From The New Yorker of April 27, 2009
Best sentence of the week:
<<Nearly everything Poe wrote, including the spooky stories for which he is best remembered, has this virtuosic, showy, lilting, and slightly wilting quality, like a peony just past bloom.>>
from "The Humbug" by Jill Lepore
Reasons: the serial adjectives, the rhyme, and the simile
*
Worst of the week:
<< Just because the anonymous Euro-techno group Eiffel 65 was on the charts for only one stretch in 2000 does not mean that its mission was not accomplished. >>
from "Ladies Wild" by Sasha Frere-Jones
Reasons: the double negative and the trivial nature of the observation
Readers are encouraged to submit their own nominees for best and worst sentence of the week.