The best american magazine writing 2017, paperback/sid holt

With the work of journalists under fire around the world, this years anthology of National Magazine Awards finalists and winners is a timely reminder of the power of journalism.

These pieces from writers driven to explore Americas fault lines include Shane Bauers harrowing ``My Four Months as a Private Prison Guard`` ( Mother Jones ), a visceral portrait of the abuses of the carceral system, and Sarah Stillmans account of the havoc wreaked on young peoples lives when they are put on sex-offender registries ( The New Yorker ).

In two different considerations of parenting, Nikole Hannah-Jones looks for a school for her daughter in a rapidly changing, racially divided Brooklyn ( New York Times Magazine ) and Michael Chabon takes his thirteen-year-old son to Fashion Week in Paris ( GQ ).

Pamela Colloff explores how the 1966 University of Texas Tower mass shooting changed the course of one survivors life ( Texas Monthly ), and Siddhartha Mukherjee depicts the art and agony of oncology ( New York Times Magazine).

Other selections take up the shocks of the election, including Matt Taibbis irreverent dispatches from the campaign trail ( Rolling Stone) and George Saunderss transfixing account of Trumps rallies ( The New Yorker ).

Jeffrey Goldberg talks through Obamas foreign-policy legacy with the president ( The Atlantic), Andrew Sullivan fears for the future of democracy ( New York ), and Gabriel Sherman relates how the women of Fox News brought to light Roger Ailess predations ( New York ).

Joining them are Rebecca Solnits wide-ranging Harpers commentary, Becca Rothfelds pondering women waiting from The Odyssey to Tinder ( Hedgehog Review ), and bold expeditions into nature: David Quammen ventures to Yellowstone to consider the future of wild places ( National Geographic ), and Mac McClelland sets off for Cuba in search of the ivory-billed woodpecker ( Audubon ).