The Best American Magazine Writing 2008
This annual nonfiction anthology is a must have. It comes in this year at an impressive, thick, whopping, Fat-New-Yorker-Pieces-of-Yore* 545 pages — and yet it’s still only $16.95! And a well-bound $16.95 at that. What’s not to like here? Not a thing. Have a look at the table of contents. Get one for yourself–and several more as gifts. One of the best deals in the shop.
At 2:30 in the afternoon, the bosses began designing the factory. The three-story building they had rented was perfectly empty: white walls, bare floors, a front door without a lock. You could come or go; everything in the Lishui Economic Development Zone shared that openness. Neighboring buildings were also empty shells, and they flanked a dirt road that pointed toward an unfinished highway. Black silver billboards reflected the sky, advertising nothing but late October sunlight.
– Peter Hessler, “China’s Instant Cities”
* What Jacob Weisberg, in his introduction to this volume, calls “deep-dive, long-form literary journalism.”
