Customer Reviews

The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2002

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Editor Dave Eggers explains that this inaugural edition of THE BEST AMERICAN NONREQUIRED READING 2002 is targeted for 15 to 25-year-olds. However, I can testify that individuals outside this predetermined age bracket can also gain enjoyment from this book. The wide variety of stories ranging from fiction to nonfiction satisfied me and kept me turning the pages. I enjoyed a great majority of the stories and only disliked two (which is rather remarkable considering that short story compilations seem to contain an equal share of winners and losers, in my own opinion.)

The journalistic entries were phenomenal and shed light on current events such as methamphetamine addiction in Asia, undocumented Mexican laborers in NYC, and Afghanistan soldiers fighting their civil war. Some of the comical pieces made me laugh out laugh such as "The Fourth Angry Mouse" and "My Fake Job" and The Onion entries were also notable (I'm already a fan of that publication.)

Sure, there were some stories intended for a 15 to 25-year-old audience but I could still relate even though it's been a decade since graduating high school. Who can forget what it's like during those delicate years? Overall, I very much enjoyed this book and will be looking forward to the 2003 edition.

I enjoyed most of the work in this compilation. I sort of wonder what the heck it was compiled for, but I I'm glad it was, since I would never have come across any of this stuff otherwise. Favorites include Rodney Rotham's hilarious "My Fake Job" and "The Nice New Radicals" by Seth Mnookin, a piece which I might argue SHOULD be required for some people. Eric Schlosser's "Why McDonald's Fries Taste So Good" was fascinating, but I seem to be the only person on the planet who hasn't already read his work. Many pieces discuss certain cultural struggles: good pieces, but why so many? One piece is "graphic" in both meanings of the word. I am glad it is included, if only to act as a precedent for other compilations. The only notably awful work is "Hubcap Diamondstar Halo" which is as difficult as its title. And even though most of the pieces were engaging, few of them have remained with me. Maybe you should get this book if you like magazines, but not enough to actually subscribe to them. Maybe you should get it if you have a short attention span, like me. Or maybe you shouldn't get it. Don't worry, it's not required.

This was a fascinating collection. Most of the "Best American" collections are straight forward. You have a good idea of what you're going to get, and if you are widely read in those subjects (sports writing, science writing, short stories, etc), you may have come across most of those essays/stories. In this first collection of Non-required reading, you get the best stories and essays that would never be assigned in school and are from alternative magazines (rather than the large respected newspapers like the New York Times). The pieces collected very from short fiction, to political essays, to a graphic story (as in a story told in comic panels), to humor. It is a varied collection and most of the work is top-notch (I was less impressed with "Hubcap Diamondstar Halo").

Some highlights are "Speed Demons", "Journal of a new COBRA recruit" (yes, COBRA as in from G.I. Joe....this may be my favorite of the collection), "My Fake Job", "Fourth Angry Mouse", "Why McDonald's Fries Taste So Good", the two short pieces from the Onion, "Higher Education", and "Bomb Scare" (Bomb Scare is the graphic story). Just browsing through the table of contents, I was able to list 9 pieces that I would highlight and recommend. If there was nothing else in the collection, that would be enough to recommend it. But, there are other quality pieces in this collection. If you want to read short pieces (both fiction and nonfiction) that you might not ordinarily run across every day, this is the collection for you.

This year the Best American Series created a new volume: The Best American Nonrequired Reading. Michael Cart (My Father's Scar) is the series editor, and Dave Eggers is the guest editor. And considering it's Eggers, this volume should do well. It contains some good stories and articles. What hurts it the most is a lack of continuity. It's hard to figure out just what falls into the category of 'nonrequired reading,' even after reading the introductions and the collection. It is a combination of fiction and essays, and seems to have a humourous and experimental slant. It also seems to be directed, as the editors say, to the younger generation, those that fall between 15 and 25 (but good essays and fiction are good for all ages). Most selections come from 'alternative' sources, but there are a few that first appeared in The New Yorker and Esquire and the likes. Still, it is tough to figure out exactly what the criteria for being chosen for this volume is. Even so, it is a good volume of work, well worth reading (like the Best American series tends to be).

The essays/articles in the volume cover a wide range. There is humor (Jenny Bitner's "The Pamphleteer"; Seth Mnookin's "The Nice New Radicals"; "Jiving With Your Teen" by Seaton Smith; and two selections from The Onion). There's an essay ("Generation Exile") about Tibet, drugs ("Speed Demons" which concerns methamphetamine use in Thai), illegal aliens (Kamber's "Toil and Temptation") and their adjustment to America. Sara Corbett's poignant essay "The Lost Boys" (from The New York Times Upfront) about refugees from Africa, and their culture shock and adjustment of coming to America (Minnesota no less). Eric Schlosser's "Why McDonald's Fries Taste So Good" is here. And there are the essays that don't quite fit (Finkel's essay from the New York Times Magazine about the battle in Afghanistan- pre Sept 11; Gary Smith's "Higher Education", which is an article from Sports Illustrated about a high school coach who comes to a small Mennonite community and opens their eyes and hearts ). Overall the essays shoot for a younger audience and one that is more Eco or Libertarian. I found the essays to be pretty weak, overall. There are some good ones, but these feel like rejects for the sister publication, Best American Essays.

And for fiction there is Sam Lipsyte's "Snacks" about a youth's alienation because of obesity; Elizabeth McKenzie's great story "Stop That Girl" which covers a child who feels she is being replaced by her mother's new husband and baby, and this story has a great ending; Keith Pille's "Journal of a New COBRA Recruit" from McSweeneys.net, which is a hilarious short about a youth joining COBRA (from G.I. Joe) and his training, and this one is very funny; Rodney Rothman's "My Fake Job" from The New Yorker is a hilarious account of a man pretending to work somewhere-you have to read it to truly appreciate it (and it caused a bit of controversy from the New Yorker; David Schickler's "Fourth Angry Mouse"; "Blood Poison" by Heidi Jon Schmidt (which contains a dark undercurrent, probably of molestation); the always hilarious Dave Sedaris with his "To Make a Friend, Be a Friend" from Esquire. The final two selections, both fiction, of the volume definitely fall under the experimental. Adrian Tomine's comic, "Bomb Scare" from Optic Nerve #8 is here. It is somewhat disjointed and the title doesn't fit, but it is a story of troubled teens. And then there are selections from "Please Don't Kill the Freshman" written by a h.s. freshman girl, who goes under the pseudonym `Zoe Trope.' This one is self published and pretty bad. Very disjointed, and once again, troubled teen. The fiction runs the range from the bad to the really good, but most fall in the middle range. They seem like the selections that didn't quite made the Best American Short Stories cut (except for Sedaris, Rothman, and Pille).

And there is just bad work in here: Camden Joy's "Hubcap Diamondstar Halo."

But the volume is only [$$$], and for your money, you do get some good reading in.

As a English, Philosophy, and Physics major at Boston College of the selected demographic for The Best American Non-Required Reading (I'm under 25)--I've found the material in the book highly pertinent to me. I would recommend this book for anyone who enjoyed Dave Eggers's A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. From Eggers's introduction beginning with a short story excerpted from his latest, You Shall Know Our Velocity, about late-night skinny dipping in pools across town, to the final innovative short story "Please Don't Kill the Freshman" by Zoe Trope, this truly is the best American non-required reading.

This book features a stunning range of subject and focus from the powerfully informative "Naji's Taliban Phase" from The New York Times Magazine to "Local Hipster Overexplaining Why He Was at the Mall" from The Onion, which, by the way, reminded me of some of my old friends from high school. Continuing with this humor, "'Jiving' with Your Teen" is probably one of the funniest things I've ever read, and I'm sure that it would appeal to older people too. I showed my friend who was interested in this book, "My Fake Job," based on a true story about the capriciousness of the dot-com era, in which a man occupies a cubicle at this downsizing dot-com company he pretendingly, but didn't actually work at, and my friend would not put the book down.

But the book does have many serious stories and articles such as "Snacks" about dealing with weight and body image, and "The Lost Boys" and "Toil and Temptation" about the troubles of immigration to the US and finding good work, for Sudanese refugees and impoverished Mexicans, respectively.

The compilation does have a couple weak points, such as with the "Journal of a New COBRA Recruit," which is supposed to be funny in it's parody of the senselessness of military service, but ends up going on a bit too long with the same joke and being a bit.... And also, the comic "Bomb Scare" at first caught my attention as a realistic account of high school life, but it ended up just being a clichéd story about a picked-on kid receiving sympathy from a popular girl who wants to change her partying lifestyle. But other than these two, there are twenty other short stories and articles that are dynamite. Just reading the beginning of "Marilyn Manson Now Going Door-to-Door Trying to Shock People" will have you laughing like you've never laughed before and hooked on this book.

With The Best American Nonrequired Reading, Dave Eggers (with the help of Michael Cart) has put together a dynamic collection impressed with his singular, ingeniously witty personality.

Some highlights of this collection are:

Higher Education, the profile of Reese Perry, an African American high school basketball coach who shows up in an all-white midwest small town and, through his altruistic love, transforms them from prejudiced tribalists to open-minded cosmopolitans, a heart-breaking essay.

Bomb Scare, a graphic or comic book style story of a high school where all the kids and their parents lack a moral compass and surrender to nihilism, the inability to transcend their self-centeredness.

Why McDonald's French Fries Taste So Good, an excerpt from Fast Food Nation, which explains how the food industry uses sinister science to secretly make us addicted to the chemicals the food companies put in our food.

Stop That Girl, a short story about a ten-year-old girl whose mother marries a rich man and ends up in a False Eden where playing house leaves her feeling abandoned and unloved.

My Fake Job, an essay in which Rodney Rothman simply walks into a tech office and feigns being an employee, an act of charlatinism that isn't questioned by anyone at the office, casting light on how these fly-by-night business operations are so disjointed and full of isolated employees who suffer so much transience and alienation as the employers don't commit to them in the slightest.

Toil and Temptation, an essay about a Mexican immigrant who slowly gets caught up in consumerism and becomes more of a slave in America than he ever was in Mexico.

If you're trying to decide between this book and the '03 edition, get the '03. This one's good, but contains far too many magazine articles and not enough fiction. The stories it does feature are mostly very short and pack nowhere near the punch of the '03 selections.

I tend to shy away from compilations, but this one, with its quirky cover art and selections from several of my favorite authors, got my attention, kept me interested and kept me laughing all the way through it.

"Bomb Scare," the comic book included inside alongside essays on McDonald's fries, the Onion article on Marilyn Manson, showed me that this was worthy of purchase. It's up there with the work of Daniel Clowes.

But the true gem, to me, was the COBRA-centered journal. Immediately, the book brought me back to the days of playing with my GI Joes and reminded me that, even then when I was 11, I wondered how on earth you could fund your own private army to do battle with a United States elite force. In addition, the journal explains why members of COBRA Command never knew how to shoot a gun and why they all wore masks. It was excellent.

Thanks, Dave Eggers. And go Joe!

This is a highly entertaining collection of essays that by and large deploy a humorous and discerning eye on modern American culture.

The three strongest essays are David Sedaris' hilarious discussion of the popular crowd in junior high school, an article from the Atlantic about how well engineered MacDonald's french fries and other processed foods are, and a beautiful extended story from Sports Illustrated about a black high school coach's ability to touch a rural community.

I rather liked the introductory story, though it doesn't really serve as an introduction. And unlike the other readers, I find anything from the Onion to be highly worthwhile.

very funny, very interesting. appeals to all ages. I find it more interesting being in college than i would have in highschool. the whole series is perfect to take on the bus/train or to sit on the park or on the beach for a half hour reading a few chapeters.