Touchstone Anthology of Contemporary Creative Nonfiction: Work from 1970 to the Present

The variety of authors in this collection provides an opportunity to exam styles, voice, and the gamut of personal experiences.

This is a wonderful collection that hits on the great like Wallace, Dillard, and Sedaris, while also including some people who desperately need to be better known, like Bowden and Fletcher. If you have any interest in essays, creative nonfiction, or just a great collection of wonderfully introspective and thoughtful work, get this asap. It's as good, if not better, than the more well known collections.

This is the text I assigned for my creative nonfiction class. Some great gems in here--opens with Fourth State of Matter, a great starting point for the genre, and it includes Love of my Life, by Cheryl Strayed. My students liked Kissing a lot, and I found Some How Form a Family by Early to be an understated classic. It also includes many essays Ive never read, some great, some filler.The physical features of the book are mediocre. Flimsy cover, cheap paper, bleh design. But I love the feeling of all books, even Doverstore thrift, which this book is not but certainly has the feel of. makes a good introduction to the genre. and is a good anthology to have on the shelf overall.

This is IMO the best selection of contemporary creative non-fiction available. Almost any two of the included selections is worth the price of entry. My favorites:The Fourth State of Matter - Jo Ann BeardEmbalming Mom - Janet BurrowayVisitor - Michael CoxLeap - Brian DoyleSmall Rooms in Time - Ted KoozerThe Undertaking - Thomas LynchThe Love of my Life - Cheryl StrayedIf I had to pick one of those..... Leap....Oh my Holy Sh*t! What a piece of writing! Followed closely by Embalming Mom.But the rest of contents are no slouches. This is one to read from cover-to-cover and then go back and do it again.Incredible, wonderful work!

This collection is not bad. There are some good essays, some classics that even someone not very familiar with the genre of personal essays might have read or heard about. The selection process seems biased, however.

Most of the stories were boring and/or weird, but I expect nothing less than from an anthology textbook for a college class. Book itself came exactly as described, great condition, and on time.

This book was recommended by a dear friend so I bought the book. At first mist of the stories were rather depressing/sad and I put it away. Having read everything on my kindle and bookshelf I picked it up again and I am so glad I did. This book is a great read and I am going to reread the first few stories again.

This is the first essay anthology that I read after Kingsolver's two books of essays (both of which i really loved) and i really fell in love with essays after reading it. There are many essays here that i know i will reread time and time again. This collection will really widen your view of the world. Highly recommend to anyone!

received in good condition!

Great collection of non fiction, just go for it.

I enjoyed especially Glancy,'s Sun Dance, Hemley, Reading History to My Mother, Barry Lopez, "Flight" Candelaria Fletcher, "The Beautiful City of Tirzah" -- Leo Martin, "Sorry" -- are some that struck deeply. Altogether, the Non-Fiction Anthology awakens us to an American world shifting its pace and views... the writers chosen to "essay" to give us a full measure. Editors even chose works by tried and trues that broke the mould.