The Best American Mystery Stories 2002 (The Best American Series) Review

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The Best American Mystery Stories 2002 (The Best American Series) Review"Best American Mystery Stories 2002" is the latest volume in what has become a very fine and enjoyable series. Given that it is so difficult to find magazines featuring short stories these days, it's nice to have the best culled out and placed in one volume. James Ellroy of "American Tabloid" and "L.A. Confidential" fame is the guest editor this year, which may explain why this year's model is a touch more hard-boiled that the 2001 edition. Additionally, it should be noted that the 2002 collection also contains several boxing and baseball stories because series editor Otto Penzler put together theme anthologies for both sports in the last year.
That said, the stories in the 2002 collection run the gamut from literary to whodunnits? to crime stories. How you like each one will probably depend on your tastes as a reader. All are expertly written by the best mystery writers working in the genre today. My personal favorites are Thomas J. Cook's boxing story "The Fix," Clark Howard's grim caper story "The Cobalt Blues," and Stuart M. Kaminisky's gritty crime saga "Sometimes Something Goes Wrong." Some of the stories didn't work for me, particularly the literary stories, but that's mostly a matter of personal taste.
The short story, particularly the mystery short story, is a disappearing art form. "Best American Mystery Stories 2002" is doing its part to keep it alive and well.The Best American Mystery Stories 2002 (The Best American Series) Overview

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The Best American Travel Writing 2004 (The Best American Series) Review

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The Best American Travel Writing 2004 (The Best American Series) ReviewAs with any compilation of anything, whether or not this volume truly represents the "best" of its chosen subject is a matter of fruitless dispute. Pico Iyer's introduction, describing a supposed theme in this year's offerings of a certain melancholy or weariness to American travel writing as a genre, rings hollow; while the field of publications from which the submissions were gleaned is pretty limited. But once you get past those minor difficulties, this book presents an enjoyable variety of missives from American writers who have traveled to both welcoming tourist attractions and unwelcoming trouble spots where the increasingly bad reputation of America is highly obvious. There are a few self-indulgent clunkers about breathless "discovery" here (those by Heather Eliot and Joan Didion come to mind). But the collection does offer many surprises, such as Adam Kopnik's character sketches of New York City bus riders, or Richie Chevat's droll narrative of his completely typical and predictable family vacation. The great John McPhee travels cross-country with an independent trucker, while Mark Jenkins, Kira Salak, Paul Salopak, and Patrick Symmes report enthrallingly from the darker hellholes of third world war zones and disaster areas. If you're bored with typical travelogues of quaint tourist traps and scenery, you'll get a little of that here, but the best essays in this collection show that Americans traveling around the world these days are much more likely to find trouble and darkness. [~doomsdayer520~]The Best American Travel Writing 2004 (The Best American Series) Overview

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