Rating: 
Summary: Unmitigated Failure
Review: Another reviewer accuses Eggers of "forcing" his tastes on the reader. I must be one of the lucky few who Dave Eggers did not force to read this book at gunpoint. The title of this book is "Nonrequired Reading" - by definition, you are going to find pieces which are off the beaten path.Personally, I found this book an invaluable tool to judge the state of modern writing. This is the only "Best American" collection I own, and I think it is the most valuable. Whereas this one gets criticized for being "too hip" the others strike me as being too high-brow or revisionist. This collection shows what people ACTUALLY READ. The story behind the book is that Eggers has a team of literary-minded high school students cull the best of everything they've read from the entire year. The works contained in this collection run the gamut from fiction, to journalism, to humor, to essays - it even includes a comic strip. What makes this book so indispensable for any aspiring writer is not only that it gives an idea of the current voice of writing and the new young authors who are writing it, but it also lists the publications where one can find them. Among the new authors that this book has helped me to discover is the very young J.T. Leroy. The author of Blackhawk Down provides an incisive and disturbing biography Saddam Hussein. The always dependable David Sedaris provides a very funny account of his brother Rooster's wedding. I would have felt I got my money's worth from the book if I had just read the forward by Eggers (the part we were supposed to "skip"). Eggers is one of the best, freshest voices in writing today. Even better is the introduction by Zadie Smith where she provides guidelines of "how to read", complete with a lot of useful quotes from literature.
Rating: 
Summary: Are we "forced" to read it?
Review: Another reviewer accuses Eggers of "forcing" his tastes on the reader. I must be one of the lucky few who Dave Eggers did not force to read this book at gunpoint. The title of this book is "Nonrequired Reading" - by definition, you are going to find pieces which are off the beaten path. Personally, I found this book an invaluable tool to judge the state of modern writing. This is the only "Best American" collection I own, and I think it is the most valuable. Whereas this one gets criticized for being "too hip" the others strike me as being too high-brow or revisionist. This collection shows what people ACTUALLY READ. The story behind the book is that Eggers has a team of literary-minded high school students cull the best of everything they've read from the entire year. The works contained in this collection run the gamut from fiction, to journalism, to humor, to essays - it even includes a comic strip. What makes this book so indispensable for any aspiring writer is not only that it gives an idea of the current voice of writing and the new young authors who are writing it, but it also lists the publications where one can find them. Among the new authors that this book has helped me to discover is the very young J.T. Leroy. The author of Blackhawk Down provides an incisive and disturbing biography Saddam Hussein. The always dependable David Sedaris provides a very funny account of his brother Rooster's wedding. I would have felt I got my money's worth from the book if I had just read the forward by Eggers (the part we were supposed to "skip"). Eggers is one of the best, freshest voices in writing today. Even better is the introduction by Zadie Smith where she provides guidelines of "how to read", complete with a lot of useful quotes from literature.
Rating:
Summary: Catering to the Hipster Audience
Review: Eggers and Smith, the two "hippest" writers around, assume that they have the gravitas to force their trendy, ironic tastes on the reading public. If their own books are any indication, this volume will be chalk-full of pompous post-modern dronings about the absurdity of contemporary existence. Eggers forward is atrocius. So you should skip that. Actually, skip the whole book. But if you're one of those young people wearing vintage track jackets, cardigan sweaters, stonewashed jeans, black-rimmed granny classes and multiple facial piercings, and who loves discussing the nuances of Foucalt's philosophy at Starbucks, then look no further. This collection was made for you.
Rating:
Summary: Catering to the Hipster Audience
Review: Eggers and Smith, the two "hippest" writers around, assume that they have the gravitas to force their trendy, ironic tastes on the reading public. If their own books are any indication, this volume will be chalk-full of pompous post-modern dronings about the absurdity of contemporary existence. Eggers forward is atrocius. So you should skip that. Actually, skip the whole book. But if you're one of those young people wearing vintage track jackets, cardigan sweaters, stonewashed jeans, black-rimmed granny classes and multiple facial piercings, and who loves discussing the nuances of Foucalt's philosophy at Starbucks, then look no further. This collection was made for you.
Rating: 
Summary: Eclectic assortment...
Review: I bought this for a plane ride and I loved it. The fact that it mixes so many different genres is great. There are so many pieces in this collection that I never would have been exposed to had I not purchased this book, and I'm thankful I did.
Without getting into specific essays, I enjoyed almost everything featured in this book. It is a diverse group of readings, and I'd recommend it to anyone that wants to broaden his or her horizons but doesn't know how to do it. You'll feel enriched after reading this.
Rating:
Summary: Another great volume in this series
Review: I eagerly anticipated the publication this book, the second volume in THE BEST AMERICAN NONREQUIRED READING series, for months because I thoroughly enjoyed last year's edition so much. I absolutely loved the variety of entries including fiction, journalism, and animation. The writing was cutting-edge, full of wit, and provided an additional viewpoint of life in modern society. The 2003 edition is a good addition to this series and includes a collection of notable short stories that have succeeded in standing out from pack (David Drury's "Things We Knew When The House Caught Fire", Jonathan Safran Foer's "A Primer for the Punctuation of Heart Disease", and JT Leroy's "Stuff".) Also included are a couple journalist pieces that deserve praise (Mark Bowden's "Tales of the Tyrant" and Sherman Alexie's "What Sacagawea Means to Me".) Regardless of the title, this book is not only for younger audiences. Readers young and old will get enjoyment from this series. THE BEST AMERICAN NONREQUIRED READING series is one of my favorite short story compilations.
Rating:
Summary: Mostly the stories are about survival
Review: Sherman Alexie writes of Sacagawea, the Shoshone who accompanied Lewis and Clark. She died of some mysterious illness when she was only in her twenties. Lynda Barry's entry is in the nature of a graphic short story. She covers the interesting subject of the peculiar scent of each person's house.
Ryan Boudinot writes of having a costume as Hitler for a school harvest carnival. First he created trouble on the school bus. His fourth grade teacher was amused and disturbed. Another student dressed as Anne Frank. The teacher elected to have a discussion about the Second World War. The girl playing Anne Frank saw her popularity soar. Davy, the boy character of the story, decided not to be Hitler that evening. He and his father found a Frankenstein mask.
Mark Bowden writes of the tyrant, Saddam Hussein. In his sixties, he cannot appear to age since his power is based on fear. He swims, he dyes his hair. His desk is immaculate. He reads voraciously which is a good thing since he is fed lies. His passion is Arabic history and military history. People have reported it is plesant to sit and talk to Saddam. As people age, the area of making choices is reduced. A tyrant has the narrowest field of all. Power shuts the tyrant off from the world. Saddam's clan was known to be violent and clever. Saddam committed his crimes publicly, cloaking them in patriotism. Things started with ego and ambition and became a political movement. The conflict in Iraq was a conflict in mentalities, between the city and the village. The backbone of politics is in the city. In the city politics is a matter of law, not blood. Saddam was a man of the village, of tribal loyalty. His favorite movies were THE GODFATHER and THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA. The invasion of Kuwait in 1990 was a military miscalculation. Mark Bowden explains that cruelty is the tyrant's art.
Judy Budnitz in "Visiting Hours," describes visiting her brother Ezra in the hospital after he suffered a concussion causing short term memory loss. She tells her parents she is danger of being suspended from school because she has taken time-off to visit her brother. The family dynamics appear to be conflict-ridden and mysterious. The brother suffers a new injury to remain in the hospital.
David Drury states in a piece that a suburb is a delicate thing. A family whose house burns down inherited the house from an aunt. The blended family did not really fit into the neighborhood. Family members did not tend the lawn, and Christmas decorations were taken from the yards of the other houses. The children did not have the approved kinds of bicycles and they were shunned by the other children.
Tribute bands are a maligned sector of the rock and roll scene claims Chuck Klosterman in "The Pretenders." Being derivative is not simple. Fans already exist for the tribute band. You don't have to beg your friends to come to watch you play.
This selection of material by Dave Eggers and his advisory group of mostly high school students is quite good. The idea of having annual volumes for different kinds of writing is great.
Rating:
Summary: Purrfect Gift Idea
Review: So you need a gift. Maybe its for your office and you actually like your cubicle mate. Or your brother. Or your girlfriend that you've known about four months. Or you deserve a present after buying all those presents! This is the book to buy. It surpasses the 2002 edition with tighter focus of journalism, poetics, free form and traditional fiction. With enjoyable writers such as Lynda Barry, David Sedaris and some humorous quips from The Onion (which is another great gift book, btw), it really does have something for everyone-from a clueless mom to your hip nerdy emo friend, this book is worth shelling out full price-and I don't even care for short stories!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Unmitigated Failure
Review: They should retitle this volume: "Nonrequired Reading, Where Literature Comes To Die" Why anyone would want to waste their time with pretentious drivel like this is beyond me. This is the most needless collection of mish-mash I have ever seen put together.
Rating:
Summary: Unmitigated Failure
Review: They should retitle this volume: "Nonrequired Reading, Where Literature Comes To Die" Why anyone would want to waste their time with pretentious drivel like this is beyond me. This is the most needless collection of mish-mash I have ever seen put together.
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