A selection of the finest spiritual writing of the year offers essays and articles on faith, spirituality, and their influence on politics, creativity, literature, and other fields, reflecting Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, and other diverse perspectives.

Showcases articles written by a variety of journalists judged as finalists or winners in a contest sponsored by the American Society of Magazine Editors, and addresses topics ranging from reporting to feature writing.

Presents an anthology of the best sports writing published in 2014, selected from American magazines and newspapers.

The newest addition to the acclaimed Best American series brings readers the year's best writing about faith and spirituality and is sure to enrich the lives of all readers. Includes writings that reflect Christian, Muslim, Jewish, secular, and pan-Hindu perspectives.

Bestselling author and staff writer for "The New Yorker" Groopman edits this year's volume of the finest science and nature writing. Contributors include Walter Kirn, Ron Rosenbaum, Jeffrey Toobin, and Oliver Sacks.

Compiles the best literary essays of the year originally published in American periodicals.

Presents a collection of stories selected from magazines in the United States and Canada.

Written by an award-winning writer, this spiritual memoir is distinguished by the author’s Mormonism and literary prose. In a series of thought-provoking, personal essays, Phyllis Barber provides an engaging account of how she left her original Mormon faith and eventually returned to it decades later. Her journey begins in the 1990s. In search of spiritual healing and a deeper understanding of the divine, she travels widely and participates with people of many different persuasions, including Southern Baptists; Tibetan Buddhist monks in Tibet and North India; shamans in Peru and Ecuador; goddess worshipers in the Yucatan; and members of mega-church congregations, an Islamic society, and Gurdjieff study groups. Her 20-year hiatus from Mormonism transforms her in powerful ways. A much different human being when she decides to return to her original religion, her clarity and unflinching honesty will encourage others to continue with their own personal odysseys.

Reflecting on Montaigne, Virginia Woolf remarked, "The most common actions-a walk, a talk, solitude in one's own orchard-can be enhanced and lit up by the association of the mind." In Quotidiana, Patrick Madden illuminates these common actions and seemingly commonplace moments, making connections that revise and reconfigure the overlooked and underappreciated.