As a fan of N 1, I was really looking forward to this collection—but it ended up being lumpier than I expected.

For sure, there are some fantastic pieces included in the book. Elif Batuman's "Babel in California" is still incredibly funny, and a must-read if you haven't already seen it in her book The Possessed. Mark Grief's "Afternoon of the Sex Children" is one of the best, and most challenging Important Essays to come out in the last decade. Wesley Yang's "The Face of Seung-Hui Cho" is a searing look at male alienation shot through with racial considerations. And Lawrence Jackson's "Slickheads" inculcates you into its world through tremendous use of language.

But not every piece still stands out as strong after a decade running in the magazine. The "Intellectual Situation" pieces, electrifying at their time (and still one of my favorite parts of each new issue), now seem like artifacts of the cultural moments that produced them. They're interesting in that sense, at least, but don't really hold up as calls to action removed from their environs. Likewise, some of the other political pieces from early in the magazine (and they almost all are), seem a reaction to the Bush-era millieu. And quite frankly, some of the other novelistic essays fall flat in my eyes, like "Fish Rot" and "How to Quit".

Collections like this are often a guide to how a publication sees itself, and judging from this one, N 1 wants to be seen as an incubator of exciting new talent, and a fresh viewpoint from literary upstarts. This means setting aside the book reviews at the end of each issue—outstanding, thought-provoking stuff... but not quintessentially "N 1" enough to justify inclusion in the collection. The result is a book that doesn't quite capture everything I love about the magazine, but makes a compelling case for why you should read N 1 for the next decade. And for those of us who have loved the magazine for a while, it's a chance to rediscover some of your old favorites and a way to push them on others. ( )