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Loading... The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2007 (The Best American Series)by Dave Eggers
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. well worth it for David Morris - the big suck; Conan O'Brien - commencement speech; and Nam Le - love and honor (  )revslick | Sep 10, 2008 |   The Best American Non-Required Reading is an anthology compiled by Dave Eggars and the high school students involved in 826 Valencia, his non-profit program to promote reading and writing. It is a good book to read if only because it benefits these kids and this great program. But there is plenty of good stuff in BANR 2007 to make it well worth the price of admission. The anthology is made up of short stories, essays, and various types of short writing that were published in 2007. These pieces range from relatively frivolous ‘best of’ lists to serious essays and journalism from some of the most tragic situations in the world. The fiction standout has got to be Miranda July’s “How to tell stories to children,” which is a really interesting representation of July’s work. July made a big splash in 2007 with her collection of short stories, of which this is one. Also well worth mentioning is Jennifer Egan’s “Selling the General,” a short piece about a washed-up public relations pioneer who scores a gig softening the image of a ruthless dictator. On the nonfiction side of the collection, there are several very good pieces. David J. Morris’ article, “The Big Suck” is an incredible picture of action in the current Iraq war. Morris is a former Marine who presents a more literary view of the war that cuts to the harrowing nature of the experience without becoming a glorification of violence. Scott Carrier contributes an article called “Rock the Junta,” a stunning piece about a rock band in Myanmar, a country currently ruled by a dictatorship that exerts thought control of Orwellian proportions upon its citizens. The ironies and contradictions Carrier digs up are incredible. The BANR collections are always well worth the read and perfect for commutes. The 2007 edition is no exception, and has introduced me to several new writers who I will be looking for in 2008. (  )shawnr | Jul 13, 2008 | I'll be honest, the only reason I bought this was that Sufjan Stevens wrote the introduction. I figured he wouldn't lead me astray. Overall, it has a good variety of writing, and I enjoyed almost every piece. I did feel that it could have been stronger, though that could just be because of the extraordinarily wide variety of material included (so it would be hard for a single person to absolutely love every piece). I'll definitely be picking up older/newer editions, with hopes that the two or three pieces that I didn't like in this edition won't be replicated. hotknives | Apr 21, 2008 | I got hooked on this great annual collection last year, and this year's installment was an excellent edition. Many, many authors were showcased, both known and unknown, and it certainly contains many of the best short stories and current event pieces around. (  )cinesnail88 | Dec 16, 2007 | I found this edition to be weaker than years past. There were only a handful of stories that I found enjoyable, although I could see the quality of the writing in some of the other pieces. (  )paghababian | Nov 26, 2007 | 0.051 seconds to build listing
Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0618902813, Paperback)From "Q & A" by Dave EggersA group of senators and assemblypersons were pressing The Best American Nonrequired Reading on a number of questions relating to the collection, so we decided to kill that stone in the shape of an introduction in the shape of a Q & A. Who are they, the Nonrequired committee's members who decide on things in this collection? They are high school students from all over the San Francisco Bay Area. Are they touched by some kind of divine light? The question is a good one. There is rampant speculation on the subject. Are they all great-looking and charming and well dressed? Yes. All of them, and especially Felicia Wong, who can even make her own clothes. I have a question about the process by which the entries in this collection are chosen. Is it scientific? The process by which The Best American Nonrequired Reading is put together is not scientific. It is whatever one would consider the opposite of scientific. Creationist? Well, no, it's not creationist either. The point is that we are probably a bit less top-to-bottom thorough than, say, the Army Corps of Engineers. Well, actually, scratch that. We are probably about exactly as thorough as the Army Corps of Engineers, in that we are intermittently thorough. What is your opinion and the committee's opinion of the state of short stories and small magazines and other periodicals? This is a good time. It really is. More specifically? Not all of us Americans appreciate the fact that we have about 150 very good quarterlies in this country. Every state seems to have a very good quarterly, and about a hundred colleges have very good quarterlies — from the Kenyon Review to the University of Illinois's Ninth Letter. So by our estimate there are about 150 very good quarterlies in this country. Maybe more. Now, the thing we don't always appreciate here in America is that elsewhere in the world there are few to no quarterlies. How does it feel to select something for the collection that you found in an unlikely place? It feels so good. This year, for example, at the last moment we found "Humpies" by Mattox Roesch. It was published by Agni Online, and we all loved it, and here it is, ideally able to reach a new audience. We all took pleasure in finding that one; the mandate of the committee is to find the offbeat and the lesser-known and bring these pieces to our readers, most of whom have great skin and bad eyes. (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:16 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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