The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2004 (The Best American Series) [Paperback]

Dave Eggers (Editor), Viggo Mortensen (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 14, 2004

Since its inception in 1915, the Best American series has become the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. For each volume, a series editor reads pieces from hundreds of periodicals, then selects between fifty and a hundred outstanding works. That selection is pared down to the twenty or so very best pieces by a guest editor who is widely recognized as a leading writer in his or her field. This unique system has helped make the Best American series the most respected -- and most popular -- of its kind.
Dave Eggers, who edits The Best American Nonrequired Reading annually, has once again chosen the best and least-expected contemporary fiction, nonfiction, satire, investigative reporting, alternative comics, and more from publications large, small, and on-line -- Zoetrope, Tin House, the Atlantic Monthly, Bomb, SPX, the New York Times, Texas Monthly, GQ, Iowa Review, Esquire, and others. Read on for "some of the best literature you haven't been reading . . . and it's fantastic. All of it" (St. Petersburg Times).

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Eggers explains this series, now in its third year: "The purpose of this book is to collect good work of any kind—fiction, humor, essays, comics, journalism—in one place, for the English-reading consumer." The editor founded a San Francisco writing lab, where Bay Area high school students "seek out back issues of periodicals, make copies of things they like, and bring them in for everyone to read," and it's these selections that make up this hodgepodge. With subject matter ranging from clowns and popes to transsexualism and zoanthropy, this is an assemblage of diverse delights from Web sites, literary magazines and the mainstream press, with small-circulation publications getting a bigger boost than in previous volumes. Contributors include David Mamet, David Sedaris, Christopher Buckley and Michelle Tea. Mortensen's introduction, one of the strongest contributions, is a haunting lament for lost words, a "painful sense of losing ideas," after his backpack of journals and screenplays is stolen. The book is a zesty bouillabaisse of nonrequired reading that should be required, and Adrian Tomine's multi-paneled cover illustration effectively captures its essence.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

With the help of a group of teenage readers, Eggers has collected an eclectic mix of short fiction, magazine features, and a couple of comics in the third annual edition of the series. This collection manages to be meatier than its predecessors--fewer Onion articles, more New Yorker stories--without sacrificing the series' commitment to engaging reads. The fiction ranges from Daniel Alarcon's brilliant "City of Clowns," which follows a young reporter in Lima researching a story on clowns in the wake of his father's death, to Christopher Buckley's outlandish "We Have a Pope," in which an amoral publicist tries to build enthusiasm for electing an American pope. Equally compelling are such nonfiction pieces as "Transmissions from Camp Trans," a travelogue of an annual transsexual protest/social event/party in Michigan that was originally published in the Eggers-funded Believer. Aside from the rambling, borderline-incoherent introduction by Lord of the Ringsster Viggo Mortensen, there's not a weak piece in this anthology, and with Eggers' name and such solid selections, this volume will appeal to more than the usual fans of story anthologies. John Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (October 14, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618341234
• ISBN-13: 978-0618341238
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #969,022 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars it's just average, March 31, 2005

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Sparrow (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2004 (The Best American Series) (Paperback)

This was my first "Best American" book, so I wasn't sure what to expect. To be sure, some of the stories just blew me away, but as a whole, I just wasn't impressed by this collection. If I were to reduce my description of this book to "hits" and "misses," I'd have to say that there were fewer "hits." And in the middle of the book is a strange, and I feel unnecessary, illustrated story (?). I had to force myself to finish the book, and when I did, I was delighted to move on to something else. You won't be missing out if you skip this one.

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not as good as the last two, March 12, 2005

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Nostalgianaut "Butako" (Tokyo) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2004 (The Best American Series) (Paperback)

I distinctly remembering receiving a card in the mail that promised Haruki Murakami would have a piece in this book. Instead of Murakami we got Vigo. I don't know, maybe having Mortenson's piece helped sell the book, but It depressed me to have a well-paid movie star as a highlight of this collection, no matter how literary he may be. The last two collections were far more down to earth and genuinely interesting and the introduction by Eggers, although it did crack me up a few times, seemed like he was running out of steam and covering it up with precociousness. It's not that Vigo's essay was bad or anything but why should I care more for his lost notebook of poetry than I would for someone who's been writing poetry all their life and has a much crappier day job and will never ever have the chance to be published in this book. There were less selections this time from regular Joe writers and more from established literary types and just not enough variety. The best two pieces in this book are the one on happiness and the runner from Rwanda. Anyway, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for next time.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Bad Number in a Good Series, October 16, 2008

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CJA "CJA" (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2004 (The Best American Series) (Paperback)

This is a good series that I, generally, highly recommend for its fresh new fiction and offbeat nonfiction writing. But this is not a good number in the series.

This collection has two introductions -- never a good sign. Introductions are never really good, and these two, well, reek.

Two pieces redeem the collection. "Big Brother" is an extraordinary short story that is at once very funny and very sad. It touches on issues of race, sex, parenthood, and carrying on with life in the face of death. It's a terrific story that should have been collected in the year's best stories. The other good piece is David Sedaris' very funny story about his adolescence.

Not sure these two stories can justify buying the whole collection, but they certainly won't disappoint.