I definitely did not read the synopsis correctly. I thought this was a fiction writing for 2017. Thank you for the opportunity to read this.

When I asked for this book I had not realized that the articles contained within its pages were all National Magazine Award finalists. There are a wide variety of topics included, but every single one of the articles is fascinating.

I always like these collections every year, but it was too politics heavy for me this year. That of course is to be expected in 2017 but nevertheless I have Trump fatigue.

The wide range of articles covered in this collection means that readers of all types will likely be able to find something that appeals to them. It is unsurprising in the current political climate that many of the articles focus heavily on politics and the current administration, so I found that this book was best digested in small sections, one article or so at a time, in order to avoid getting overwhelmed. The collection contains both writers that are familiar names and names that were new to me, from a range of publications, as well as a range of topics.

This is a really good collection of award-winning magazine articles. I always enjoy reading anthologies like this. They provide examples of great writing, and usually the topics are interesting. All of these articles showcase well-crafted writing. The only complaint I have (and it isn't really a complaint, more of an observation) is that the book leans heavily to the left. Perhaps only left-leaning writers are producing good magazine articles? I don't identify as "right," but the imbalance was obvious.  I particularly enjoyed the Trump articles, an article about cancer, an article about Obama's foreign policy, and the prison expose.

Sid Holt edits this year's Best American Magazine Writing for the American Society of Magazine Editors. For anyone who loves topical, well-written and affecting long-form journalism, this year's collection is excellent.

It should come as no surprise that the selection swerves heavily towards the political. Some of the strongest standouts include multiple journalists' dispatches from the Trump campaign trail and a moving, informative and revealing end-of-term portrait of former President Obama.

Some descriptions and quotes from other selections:

Sarah Stillman's "The List" looks at those on the national sex offender registry and how it sometimes does more harm than good, and I say this as someone who's all for such an identification tool. The personal stories she tells, of people who have had their loves irreparably destroyed, particularly as juveniles, over what amount to children being children or consensual relationships with one partner within a couple years over the age of consent and one below, were horrifying.

Even Patty Wetterling, mother of Jacob Wetterling, a child who disappeared and whose case was only very recently solved, albeit devastatingly, is disturbed by what the registry has become. "Wetterling had watched the registry evolve into something very different from what she'd fought to create. The database was no longer for the private use of law enforcement. Nor was it confined to high-risk offenders or adults who targeted kids. (In some states, the registry pooled juveniles and those charged with public urination together with adults who had repeatedly raped children."

From George Saunders' "Trump Days": "His trademark double-eye squint evokes that group of beanie-hatted street-tough Munchkin kids; you expect him to kick gruffly at an imaginary stone." I loved this piece.

He reports:

Outside a Clinton rally in Phoenix, a Native American-looking man in an Aztec-patterned shirt joined the line of Trump supporters, with his megaphone, through which he slowly said..."Make. America. White. Again." Once the Trump supporters caught on to the joke, they moved away, but he was a good sport and scooted down to join them.
"Make. America. White. Again," he said, in the calmest voice.
"We don't want you," one of the Trump supporters said. "We don't want your racism!"
Three of Matt Taibbi's pieces, similarly from the Trump campaign, are here, "Appetite for Destruction" and "The Fury and Failure of Donald Trump" from Insane Clown President, his popular collection of the Rolling Stone articles. In fact this was where I read them first and immediately had to follow up on the rest in his book. That's why I love anthology collections, as I've said a million times - they're such a great way to find love 'em or leave 'em writing, writers or books that you maybe wouldn't have discovered otherwise (or in my case with Taibbi's, inexplicably ignored). Or you can save yourself the time and trouble of trying to wade through a book's worth of material that isn't for you. For that reason alone I recommend this to any nonfiction lovers.

One of the most powerful articles is the longest, former Mother Jones writer Shane Bauer's "My Four Months as a Private Prison Guard". My only knowledge on this comes from a plotline on "Orange is the New Black", when the prison turns private and a bunch of incompetent, inappropriate new guards are hired. I know that's not reasonable background knowledge, but the show does focus on real, current issues, and we do see some of the same narrative points reflected in Bauer's true, and incredibly disturbing but eye-opening and important account.

On a lighter note (we need some lighter notes in this one) he also makes succinct yet wonderfully descriptive observations of the people he works with, like of one Miss Doucet, a fellow CO-in-training: "a stocky redhead cadet in her late fifties, thinks that if kids were made to read the Bible in school, fewer would be in prison, but she also sticks pins in a voodoo doll to mete out vengeance. 'I swing both ways,' she says." The whole piece is a great example of well-structured narrative nonfiction writing.

Pamela Colloff's "The Reckoning" hit me strongly and I'm still trying to figure out exactly why. Colloff writes about Claire Wilson, a survivor of the 1966 University of Texas sniper shooting; Wilson and her boyfriend were among the first shot. He didn't survive, and neither did Wilson's eight-month-old fetus. It took a long time for her to get back on her feet, she endured many painful years - painful in multiple ways, including her loving relationship with a troubled adopted son.

It's such a strange, surreal glimpse at a time before deadly mass shootings were a heartbreakingly common occurrence in America, and the lifetime's worth of aftermath of such an event on a victim. It shocked me that a book was written about the shooting and the author didn't even interview Wilson - one scene in this piece is her recollection of paging through the book in an airport bookstore, seeing her name in the index. I'm glad that Colloff gave her the opportunity to tell this personal, raw side of her own story.

Rebecca Solnit's "Bird in a Cage", "The Ideology of Isolation" and "Giantess" about the 1955 Elizabeth Taylor film that was socially ahead of its time made me appreciate Solnit infinitely more. I liked the title essay of Men Explain Things to Me, but wasn't in love with the rest of it. These selections show me much more of what she's capable of, although her essay included in Tales of Two Americas is the best I've read of hers so far.

Jeffrey Goldberg's "The Obama Doctrine" broke my heart ten times over. Goldberg shadowed Obama near the end of his time in office, interviewing him on policy, specific decisions, and his reasons for them while writing for The Atlantic. He shows the former president in an honest, revealing light - Obama's irritations and frustrations at misunderstandings or situations that didn't resolve as expected, his perceived failures and what really lay behind or influenced them, and, most beautifully but painfully, his shining humanity. I learned so much more about him through this journalism. I miss this man so very much.

David Quammen's "Yellowstone: Wild Heart of a Continent" is part of a bigger piece about the fragile ecosystem of Yellowstone and what happens when humans meddle, intentionally or unintentionally, with it.

Andrew Sullivan's "Democracies End When They Are Too Democratic" was somewhat uncomfortable for me. It's another examination of 2016's political upheavals, but puts some of the blame for Trump on democracy itself, in a weird, complicated way, based on Plato's writings and philosophy. It has some interesting moments but overall I think there's better writing on this subject. Taibbi writes an interesting criticism of this piece in one of his essays, collected in Insane Clown President.

Gabriel Sherman's "The Revenge of Roger's Angels" looks at the women who endured sexual assault at the hands of FOX News' head, Roger Ailes, for many years before a dam broke and allegations began leaking out. Sherman looks at the women who risked their own careers and exposed and brought down a mogul.

Nikole Hannah-Jones' "Worlds Apart" addresses diversity and inequality in Brooklyn's public school system, and her family's difficult but careful choice to attend a school considered at that time less desirable than others, only to have to fight for it later in the complicated, inherently unfair world of big city public schools and their unfortunate connection to race. It's a topic I know little about, but with school choice such a present national question, I think her opinions and personal experience on this are not only topical but crucial for understanding.

I had three skims:

Becca Rothfeld's "Ladies in Waiting" was one of the weaker entries for me. It describes her romantic experiences connected to waiting and how such a situation hearkens to literary examples, but it never really caught my interest.

Mac McCelland's "Delusion is the Thing with Feathers" was also a miss. Stylistically I found it hard to get into and considering it's the collection's opener, I knew I needed to tread lightly or else I'd get annoyed and abandon the whole thing, so I briefly skimmed and didn't finish.

Siddhartha Mukherjee's "The Improvisational Oncologist" was good, to be sure, but I didn't like it. Maybe a recent cancer death of my own loved one made it too hard for me to appreciate anything at all on the topic.

Like any anthology collection, there are bound to be pieces you adore and others you don't, but in my opinion this one swung heavily towards the former. Smart, funny, emotional, topical selections and a wealth of excellent, impressive writing on display, certainly deserving of the "year's best" title. My rating: 4/5.

The Best American series is one of my favorite series to read, but I do not usually read the magazine writing collection. I found many of the stories to be too long to hold my attention and uneven in quality. The one that I found the most interesting was the story about the University of Texas campus shooting, and I lived in Austin, TX for many years and graduated from the University of Texas

This tome gathers a series of prize-winning articles that range from the deeply touching "The Other Side of Hate" by Andrew Corsello, to Ian Parker's inspired and funny analysis of fellow writer Christopher Hitchens. Hard to find many clinkers in this collection.

The Best American Series is always solid. The editors pull together a surprisingly cohesive look at American culture throughout the year. Not an easy year so not easy reading, but when people look back at the time period, books like these are going to provide a lot of insight. As I said before,t his is not easy reading, but it is worthwhile. I particularly enjoyed the Rebecca Solnit, Michael Chabon, and George Saunders pieces. A story on Karl Lagerfeld, which I read on a whim, was an amusing break from some of the heavier reading. I'm glad it was included.

"The Best American Magazine Writing 2017" is, just as it says, a collection of great magazine articles written in 2017. Duh! Now, how to write a review based on a wide-ranging selection of stories.....
I found some of the articles to be fascinating. Jeffrey Goldbergs "The Obama Doctrine", written for the Atlantic, was one. It really brings the sometimes confusing style and thinking of President Obama into focus. A thorough examination, it's not one based on the 30 second sound bites we received from the national news. Rather, it appears to get through the hype and really explain Obama's reasoning. I only wish Obama himself could have explained himself better, to a wider audience, in language they could understand. Then, maybe, people would appreciate him more.
Another great article was by Matt Taibbi, of Rolling Stone. "President Trump, Seriously and "Appetite for Destruction" and the Fury and Failure of Donald Trump. A serious examination of how we (America) got to where we are today. The failure of the two party system. I'm going to quote some of the article, but it really helps to get the gist of it. "Lie No. 1 is that there are only two political ideas in the world, Republican and Democrat. Lie No. 2 is that the parties are violent ideological opposites, and that during campaign season we can only speak about the areas where they differ (abortion, guns, etc) an never the areas where there's typically consensus.....Lie No. 3 is that all problems are the fault of one party or the other, and never both. Assuming you watch the right channels, everything is always someone else's fault." How true!
My favorite article was written for Mother Jones, by Shane Bauer. It was called "My Four Months as a Private Prison Guard". Bauer spent four months working for a private, for-profit prison. I, myself, worked for the Federal Bureau of Prisons for 21 years. It was interesting to see the growth of Bauer as he worked as a correctional officer. I experienced many of the same emotions and questions, found myself at similar crossroads, and thought many times whether or not I was crazy for choosing this career. The author has a way of putting into words many disparate thoughts and ideas that he had. While his stint was for a pay-to-play company, and I think a much less "honorable" organization, he learned some valuable lessons about himself. There is one line in the article that really, really shows me that the author "got it". When he realized what an inmate told him was true, and could make his life in prison a lot easier...."Just know at the end of the day, how y'all conduct y'all selves determines how we conduct ourselves. You come wit' a shit attitude, we go' have a shit attitude". That ladies and gentlemen, is the one thing you need to learn is you want a career in corrections. Spot on!
There are many other articles in the book, some great, some good, some not-so-good. It all depends on your own perspectives. But there is something for everyone in here!

interesting/solid anthology of magazine writing from a turbulent year - would recommend

Unlike previous editions, this one had a lot of commentary pieces and a *lot* of politics. A few articles were engaging, but not the escape I'm looking for when reading.