The Best American Essays of the Century

For this singular collection, Joyce Carol Oates selected fifty-five unforgettable essays by the finest American writers of the twentieth century. Here is a sampling — twelve unabridged essays — featuring a wide variety of contemporary writers reading classics of the genre, along with authors reading their own work. Nothing less than a political, spiritual, and intensely personal record of America’s tumultuous modern age, THE BEST AMERICAN ESSAYS OF THE CENTURY is “an outstanding, galvanic collection” (Entertainment Weekly).