I always appreciate the Best American series. I remember in the pre-internet days walking into the bookstore very eager to see the latest copy for the essays and short story versions. Back then it wasn't as easy to access work from a variety of magazines. Now we have the opposite problem. There is so much access that having work curated into an actual book feels like a treat.

I wanted to have a peek on the best American Series and I got it. When a book serves its purpose well, what more can you ask for? having said that, I now think if this should be global, rather than bound by geography? Just some thoughts.

You can't go wrong with any book in this series. Wonderfully curated pieces in your favorit genre. Because no one can read every great article or short story in a given year, this series makes me feel confident I'll never miss a truly great piece.

A very interesting selection and cross section of writing; I really enjoyed all of these pieces, including the NF, which isn't usually of much interest to me.

This title showed up as "Read Now" for me. I clicked the "Send to Kindle" option. However, it did not download on my Kindle though it is showing up in my NetGalley queue. And I cannot re-download it as it is now archived and not available. I am not able to review or recommend this book without reading it.

Love these anthologies of the Best American...essays, stories, etc. Despite that I have read very little in the series, and love this selection of two per title. They really are quality essays and stories from the previous year.

Just one note...although it was a different publisher, having read 3 years of "The Best Technology Writing" (2009-2011) I do wish that was still going. Can this be an added series? Loved those! It would be a great addition to the Best American series.

Thanks for the opportunity for reading some selections of these books. Enjoyed it!

I've read Best American Non-required Reading and The Best American Short Stories in the past. These series have always had stories and essays of exceptional quality. Literary fiction short stories and nonfiction essays are genres I've always enjoyed. I've always stayed with what I was comfortable with. Lately, I've purposely chosen to branch out of my comfort zone. I've found that my comfort zone is a lot bigger than I had originally thought!
This collection has two selections each from The Best American: Short Stories, Mysteries, Nonrequired Reading, Sports Writing, Science Fiction, and Travel Writing. My favorites in this 2017 collection were from the sports writing, mystery, and nonrequired reading volumes. Honestly, I think the sports articles were the best of the bunch! I would have never voluntarily read a sports story. I watch sports on tv; however, reading a whole article on basketball would not happen in this life.
So kudos to the publishers for expanding my mind and my reading. I would, without reservation, recommend this to anyone. There's something for everyone here.
Thank you to Netgalley and Houghton-Mifflin Publishing for supplying this digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I always enjoy these, they really are a great sampling of the best writing of the year. Great way to discover new authors.

This is a sampler of some of the best stories from many genres that were published last year (2017). There are some fascinating selections and the sampler encourages you to read more.

I received a DIGITAL Advance Reader Copy of this book from #NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. From the publisher -
The Best American series is the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and nonfiction.
This special edition contains selections from the following 2017 editions:
The Best American Short Stories edited by Meg Wolitzer
The Best American Essays edited by Leslie Jamison
The Best American Mystery Stories edited by John Sandford
The Best American Nonrequired Reading edited by Sarah Vowell
The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy edited by Charles Yu
The Best American Travel Writing edited by Lauren Collins
The Best American Science and Nature Writing edited by Hope Jahren
The Best American Sports Writing edited by Howard Bryant
Each volume’s series editor selects notable works from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites. The special guest editor then chooses the best twenty or so pieces to publish. This unique system has made the Best American series the most respected – and most popular – of its kind.

This was an enjoyable book .. did I read all of the stories? No. Love all the stories? No, but it is the best of the best and is presented in a very enjoyable and likable way.

For a sampler, this was excellent, and I only wish there were more to read. It's a great selection of stories that highlighted some of the best fiction from this year.

Did not enjoyed it at all. I had expected better. I wish it was what I wanted.

5★
FICTION! - SCIENCE - SCIENCE FICTION! – SPORTS! – TRAVEL! and more.

Pardon my enthusiasm for this wonderful Noah’s Ark of articles, stories, and essays. The stories march through the book two by two, all intact and complete. two samples from each of the larger collections published for each category.

“I have lived in autocracies most of my life, and have spent much of my career writing about Vladimir Putin’s Russia. I have learned a few rules for surviving in an autocracy and salvaging your sanity and self-respect. It might be worth considering them now: Rule #1: Believe the autocrat. He means what he says. Whenever you find yourself thinking, or hear others claiming, that he is exaggerating, that is our innate tendency to reach for a rationalization.”

This is from Masha Gessen’s “Autocracy: Rules for Survival:"from "The New York Review of Books”. (Original article: http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/11/10/trump-election-autocracy-rules-for-survival/ )

She wrote the article just after Trump’s election and was trying to prepare the American public for life with an autocrat. She has just won the (US) National Book Award (Nov 2017) for The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia.

This will give you an idea of the quality of the selections included in this terrific publication. There’s fiction, fun, a long article about Kaepernick’s “stand” (which is a kneel), another about how many people rely so much on GPS that they’ve lost all sense of geography and direction. That would be funny if people didn’t drive off the ends of bridges and such.

“Enough people have been led astray by their GPS in Death Valley that the area’s former wilderness coordinator called the phenomenon ‘death by GPS.’

. . . we are letting our natural wayfinding abilities languish.”

The only downside is that after reading these, you will want the entire collection of the eight books in the series. These are full-length articles and stories, not brief extracts, and I enjoyed almost everything, even those outside my usual reading choices.

This volume is still available on NetGalley, and I’d like to thank Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for the review copy from which I’ve quoted. I can’t recommend this series highly enough.

The Best American Series books are perennial classics, rounding up stories and reporting and essays into wonderful yearly packages. I loved reading this sampler of selections from all of the other books (e.g. Short Stories, Science Fiction, Non-Required Reading, Essays, Travel Writing, Sports Writing, Science Writing, etc.). Some of the stories punched me in the gut or made me wow in amazement. I ate this book write up (and I enjoyed having a taste of each of the genres). These appetizers made me want to go out and buy the main courses - the larger genre-specific books - to see what other selections were picked. The judges/editors have done a great job this year! Go check it out, there has been some great writing done in 2017.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I would have preferred to look at the whole book, not just a sampler.

I really enjoy this annual showcase of short fiction and nonfiction, and this year's might just top the previous ones. Definitely something you're going to want to check out.

<p>So I got to read an assortment of fiction, essays, mystery stories (also fiction), nonrequired reading (also some fiction - GODZILLA!), science fiction and fantasy (also fiction), travel pieces, science pieces, and sports writing -- two of each! Like a Forrest Gump sampler box of chocolates, except none with cherries in them or that time I had a chocolate the chocolatier put turmeric in and it was just weird. Even the sports writing, and I'm pretty much the least sports-interested person you could ever meet, was good. </p>

<p><i>Uh, Meghan</i> as I am sure you are thinking, <i>it's called the <b>best</b> series and you're surprised that it was actually good.</i></p>

<p>Yes. Shut up.</p>

<p>So here's the info, i.e. I copy and pasted the table of contents and put my thoughts in parentheses. </p>

<p>The Best American Short Stories 2017: <br />
FIONA MAAZEL: Let’s Go to the Videotape (jerk dad story) <br />
JESS WALTER: Famous Actor (jerk people have jerk sex with each other's jerk selves)
</p>

<p>The Best American Essays 2017: <br />
EMILY MALONEY: Cost of Living (yeah, Americans, I know that like 49% of you or whatever despise Obamacare, but seriously, your multi-payer system is ridiculous, seriously ridiculous); <br />
ALIA VOLZ: Snakebit (ophidiophobia)
</p>

<p>The Best American Mystery Stories 2017: <br />
TRINA COREY: Flight (murder mystery in a nursing home) <br />
BRENDAN DUBOIS: The Man from Away (revenge fantasy)
</p>

<p>The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2017: <br />
VIET DINH: Lucky Dragon (atomic bomb fallout, fiction) <br />
MASHA GESSEN: Autocracy: Rules for Survival (Trump sucks)
</p>

<p>The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017: <br />
JOSEPH ALLEN HILL: The Venus Effect (like Margaret Atwood's <a href="http://occonline.occ.cccd.edu/online/swells/Happy%20Endings.pdf">Happy Endings</a>, but about race and brutal) <br />
N. K. JEMISIN: The City Born Great (Cities live, didn't really grab me)
</p>

<p> The Best American Travel Writing 2017: <br />
STEPHANIE ELIZONDO GRIEST: Chiefing in Cherokee (one of the three that left me with a meh, the others being "Rules for Survival" and "The City Born Great".) <br />
DAVID KUSHNER: Land of the Lost (he went to Iceland. I went to Iceland. Hooray!)
</p>

<p>The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2017: <br />
SONIA SMITH: Unfriendly Climate (Texas is weird) <br />
DAVID EPSTEIN: The DIY Scientist, the Olympian, and the Mutated Gene (some people are much better researchers than I am)
</p>

<p>The Best American Sports Writing 2017: <br />
BOMANI JONES: Kaepernick Is Asking for Justice, Not Peace (I can't remember reading this one, so I guess that might say something about it)<br />
LUKE CYPHERS AND TERI THOMPSON: Lost in America (it was sad, but then it got better, but then I realised there were all these other people not profiled in the story for whom it didn't get better and so I was sad again :( And, either "Lost in America" was the best one in the set or I'm a victim of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_position_effect">recency effect</a>, but "Lost in America" is the piece that stuck with me. That and "The Venus Effect", which is in the middle, so I guess that one is truly, not only brain-trick, memorable.)
</p>


<p><A href="https://www.librarything.com/work/20309929/book/147079789">The Best American Series 2017</a> by assorted (like a Quality Street Tin!) went on sale October 3, 2017.</p>

<p><small>I received a copy free from <a href="https://www.netgalley.com/">Netgalley</a> in exchange for an honest review.</small></p>

This series gives great writing a broad audience and makes a great gift for the reader or writer in your life

The Best American series is one of my favorite series of books, especially the travel and essay collections. This book provides an assortment of stories from each series. Although collections may be uneven, it's a great way to get introduced to new authors.

This is a wide-ranging collection of fiction and nonfiction included in titles within the Best American Series. I enjoyed reading this because it collected so many different areas, from travel essays to science fiction short stories. Although I didn't like all of the sixteen titles (sports stories really aren't my thing), it was a solid collection of good writing. If you like not having to commit to a full novel, and you like to mix fiction and nonfiction, it's a good title to pick up.