The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2011

The Best American Series First, Best, and Best-Selling The Best American series is the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. Each volume's series editor selects notable works from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites. A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the best twenty or so pieces to publish. This unique system has made the Best American series the most respected-and most popular-of its kind. The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2011 includes Atul Gawande, Jonathan Franzen, Deborah Blum, Malcolm Gladwell, Oliver Sacks, Jon Mooallem, Jon Cohen, Luke Dittrich, and others

Mary Roach is the best-selling author of Stiff, Spook, Bonk, and most recently, Packing for Mars. Her writing has appeared in Salon, Wired, Outside, GQ, Discover, Vogue, and the New  York Times Magazine.

TIM FOLGER is a contributing editor at Discover and writes about science for several magazines. He lives in New Mexico.