The New Kings of Nonfiction (Paperback)

~ Ira Glass (Editor) "On September 20, 2000, the Securities and Exchange Commission settled its case against a fifteen-year-old high-school student named Jonathan Lebed..." (more)
Key Phrases: command council, political talk radio, spot load, John Ziegler, World War, Jonathan Lebed (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

We're living in an age of great nonfiction writing, says Glass, the host of the radio program This American Life, who picks out 14 of his favorite journalistic features from writers who are entertainers in the best sense of the word, unafraid to insert their personal perspective into the stories they're telling. The collection really is front-loaded with kings—with Susan Orlean and Coco Henson Scales the only female journalists included, despite any number of valid candidates. There's a greater problem with the anthology than its unintentional chauvinism, though. Far from new, many of its components are more than a decade old—Lawrence Weschler's Shapinsky's Karma dates to the mid-1980s—and several have already been published in other books, like the Malcolm Gladwell article that became a chapter in The Tipping Point or an extract from Bill Buford's Among the Thugs. That's not to say that the articles (and their authors) don't deserve the admiration Glass heaps upon them. The way that Michael Lewis teases out the family drama in the story of a teenage day trader who ran afoul of the SEC, for example, is breathtaking reportage and should be read and reread. For all its excellence, though, this anthology is less revelatory than it makes itself out to be. (Oct. 2)
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Product Description

A collection of stories-some well known, some more obscure-capturing some of the best storytelling of this golden age of nonfiction.

An anthology of the best new masters of nonfiction storytelling, personally chosen and introduced by Ira Glass, the producer and host of the award-winning public radio program This American Life.

These pieces-on teenage white collar criminals, buying a cow, Saddam Hussein, drunken British soccer culture, and how we know everyone in our Rolodex-are meant to mesmerize and inspire.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 455 pages
• Publisher: Riverhead Trade (October 2, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594482675
• ISBN-13: 978-1594482670
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #27,790 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Collected For A Purpose, February 21, 2008

By	SORE EYES - See all my reviews

I love This American Life on NPR and was excited to discover this collection of essays assembled by the intelligent and original Ira Glass. I have always loved the viewpoint in Ira's broadcasts and looked forward to discovering the essays and writers he considered worthwhile.

This is an excellent collection of non-fiction. I won't use the term "literary non-fiction" because Ira Glass hates the term. (...I'm a snob when it comes to that phrase. I think it's for losers. It's pretentious, for one thing, and it's a bore. Which is to say, it's exactly the opposite of the writing it's trying to describe.)

I will agree with other reviewers here that complained that they came across some of these essays before and therefore the collection did not seem fresh. Ira writes that "some of the stories are very well known" but were included because the writers were trying to document remarkable experiences and the stories were "built around original reporting of one sort of another." You should view the stories in this book as a whole, even if you might have come across a few of them before. There is merit in assembling these stories in a collection which becomes evident after you finish the book. This story collection works because Ira is able to spot that certain something in a story or style or reporting that is original-but not novel, entertaining-but humane. You're purchasing the vision of Ira Glass in The New Kings of Non-Fiction and it's worth every penny if it were quadruple the price.

Stories included:
Johnathan Lebed's Extracurricular Activities - Michael Lewis
Toxic Dreams: A California Town Finds Meaning In An Acid Pit - Jack Hitt
Six Degrees of Lois Weisberg - Malcolm Gladwell
Shapinsky's Karma - Lawrence Weschler
The American Man, Age Ten - Susan Orlean
Among The Thugs - Bill Buford
Crazy Things Seem Normal, Normal Things Seem Crazy - Chuck Klosterman
Host - David Foster Wallace
Tales of the Tyrant - Mark Bowden
Losing The War - Lee Sandlin
The Hostess Diaries: My Year At A Hot Spot - Coco Hensen Scales
My Republican Journey - Dan Savage
Power Steer - Michael Pollan
Fortune's Smile: World Series of Poker - James McManus

I'd also recommend The Best American Essays 2007 (The Best American Series (TM)) edited by David Foster Wallace. Another good collection of stories by an editor with excellent taste.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you want to understand the power and allure of nonfiction narrative, READ THIS BOOK!, November 27, 2007

By	Michael Craig (Scottsdale, Arizona United States) - See all my reviews

This is a phenomenal collection of short works of nonfiction, compiled by Ira Glass of NPR's THIS AMERICAN LIFE. Every one of these pieces is a treasure, from Michael Lewis's attempt to figure out why the SEC accused a 15 year-old boy of manipulating the stock market, to Jack Hitt's description of the biggest, weirdest lawsuit in history, to Mark Bowden's attempt to answer the question "What's Saddam Hussein really like?" This will introduce some of you to a new genre, others to some new writers, and many of you to at least three books, Bill Buford's AMONG THE THUGS (about rabid English soccer fans), Malcoln Gladwell's THE TIPPING POINT (based on his chapter about Lois Weinberg, the women who knew everybody), and James McManus's POSITIVELY FIFTH STREET (which grew from the article "Fortune's Smile," which concludes this collection). The richness of these stories and the authors' joy in developing them and sharing them, will encourage you to read AND write.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not a particularly fresh selection., January 27, 2008

By	David M. Giltinan (San Francisco) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

It's deja lu all over again.

This is not the superb collection I would expect from Ira Glass. In fact, it's an odd collection all round - the puzzling question is why it exists at all.

Don't get me wrong. The quality of most of the contributions to this anthology is very high. But most of the pieces are not new. Glass describes his selection criterion: "most of the stories in this book come from a stack of favorite writing that I've kept behind my desk for years". What does this yield?

Michael Lewis on Jonathan Lebed (the 15-year old who was sued for white-collar crime by the SEC).
Malcolm Gladwell: Six Degrees of Lois Weisberg.
Chuck Klosterman interviewing Val Kilmer.
David Foster Wallace on right-wing talk radio.
Michael Pollan on buying a cow.
Susan Orlean: The American Man, Age Ten.
James McManus on playing in the World Series of Poker.
Mark Bowden on Saddam Hussein.

and stories by Jack Hitt, Dan Savage, Lawrence Weschler, Lee Sandler and Bill Buford.

The problem is that most of the pieces in the book have appeared in print before, not once, but twice. For instance, Gladwell's piece - which is indeed a delight to read - first appeared in The New Yorker, then again in his book "The Tipping Point". Similarly, the pieces by Orlean and Weschler first appeared in The New Yorker and were subsequently republished in books by their authors. David Foster Wallace's story was first published in The Atlantic, and subsequently appeared again in the collection "Consider the Lobster". Pollan's work first appeared in The New York Times, and then again in his book "The Omnivore's Dilemma". And so on. I haven't checked, but given the general proliferation of anthologies these days (each year there are the 'best essays', 'best business writing', 'best nonrequired reading', 'best science and nature writing', and The new Yorker has taken to publishing its own anthologies as well), it wouldn't surprise me if some of these pieces have been further anthologized.

Thus, operationally, Ira's selection criterion seems to amount to choosing pieces that have been published at least twice before.

My favorite pieces: the article on Jonathan Lebed, Gladwell's piece, Foster Wallace on right-wing radio, and Klosterman's interview of Val Kilmer. At the other end of the spectrum, the article about poker was a tedious, self-indulgent bore. Finally, and this says more about me than about the quality of the essays, I couldn't manage to make myself finish Lee Sandlin's article about World War II, nor could I bring myself to care about Bill Buford's exploits with British soccer hooligans.

4.5 stars for the quality of the entries, 2.5 stars for their originality. I've rounded the resulting average of 3.5 up to 4 stars.