the magazine world, no recognition is more highly coveted or prestigious than a National Magazine Award. Annually, members of the American Society of Magazine Editors, in association with the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, select the year's most dynamic, original, provocative, and influential magazine stories. The winning and finalist pieces in this anthology represent outstanding work by some of the most eminent writers in America as well as rising literary and journalistic talents.

This prestigious collection includes stories that cover a variety of subjects from Elizabeth Kolbert's investigation into global warming in the New Yorker and James Bamford's look at the PR campaign behind the Iraq War in Rolling Stone to Chris Heath's remarkable profile of Merle Haggard in GQ and Bill Heavey's hilarious account of teaching his daughter to fish in Field and Stream. Other writers include David Foster Wallace ( The Atlantic Monthly), Joyce Carol Oates ( The Virginia Quarterly Review), Priscilla Long ( The American Scholar), Jesse Katz ( Los Angeles Magazine), Marjorie Williams ( Vanity Fair), Hendrik Hertzberg ( New Yorker), Sven Birkerts ( The Virginia Quarterly Review), Erik Reece ( Harper's), Wendy Brenner ( The Oxford American), John Jeremiah Sullivan ( GQ), James Wolcott ( Vanity Fair), and Wyatt Mason ( Harper's).

Wide-ranging in their style and subjects, these writers' stories inform, surprise, entertain, and provide new perspectives on our world. They also reflect elements that distinguish the best in magazine writing: moralpassion, investigative zeal, vivid characters and settings, persistent reporting, and artful writing.

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 Fairof 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 Esquireis 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 Yorkof the crazy-like-a-fox business and personal lifestyle of "Karl Lagerfeld, Boy Prince of Fashion." (Dec. 26)

Publishers Weekly

The best magazine articles, writes Carter (editor of Vanity Fair), offer a winning combination of access into a new world, disclosure into its secrets and a narrative that transforms information into a compelling story. It's a standard most of these finalists for the American Society of Magazine Editors' annual awards meet with ease. The most sprawling example is David Foster Wallace's profile of talk radio personality John Ziegler (loaded with Wallace's trademark footnotes), but there are also little gems, like Field & Stream columnist Bill Heavey's account of teaching his young daughter to fish. The late Marjorie Williams is represented by her prize-winning essay about learning that she had an inoperable form of liver cancer; other winners include James Banford's reporting about the image consultant who handled the Iraqi invasion for the U.S. government, Elizabeth Kolbert's investigations into global warming and a short story from Joyce Carol Oates. For many readers, though, it's the profiles and feature stories that may hold the most interest, from the prose portrait of Merle Haggard as "The Last Outlaw" to John Jeremiah Sullivan's relating his misadventures at a Christian rock festival. If this anthology were a magazine, everybody would want to subscribe. (Dec.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Gina Kaiser - Library Journal

The editors' selections for this eighth annual anthology draw not just from the likes of The New Yorkerand Vanity Fairbut also from magazines with comparatively smaller readerships, such as McSweeney'sand Best Life. Similarly, while some of the authors whose work is featured may be well known (e.g., Ian Parker, Christopher Hitchens), others (e.g., Susan Casey, Rajesh Parameswaran) are not. The entries fall into eight categories: public interest, profiles, reporting, features, columns and commentary, essays, reviews and criticism, and fiction. Many of the topics are relatively timely-e.g., the Chechen siege of a Beslan school in 2004 and U.S. Marine actions in Haditha, Iraq. Two pieces centering on or inspired by events as recent as 2006-the suicide of a gifted 14-year-old girl and the re-creation of a Brooklyn man's life from his letters and papers-are timeless. On the whole, these are balanced, comprehensive, thought-provoking, involving, and well-crafted examples of specific categories of writing that readers are unlikely otherwise to encounter in one place. Highly recommended for all libraries, particularly academic libraries with programs in journalism and/or creative writing.

Kirkus Reviews

Another year, another exemplary collection of the finest magazine writing in the United States. This year's selections include the winners of the National Magazine Awards as well as the competition finalists, who are on par with each other in terms of dexterity and literary impact. Vanessa Grigoriadis ignites the volume with a dazzling-and quite tongue-in-cheek-profile of a fashion icon, "Karl Lagerfeld, Boy Prince of Fashion" (New York Magazine). In "He Knew He Was Right" (the New Yorker), Ian Parker offers a focused look at iconoclastic literary and political critic Christopher Hitchens. Caroline Alexander gives a respectful nod to unrivaled Italian mountaineer Reinhold Messner in "Murdering the Impossible" (National Geographic), and Alex Ross pens a stylish appreciation of Wolfgang Mozart in "The Storm of Style" (New Yorker). In what may be the best piece of the bunch, "The Other Side of Hate" (GQ), Andrew Corsello vividly chronicles the unlikely alliance in economically taxed Zimbabwe of Paul Neshangwe, a black preacher, and Jim Steele, a white agronomist. Severity of subject matter is evident in William Langewiesche's harrowing "Rules of Engagement" (Vanity Fair), about an Iraqi civilian massacre (by U.S. Marine soldiers) in the country's western city of Haditha. Likewise in C.J. Chivers's "The School" (Esquire), a breathlessly detailed piece about the 2004 Beslan tragedy. Human-interest writing shines in Susan Casey's ominous and unsettling report, "Our Oceans Are Turning Into Plastic . . . Are We?" (Best Life), which documents the discovery and investigation of an enormous floating landfill of plastic waste-the size of Texas-some 800 miles north of Hawaii; and in Janet Reitman'seye-opening "Inside Scientology" (Rolling Stone). A brilliant compilation.

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