Books by Robert Atwan
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English
review 1: Favorites in this edition: Marcia Angell's "Crazy State of Psychiatry," one of a handful of notable essays of late which have sought to explain the problems with our for-profit health care system; Mark Doty's "Insatiable," which tempers confession with literary investigation; Gar...
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English
review 1: Disappointed! This was full of depressing drivel. The tone of the works was dark and there was no nugget of inspiration, morality, ethics, etc to chew on. Basically each work focused on something happening to someone and them dying. OK, so what about it. The human experience is m...
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English
review 1: here's the thing--what, exactly, is the BEST American Essay? or American Essays? Do I judge, as the edition does, from a rather limited, "well-established" base to republish published works, or ...from sources never dreamed of--i.e. editorials, Ebony, etc.? I was left feeling li...
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English
review 1: This was a really great anthology. I read it for content but also for models for essay writing. My overarching takeaway from this collection is that the essay form can break the general creative writing rule of “show don’t tell” and the single, almost short-story like template so...
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English
review 1: I wouldn't call this issue of The Best American Essays 'best.' Most of the essays in here are blandly composed, surviving simply by intriguing topics. In some cases, like "Epilogue: Deadkidistan," the topic of the essay should move the reader, evoke in them a profound sense of gr...