Customer Reviews

The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2006 (The Best American Series)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Not resting on their laurels, the BANR editors have devised a more creative approach for 2006 including sections "Best American Headlines" (from The Onion); "Best American Daily Show Exchange on the Anniversary of Watergate" (from Jon Stewart discussion with Stephen Colbert); Best American Answers to the Question "What Do You Believe Is True Even Though You Cannot Prove It?" (scientists and philosophers reveal their beliefs); "Best American First Sentences of Novels of 2005"; "Best American New Words and Phrases." You can see from these titles that BANR is going beyond its usual stories and essays. Other highlights include:

Cat Bohannon. Shipwreck. A short story about a death cult that preserves corpses and draws huge art crowds, a meditation on our inability to deal with our mortality.

Judy Bunitz. Nadia. A short story about a man who orders a mail order bride.

A Soldier's Thoughts. An American soldier blogs about the despair of being trapped in the quagmire of the Iraq war.

Tom Downey. The Insurgent's Tale. A profile of an insurgent who begans to have scruples about the bloodshed he is causing against the Iraqi people, a great complement to "A Soldier's Thoughts."

George Saunders. The New Mecca. A diary style account of Saunders' trip to Dubai where he witnesses the excess of an opulent dystopia built on the backs of slave labor. The excess grotesqueries complement David Foster Wallace's famous boat cruise essay "A Supposedly Fun Thing I Would Never Do Again."

Julia Sweeney. Letting Go of God? Saturday Night Live performer's famous critique of religion.

Sam Shaw. Peg. A short story about a husband and wife who, having nothing to live for but materialism, retreat into an insane world.

Haruki Murakami. The Kidney-Shaped Stone That Moves Every Day. Another fabulous fable by Murakami about the elusiveness of relationships.

Kurt Vonnegut. Here Is A Lesson in Creative Writing. A satire about the lame formulas for teaching the writing of fiction.

I have read two of the other books in this series and loved them. Unfortunately, the 2006 edition does not include the diverse range of subject matter that the other editions have included. For reasons which are not explained in the introduction by Matt Groening, 80 percent of the material in the 2006 edition is from writers trying to make a simplistic point about the Middle East. There are soldier blogs, reviews of luxury hotels in Dubai, stories about terrorists-all with the theme that "we're all the same" in the "we-just-want-to-love-our-family-make-a-living" kind of way. It's a message that any sensitive, well-read person who isn't spending their summers at Jesus Camp would know. And if you aren't a sensitive and well-read person, you aren't going to be picking up this book. The editors are guilty of preaching to the converted.

A lot of the writing here is mediocre. The pieces have been chosen because they fit a theme, not because they are original or well written. I would have preferred one or two pieces regarding Dave Eggers and Matt Groening's point on humanity and then some other pieces which were capable of provoking OTHER types of thought. George Saunders brings us a story about the "New Mecca"- Dubai. He writes about the thousands of workers from India and Vietnam who have been imported to this new paradise. But do I want to read a story about oppressed workers from the point of view of a writer who describes himself and his wife as having a "hobby of maxing out all credit cards in sight"? Or a writer who is interested in Dubai because his editors are willing to pay $1500 a night for him to experience "heaven" at the Durj Al Arab hotel? Ummm, NO!

There are a FEW other subjects in this book, but again-the stories seem to be emphasizing a point to the people that already believe it. I was really disappointed to find I had already read many of the stories and pieces in this edition. Eggers and Groening didn't go far in their attempt to bring me unique reading.

Still, I look forward to the 2007 edition.

I just love when the holiday season comes around each year. Is it the food? The generosity? The family time? Partially, but the holiday season is when the Best Americans come out! I read several of them, but my favorite has been Non-Required reading ever since its first incarnation. It was an Onion article that earned my devotion, the one about Marilyn Manson going door to door trying to shock people. Have you ever feared dying from laughter? I have.

This edition, like all the others increased my awareness of the world and my own relation to it. Which brings me to the first shout out. David Foster Wallace, who's written a lot of stuff that I just couldn't get into (Infinity and Beyond, anyone?), contributed a commencement speech that he gave at Kenyon in 2005. It blew my mind wide open. The students in my high school English class are always asking me why I am always smiling. I just kind of took it as rhetorical, but now I understand my own development, thanks to DFW. When I was in high school, I did not smile very much. Actually, I was extremely bitter and hostile. The fact was, it made me mad that life wasn't exactly the way I thought it should be. Since high school, I have gotten to the point where I recognize how fortunate I am compared to other people, and I am serene to the point of bafflement. I don't know if I'd have gotten to this place without my college education, but I'm sure it catalyzed the process.

Vonnegut's writing lessons were hilarious, Sweeney's religious meanderings were full of wonderful precision of language (reminding me of Kevin Smith's Dogma), and Saunders's fluctuating feelings about the Xtreme luxury of Dubai were an insight into how the disparity of wealth in the world affects people. I also enjoyed Rakoff's ambivalent conversion to American citizenship.

Murakami's story was a great modern parable about love, Lewis's essay said a lot about the insidious distrust of African-Americans that came to the surface during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and Downey's sympathetic tale of an Al Qaeda soldier's journey illustrates the sentiment that in every conflict, each combatant always believes that he is right.

And I loved the new stuff: the best first lines, the best new words, and especially the best facts about Chuck Norris!

As with any BANR, there were some pieces not to my taste, but on the whole, it has yet to disappoint.

I've been reading the Nonrequired Reading since its first volume, and it is usually one of my favorites of the series, but, much like this year's essay collection, this is the worst I've seen yet. I love Matt Groening, but his introduction just seemed pointless. Eggers has a new format, with his best new words, band names, fake headlines, etc. basically section one is a waste of trees. In fact, most in this volume is a waste of time and energy and ink. The only things worth reading are the Onion headlines, the excerpt from the military blog, Downey's Rolling Stone piece, "The Insurgent's Tale," which helps to humanize and somewhat better understand jihadist, Michael Lewis's "Wading Toward Home" a piece about New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina, Murakami's short story, Jeff Parker's short story, Rakoff's story of becoming a citizen, Joe Sacco's comic, Saunders fluff piece on Dubai, Julia Sweeney's "Letting Go of God, and finally, the masterful Kurt Vonnegut. But over half the book isn't worth reading. I hope next year's edition is back up to the standard Eggers set early in the series.

Whenever I read a Best of Series book, only a few stories/essays grab me, and this is the eclectic nature of anthologies. In Best-of books all writing is high quality, but what interests the writer and me is hit and miss.

Yet I found almost seventy percent of BNR 2006 excellent. The graphic entries all great, I've read Delisle's Pyongyang, it is up there with Spiegelman's Maus, but the other two I had never heard of and found both very provocative - Joe Sacco & Gipi. The Best American Excerpt from a Military Blog is a tearjerker, and the Chuck Norris Facts as well as the Onion headlines are funny. My prose favorites came from Tom Downey, The Lincoln Group, Julia Sweeney, and Vonnegut. On the questionable end, I'm glad to have the opportunity to read the 26 pages of the Iraqi Constitution, but..., it does not make very compelling reading. And perhaps too many of the essays or excerpts made a one-sided statement about our involvement in the Middle East. This is fascinating stuff, and though Tom Downey's 'The Insurgent's Tale' perhaps is the most provocative piece of the bunch, it also made me wonder why the book as a whole seemed unable to come down a little harder, or examine, both sides. I somehow felt the author gave the insurgent a pass at times.

Four and a half stars.

A good collection of quick, often hilarious short pieces from some well-known (and some less-well-known) authors. It is of undeniably Eggers-ian dimensions, and worth the price of admissions for DFW's "Kenyon Commencement Speech" alone.

I first became a Dave Eggers fan after getting into McSweeney's thanks to an NPR review. I'm actually not retirement age, listening to NPR, but a 20 year old college student. This book is great because I can read it in short spurts, like before class starts, and not really lose the focus of an intense novel. Also, the stories in this edition are truly riveting- the tale of a "freedom fighter", a future "Body Works" corpse- and yet some just make your face light up- the best fake headlines, courtesy of The Onion, random first lines of books. Overall, this is random, but a great cross section of pop culture. Weird? yes. Nonrequired? It's so good, it should be required.

What a fantastic idea for a book! I feel like I'm catching up on a year's worth of reading with this one compilation. It covers so many subjects, you will feel pretty darn good about yourself by the time you're done. I especially like that you can skip around. This is a series worth exploring. I also like the cover -- it reminds me of 70s album cover art.

I would say one fifth of the material is not so good or just bad. The rest is good to great! This stuff is really CONTEMPORARY. It's about our lives and times and it is sure to make you think. These comments do apply to all the other volumes in the series (starting in 2002), which I all read and enjoyed.

This is a good enough read mostly for the fact that you can skip whatever you don't care enough about and read only what peaks your interest. It's even better if you did like me and got it from the library.

The first section is good with all the Onion articles and Daily Show transcript. Then I also enjoyed Julia Sweeney's essay about letting go of God like he was almost an imaginary friend. Also, The Innocents and one or two of the other comics were good. False Cognate as well, was superbly done. And Kurt Vonnegut, c'mon, the man could find something interesting to say about parting your hair, let alone creative writing, which he did know quite a bit about. The best was the diagram of Kafka.

Too many of the stories unfortunately deal with Iraq and the Middle East in general, however, and this is the part I meant when you are able to skip over uninteresting parts. This is no doubtdue to the selection committee is mostly high school area kids from the Bay Area. You take that impressionable age group and you throw in a democratic selection process so everyone gets a say, you're going to wind up with a message along the lines of "Uh, this is like real important to us, man. Cuz". Yeah, you kiddies mean well, but teenagers, if you're going to attempt vague hippie-esque techniques, don't forget the dope, guns, and f'ing in the streets.