New This Week...13 Best Essays & Stories of 2018 From Around The Web

I love anthologies. Correction: I love tea and anthologies and cuddling up with my cat and the equally comforting fact of a guaranteed good read. But I love "best of" collections in particular. I've only lived in one neighborhood where the library carried all the Best American anthologies on essays, travel writing, fiction, science and nature writing, etc., and I've been hooked since. My library in Philadelphia only stocks The 2018 Best O. Henry Stories and The 2018 Best American Mystery Stories, which seems a little arbitrary. I checked out the situation on Amazon only to learn that if I wanted to read the other anthologies it costs a hefty $10 a pop. I'd pay that for a novel, but I rarely read a whole anthology. I usually pick out the pieces that sound the most intriguing instead, which gave me an idea this week...

Usually, my "new this week" feature is devoted to sale alerts and fun, light reads and book recommendations and funny news from around the web, but this week I thought I'd devote it to what is available online from the Best American Writing Series of 2018. Not all are available on the web, sadly. But quite a few are! And for free! Here are two handfuls plus three of the ones that caught my eye!

Let me know if you particularly enjoy any of the pieces below! Or would vote another selection in! 

1. "When Your Child is a Psychopath" by Barbara Haggerty (Best Science Writing)
2. "Whatever Happened to the Russian Revolution" by Ian Frazier (Best Travel Writing) 
3. "Items Awaiting Protective Enclosure" by Téa Obreht (Best Fiction)
4. "Los Angeles"  by Emma Cline (Best Fiction)
5. "The Prairie Wife" by Curtis Sittenfeld (Best Fiction)
6. "Tiny Jumping Spiders Can See the Moon" by Ed Yong (Best Science Writing)
7. "Fantastic Beasts and How to Rank Them" by Kathryn Schulz (Best Science Writing)
8. "Hannah Arendt in New York" by Baron Wormser (Best Essay)
9. "The Art at the End of the World" by Heidi Julavits (Best Travel Writing) 
10. "The Case Against Civilization" by John Lanchester (Best Science Writing)
11. "Greetings, E.T. (Please Don't Murder Us.)" by Steven Johnson (Best Science Writing)
12. "Prospects for Survival" by Noam Chomsky (Best Science Writing)
13. "Everything Is Far From Here" by Cristina Henríquez (Best Fiction)

P.S. Above are two books on my current TBR list, although I'm actually currently reading Conversations with Friends on my Kindle and listening to an audible version of Kate Morton's The Clockmaker's Daughter. Both excellent. What are you currently reading?