The Best American Essays 2006 Edited by Lauren Slater, Series Editor: Robert Atwan

A great collection… to start with.

Highlights:

Kinsey and Me by Laurie Abraham, about her visit to (and testing at) the Kinsey Institute prior to the release of the recent biopic¹.

501 Minutes to Christ by Poe Pallantine, about a man’s search for a place in life.

Death of a Fish by Adam Gopnik, about the unintentionally philosophical backlash resulting from the death of a pet goldfish that is actually a betta.

Grammar Lessons by Michele Morano, an essay about grammar that has very little to do with grammar, and more the dissolution of a relationship. Very David Ivesish.

Lost Dog by Susan Orlean², about the amazing search for a lost dog that actually happened here in Atlanta.

These are all in the first half of the book. The second half of the book has a much more melancholic feel to it… mostly about grief, loss, and illness. Perhaps Lauren Slater’s intention was to draw you in and then leave you wanting to slit your wrists. Hard to say. If so, I beat her, as I skimmed the last few essays.

¹The most boring movie about sex ever made.
²I have read and recommend her book of essays, The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup.

The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2006 Edited by Dave Eggers

This was probably the best of the series thus far.

It included the “best American first sentences of novels in 2005”, excerpts from that Chuck Norris website, a very funny piece from Kurt Vonnegut on writing, Julia Sweeney’s “Letting Go of God” piece, comics and many other funny and poignant bits from everywhere.

I don’t have it with me, lest I’d make more notes, but… if you’re ever going to read anything from this series, make this one the first.

The Best American Science Writing 2001 Edited by Timothy Ferris

I touched on this lightly in a previous post, which I’ll reproduce here:

I also read a couple essays from The Best American Science Writing 2001, one about the effects of testosterone and the other about how the catholic church and the inventor of the pill really screwed women over by insisting on the “natural” 28 day cycle, which turns out to be not-so-natural after all. Apparently, pre-industrial women have an average of 100 periods during their lifetime (due to repeated pregnancy and extended breast-feeding), compared to the modern woman’s average of around 400. The increased number of cycles is the catalyst for diseases(such as cervical cancer) that happen very rarely to women in non-industrialized cultures. Had the inventor of the pill not been so all-fired driven to appease the catholic church’s desire for a”natural” cycle, many women might have had access to the types of birth controls that are just now coming into vogue where they’re on the drug for 3 months or more without break, reducing the total lifetime ovulations and accompanying risks. Interesting stuff.

Also of note:

– Decoding the human genome and the story behind the public sector vs. private sector companies involved.

– The use of DNA in trials

– The attitudes of South African government that are hurting the battle against the AIDS epidemic

– An unsettling piece about SV40, a simian virus, a possible culprit in some cancers, that has made its way into the human population, possibly because of the polio vaccine many years ago.

– How and why the Roswell UFO legend got started

Ironically, one of my favorite authors, the late Stephen Jay Gould, wrote a piece about Syphillus that I got bored with and skipped. They can’t all be gems.