Customer Reviews

The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2005

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I'm a fan of short stories and essays in general because I tend to finish a good 60 to 70% of the ones I start. Contrast that to novels and non-fiction monographs, where, secondary to undertreated ADHD and a busy schedule, I probably complete less than 10% of books I start. That's okay, I like accumulating books with bookmarks a third of the way in. An unfinished book is like a totem, a sacred symbol of potential wisdom, something to anticipate. But still, there is something satisfying and confidence boosting about reading something completely in one sitting.

I like this series, the adolescents we are told do the selections must have a keen eye for talent. Unlike other reviewers, I was not bothered by some of the overlap, in particular multiple stories about sibling rivalry. It's a pretty big theme in the lives of most people with siblings, and its effects resonate in multiple realms of our relationships and interactions. Perhaps it's closer to the surface for the Bay area teenagers who made these selections. That's fine. Personally, I'm glad they didn't throw out any of these stories in the name of variety and balance. Oh, by the way, have you gotten into Sudoku yet? You really should.

I particularly enjoyed Molly McNett's work, I hope we'll hear more from her, as well as the contributions by Franken, Saunders, Vollmann, Dickinson, and Boudinot. Big fan, big fan. So far, 2005 is the best edition of this series.

The fourth edition of David Eggers Best American Nonrequired Reading is an impressive collection of twenty four of the year's finest fiction, essays, and memoirs. Culled from a mountain of publications and assembled by a group of teenagers at Eggers' 826 Valencia; a non-profit writing lab, drop-in tutoring center and the Bay Area's only independent pirate supply shop, this collection is a refreshing approach to modern American literature.
Covering a huge spread of interests and emotions Best American has everything from William T. Vollmann's (The Came Out Like Ants!) search for subterranean Chinese casinos and opium dens hidden under the streets of Mexicali since the nineteenth century to the almost familiar lives of Douglas Trevor (Girls I Know) and Ryan Boudinot (Free Burgers For Life). Completely devoid of clichés and tired literary devices every page of the genre-less Best American will have you awaiting next year's collection.

Reading Dave Egger's ingratiating and irritatingly self-flattering Foreword to this volume (why is it, even when he's talking about others, that Dave Eggers is always talking about himself?), one hopes desperately that he is being ironic when he says that the pieces in the anthology were selected by a group of high-school students. Unfortunately, he appears to have been telling the truth. This is arguably the worst of the Best American Nonrequired Reading series, though the competition is pretty stiff. Maybe 2005 was just a lousy year for writing. Maybe we shouldn't be expected to pay full price to read stories and essays that appealed to high-school students. Maybe Dave Eggers really can't tell decent writing from drivel. Or maybe all three.

I would save exactly two pieces from this book: Aimee Bender's "Tiger Mending" and Stephanie Dickinson's "A Lynching in Stereoscope," both of which are marvelous. The rest of the book ranges from decidedly not marvelous to aggravating, self-referential, and banal. When you get to the last four pieces (Jonathan Tel's "The Myth of the Frequent Flier," Douglas Trevor's "Girls I Know," William T. Vollman's "They Came Out Like Ants," and Lauren Weedman's "Diary of a Journal Reader"), you realize you're deep in the Swamp of Complacencies that is the province of graduate-writing programs and of writers like Eggers and the McSweeney crowd: too clever by half, damn impressed with themselves and, at base, utterly uninterested in readers. Writing, for them, is an essentially masturbatory act that precludes an other.

I'd put Beck's Introduction, as superficial and trivial a piece of writing as you'll ever find, into the same category. It is apparently included in BANR 2005 solely for the "cool factor" bona fides that someone like Beck could provide in 2005 and not because Beck has a single intelligent or interesting observation to make about writing. Plus, Beck was about to feature Eggers on his next album, so hey: One hand washes the other, high up there in the Hiposphere. And that seems to be Eggers all over: so doggone determined to be "alternative" that he becomes, numbingly, the same as everything else.

I love most of the "Best American" series, but I eagerly look forward to the "Nonrequired Reading" title. This volume is one of the best, with wonderful, quirky, hard to find stories that range all over the place. Selected by high schoolers, it gives me hope for the future that this is what our youth find of interest.

I did not enjoy this book at all. I found it in the bargain bin at my local Borders (pity they are closing!), and thought it might be interesting reading. I am usually not interested in this sort of thing, but I bought it anyway, thinking I might change my mind. Well, I'm sorry to report that I haven't.

Some of the stories are quite good, but they are far and few apart. I liked "Lynching in Stereoscope" and a couple others, but for the most part, I could not find myself encouraged to keep reading after a couple pages of each story. I did get through all of them and gave them all a chance, but at the close of nearly all, no real impression was left on me, except that I had wasted my money.

The nonsense about Captain Rick in the introduction goes nowhere, nor does it reappear in any form elsewhere in the book. (Maybe it's a trait of the series, but if that's the case, it isn't a very good one.) Beck's intro is forgettable. The stories are too overwhelmed with unnecessary details that bog them down, the characters too broadly drawn and sometimes too alike, and I hardly ever enjoyed the various styles. If this is America's BEST nonrequired reading, I shudder to think what didn't make it into the book...

The cover art is also unappealing.

This gives me no hope for American writing. If it was meant to showcase weak writing and the failings of public education, then the volume nearly did its job. I will not buy another book in this series.

The book arrived in a timely manner and was just as advertised. I also really enjoyed reading it.