A review by balletbookworm
The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2019 by Sy Montgomery, Jaime Green

4.0

All the pieces Sy Montgomery included are phenomenally written but taken together many of the middle pieces blend together. I'm not sure if the Alphabetical-by-Author arrangement of articles worked for this volume. The balance of the book tips heavily toward pieces about nature and the environment (not surprising, given Montgomery's own writing choices, but it felt much less of a spectrum this year). The standout articles fall to the end of the volume - Linda Villarosa's "The Hidden Toll: Why Are Black Mothers and Babies in the United States Dying at More Than Double the Rate of White Mothers and Babies. The Answer Has Everything to Do with the Lived Experience of Being a Black Woman in America," Ed Yong's "The Next Plague is Coming. Is America ready?" and Iliana Yurkiewicz's "Paper Trails: Living and Dying with Fragmented Medical Records."