The Best American Travel Writing 2001

To date, this is the third collection I have read in this series. By comparison, I much preferred the 2000 and 2006 collections. The Best American Travel Writing series has a series editor, Jason Wilson, who is responsible for selecting between 50-100 of what he considers to be the best travel writing articles of the year. Then he passes these on to the guest editor, Paul Theroux for the 2001 collection, who selects among these to determine the 20+ articles that will be included in that year's collection. Although I think Paul Theroux is a great travel writer, I find him lacking as an editor. Rather than select a well-rounded group of articles, he seems to have focused on what interests himself rather than what might appeal to a broader show more audience. For example, 7 of the 27 articles in this collection take place in extremely cold and harsh environments such as Siberia, Iceland, the Andes mountains etc. Even the cover of the book features a glacier. Also, the writing style of a disproportionate number of the writers selected is cool and detached. If this had been my only experience reading this series, I wouldn't feel compelled to pick up any future collections. Thankfully, that is not the case. If you enjoy travel writing, I strongly encourage you to read one of the collections within this series, just not the 2001 anthology. show less