The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2007 [Paperback]

Dave Eggers (Editor), Sufjan Stevens (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 10, 2007 | Series: Best American Nonrequired Reading (Book 2007)

From "Q & A" by Dave Eggers A 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.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This lively latest volume of "The Best American Nonrequired Reading" boasts the best in fiction, nonfiction, alternative comics, screenplays, blogs, and "anything else that defies categorization" --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

DAVE EGGERS is the editor of McSweeney’s and a cofounder of 826 National, a network of nonprofit writing and tutoring centers for youth, located in seven cities across the United States. He is the author of four books, including What Is the What and How We Are Hungry.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (October 10, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618902813
• ISBN-13: 978-0618902811
• Product Dimensions: 5.4 x 1.1 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #653,670 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

57 of 63 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Too Many Cooks Not Doing Their Job October 16, 2007

By SORE EYES

Format:Paperback

I've really enjoyed Best American Non-Required in the past and looked forward to this year's edition. The last few years the series has contained some of the best reading I've come across. But this year's edition is off. While the stories and articles in these books have always been chosen by high school students in Dave Egger's writing programme, the content has always been relevant for a general audience and chosen from a broad range of journals. But the 2007 edition is plainly something that would only appeal to high school students. It's full of banal lists, graphic comics, stories with lines like "The car gleamed throughout the day and into the night as we drank beer purchased from stores that let teenage drivers of gleaming cars buy beer. We drank more beer at each stop, in each new neighborhood:..." This isn't good writing. There are a few good stories in here, but even the stories I liked contained elements which clearly appeal to high school students. "How To Tell Stories to Children" is good, but its central character is coming of age and therefore relateable to the committe that chose it. It's a great story made less appealing by the stories it was collected with.

"What Is Your Dangerous Idea" was a great book, full of bite-sized, provocative essays. Unfortunately Best American Non-Required 2007 copied a dozen or more of these essays for it's pages, filling up about a fifth of the book. I'd like to make some comments about kids in high school padding assignments, but that seems mean. My point is, why buy a book full of another book? If "What is Your Dangerous Idea" was good enough to fill up a sizeable portion of Best American, why not just buy "What is Your Dangerous Idea"? The whole point of being an editor is that you choose the best. One essay from Dangerous would have been appropriate. Dave Eggers and his students need to realise their job is to edit, cull, cut down and give us the cream.

I don't know what happened this year but I am very disappointed. I read the biographies of the students chosen to pick stories this year and they all seem like the kind of kids trying to pad their college applications with lots of superachievements. Maybe these people aren't the best judges of good writing. Maybe too many cooks spoil the pot. Who knows? But whatever the case, Best American Non-Required Reading 2007 is definitely non-required for good reason.

P.S. I liked the introduction by Sufjan Stevens, but the "interview" with Dave Eggers was off-putting. Is anyone else growing tired of his sarcasm? It's so old. New act please.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Reading, Period February 11, 2008

By CV Rick

Format:Paperback

I love anthologies for a couple of reasons: the stories or articles are easily read in a short sitting and no matter how it was edited I usually find a couple of pieces I like. Today I'm writing about one that sets a whole new standard. The Best American Nonrequired Reading of 2007, edited by Dave Eggers produced not just a couple of passable stories, but an entire volume of the most thought-provoking powerful writing I've ever encountered.

The premise is simple - San Francisco high school students scour through literary magazines, independent publications, and on-line journals for articles, stories, vignettes, and memoirs that they consider the best. They share their findings with each other and with their editor, Dave Eggers, until they've parsed it down to a few pieces to publish in this NonRequired Reading volume.

Who would've thought that high schools students would have the ability to spot stories to move me emotionally. Me, a jaded forty-one year old man who heaps cynicism on top of his morning cereal the way some spoon out blueberries, or sugar. But they did. Story after article after first-hand account all pulled emotions from me and sat stewing in my mind for days afterward. There wasn't a bad one in the bunch.

The first section is assorted lists and memes, which I consider filler. It was fun I suppose, but the heart of the book lies in Section Two.

The best of it all was from my all-time favorite essayist, Scott Carrier. He weaves an account of his time in Burma before the crackdown. When reading it I was struck by the obvious - how could we have been surprised?

After that brilliance the next story that caused me to ponder for days after reading was by Lee Klein. He put our entire society into perspective with the most amazing sports essay I can remember reading since Joyce Carol Oates wrote about Mike Tyson. His All Aboard the Bloated Boat: Arguments in Favor of Barry Bonds is required reading for anyone complaining about unfair competition in sports.

Another favorite was by Stephen Elliott who knows what it's like to be a thirteen year old boy, homeless, sleeping wherever misfortune allows, and by reading Where I Slept, I feel as if I have some understanding as well.

Others that stand out: Joshua Clark brings the reader into New Orleans first hand for the disaster. It's terrifying and mesmerizing simultaneously. James Ames, a reporter from Spin penned a piece about being out of place at GothicFest 2005. In it he comes to an understanding of a new culture and appreciates it for what it is, not for how it's similar to what he knows. Alison Bechdel's graphic comic tragedy is one of the finest pieces of writing I've seen in comic book form. Well-known writer, Jennifer Egan was included with a piece of short fiction, Selling the General, that satirizes our P.R. obsession and makes me want to pick up one of her books. Also, Miranda July weaves a story as well-crafted and surprising as any I've read this year in How to Tell Stories to Children. Finally Conan O'Brien's commencement speech to Stuyvesant High School is the best of its kind I ever heard.

Here is the table of contents from the Book's Second Section.

Jonathan Ames. Middle-American Gothic
Alison Bechdel. A Happy Death
D. Winston Brown. Ghost Children
Scott Carrier. Rock the Junta
Joshua Clark. American
Edge Foundation. What Is Your Dangerous Idea?
Jennifer Egan. Selling the General
Stephen Elliott. Where I Slept
Kevin A. González. Lotería
Miranda July. How to Tell Stories to Children
Matthew Klam. Adina, Astrid, Chipewee, Jasmine
Lee Klein. All Aboard the Bloated Boat: Arguments in Favor of Barry Bonds
Nam Le. Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice
Jen Marlowe, Aisha Bain, and Adam Shapiro. Darfur Diaries
David J. Morris. The Big Suck: Notes from the Jarhead Underground
Conan O'Brien. Stuyvesant High School Commencement Speech
Mattox Roesch. Humpies
Patrick Somerville. So Long, Anyway
Joy Williams. Literature Unnatured

- CV Rick, February 2008

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Dissecting narratives February 17, 2008

By Mary E. Sibley VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

Sufjan Stevens tells amusingly of his Rudolf Steiner childhood in the introduction. By third grade Stevens was attending public school and couldn't read. A teacher explained how we are surrounded by words.

Goth is dying, most bands are industrial, an informant tells Jonathan Ames in his piece entitled 'Middle-American Gothic'. The graphic story by Alison Bechdel concerning a father's intentional or accidental death is engrossing. D. Winston Brown, in 'Ghost Children', opines that time can transform violence.

Burma, the size of Texas, called Myanmar, is a place of absolute government control. Scott Carrier, 'Rock the Junta', claims he lied on his visa application to get into the country. Incipient consumerism, a condition he has encountered in other parts of the world, confronts him as he goes in quest of political truths. Foucault described the effects of surveillance. The Burmese poeple, it is asserted, suffer from surveillance.

In the main, women are empathizers and men are synthesizers, (from 'What is Your Dangerous Idea?'). Query--will human beings understand the universe, ever? Reasonably considered, scientific knowledge may be pursued only for its practical applications. In 1900 most inventions involved physical reality. In 2005 they revolve upon virtual entertainment. Today a technological elite owns the country's intellectual property.

Stephen Elliott, 'Where I Slept', had been a known drug user and eighth grade drinker. At least two characters in this collection wear sleeping masks. In 'How to Tell Stories to Children' two of the characters determine that they have forty minutes before the perishables perish and so they have time for tea.

Lee Klein, in 'All Aboard the Bloated Boat' compares Barry Bonds to Jimi Hendrix. Maybe Bonds in a scapegoat. An NGO, Darfur, a mission to make a record of the evolving crisis reveals that the emptiness of the region is disconcerting. Airplanes are referred to Antonovs, (Russian). The marauders are the Janjaweed.

The jarhead underground is a tale of Marines. In 2006 there are shifts in the action. In Iraq information is tribal. Control of Fallujah is turned over to an Iraqi brigade. Then the Marines are called upon to deal with the insurgents.

The collection is a joy. Basically it is a clutch of the products of youngish, cospmopolitan, emerging writers.