Best of the Year?

And a related question: Why are these articles free? May be one reason for the sad state (pitiful pay, for the most part, for good work) of American journalism.


Vanity Fair: Beware of Greeks Bearing Bonds by Michael Lewis. Oct. 1, 2010.


The Atlantic: The End of Men by Hanna Rosin. July/August 2010. [A pitiful article, pitiful.]


CNN Money.com: Inside the secret world of Trader Joe's by Beth Kowitt. Aug. 23, 2010.


New York Magazine: The James Franco Project: Is James Franco For Real? by Sam Anderson. July 25, 2010. [No.]

The American Scholar: Solitude and Leadership by William Deresiewicz. Spring 2010.
[A surprisingly good publication. Didn't know about it until grad school. See Priscilla Long's poem published in The American Scholar that won, amazingly, the American Society of Magazine Editors (now Magazine Publishers Association) (they do a yearly industry-wide recognized/standardizing National Magazine Awards) 2006 feature writing award. Beautiful, and if this counts as literary journalism, then the world's wide open - thank god. Priscilla said the article was a blind submission to the magazine - amazing. Hear that, aspirants? (Took her three years though). If you're too interneted-out to click on a link, here is a snippet:

Courtly cows dispense with diphthongs. Chocolate-covered theories crouch in corners. Corners rot uproariously. Refrigerators frig worms. Catastrophe kisses the count of five. A statement digests its over-rehearsed rhinoceros. Bookworms excrete monogamous bunnies. Blue crud excites red ecstasy. All this during the furious sleeping of colorless green ideas.
]

The above list generated from The Sidney Awards in the NYT by David Brooks, via @cristinadaglas.