Can any review of an anthology dodge the inevitable List? Where one prints out all the stories one liked and all the stories one disliked, which somehow diminishes from the experience of reading an anthology? The anthology is where you grapple with short stories well outside your comfort zone, I hope. Well, I guess I’ll just highlight one – Andrew Sean Greer’s story DARKNESS. With its theologically omniscient POV and lesbian older couple, it might as well have been written with me in my mind. Bu...

The Best American Non-Required Reading series is a series of books that I have enjoyed mostly due to the large number of new voices and mix of fiction and nonfiction. Somehow I overlooked the 2008 edition with an introduction by Judy Blume, so I sought it out. I really don’t get much out of section I that is an indulgent and arbitrary list of things like “Best American Facebook Groups.” However, there was one worthwhile piece that I enjoyed as much as anything else in this volume, Jake Swearinge...

Another good Best American collection (though, for this title, I did like 2007's collection more). The best bits:(1) "Neptune's Navy:" After catching a few episodes of Whale Wars, I had many, many questions (the money? the getting kicked out of Greenpeace? the poetry?). This piece explained a lot...and, while the dude may be crazy, he's got a serious point about what we're doing to our oceans (most powerful description: the equivalent of how we treat the ocean is if we hunted for deer by plowing...

As today is anthology review day, I just want to take the opportunity to pimp this one, and the whole series. Review follows:Once again this series, always the star of the "Best American" anthologies, delivers the goods. Here is just a selection of the delights it offers this year:A hilarious introduction by Judy BlumeBest American police blotter items from Kensington, CaliforniaBest American facebook groupsBest American NY Times headlines from 1907 ("Man pours molten lead into own ear - believe...

A comparatively weak collection, with a few competent stories and features, but mostly contributions where you sense the writer is trying too hard, or recycling something from their last Creative Writing course. Especially annoying: the ego-tripping high school consultant editors! Why are they showcased with cutesie texts and photos, while the contributors just get a standard mini-biography (text only)? I picked this up for 4 € at a fleamarket bookstall, which is OK; if I'd paid the cover price

Best American collections are, year in and year out, reliably good, and this one is no exception. But that's all it is: good. It's fine. But, in comparison to the series' heights, it underwhelms. This volume seems to lean much more heavily on non-fiction than in past years, and it's pretty uneven. Some of the pieces are, if not entirely uninteresting, at least not worth their excessive lengths. At least the fawning profile of Bill Clinton (and his foundation) was written by George Saunders and w...

again, like BANR 2007, the selections were too similar, in style, mood, and subject, to selections in previous anthologies. it's good that BANR can be reliable in providing selections that appeal to a certain reader, but there is such a thing as being TOO reliable. at this point, i want to be surprised. i want to read something unlike anything i've ever read before, that will astound me and leave me breathless. the last few BANR's i have read have not done that. with that aside, i have nothing b...

Oh gosh -- it says something about the quality of this collection that I finished reading it sometime in April (May? I don't even remember) and just never bothered to update my "currently reading" or review it. This was just a slog. I know, I keep reading BANRR, I keep complaining about it, but this may really be the one that puts the final nail in the coffin for me. While basically all of these except the first one (where Eggers had someone editing HIM) are relatively crap and read like collect...

I will admit, so far I'm a little disappointed compared to last year's volume (which pretty much blew my mind). The front section is much smaller than last year's, which is a shame - it's usually the funniest section.This year's front section doesn't fall down, exactly...(Best American Police Blotter Items from Kensington, California is an EXCELLENT start to the book, Best American Facebook Groups is the kind of content I was expecting and looking forward to, Best American Diary of the Living De...

Of the 27 entries in this collection, there are two stellar, worth-while pieces. The best is "Neptune's Navy," an essay from the New Yorker (available here: www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/11/05...) that profiles the extraordinary figure of Paul Watson, a renegade environmentalist who leads volunteer crews aboard pirate ships on missions to sink whaling boats in international waters. He is a lunatic but also inspiring. Particularly interesting is Watson's relationship to the law. He exploits leg...

The beauty of an anthology of this caliber is that you're bound to find something in it you absolutely love. And, anything you don't love you can just skp. I highly recommend this book, although there was actually more I liked in the 2007 edition.Highlights from this year include "Are You There, God? It's Me and the Zombies," (a hilarious piece of short fiction about...well, zombies), "The Best American Facebook Groups" (so funny), "The White Train" (I learned about mate...also, about the horren...

This is by far the weakest collection I've read since '05. Honestly, the best part was the throwaway "best of" craziness in the first third of the collection. I found the nonfiction tedious and "trying too hard" (including the Saunders piece . . though I did read it until the end . . . President Clinton makes me feel like a lazy ass) I found the fiction so-so at best. The comics were good. To be sure, "A Brutal Sweetness" by Abby Nance (it was mentioned in the back as a notable) was better than

I love the Non-Required Reading series. If you want to spend several hours learning about random things you have never heard of, but that are completely fascinating, this book is for you. The 2008 edition features lists of Kurt Vonnegut Quotes, Ron Paul Facts, and Things This Guy on the Internet Will Sell You, as well as fiction about birthday cakes, large sums of money, and Bigfoot, and non-fiction about modern-day pirates, Bill Clinton, and the relationships between black people and Jews. And

Compared to most collections, I actually enjoyed about 90 percent of the writings in here. What surprised me even more is that I liked the non-fiction even better than the fiction. There are some fantastic essays in here, from "White Train, " to the article on Bill Clinton, to the fantastic look at how we appreciate beauty as human, "Pearls Before Breakfast." This is a good collection, and one I'm glad I picked up.

previously read in 2010

Another great collection of essays, short stories, odds and ends in creative writing.

Very hit or miss depending on the author/piece. The first section of collated lists was just a waste of time and paper.

i just picked this up at the library as airplane reading. & then i failed to read it one the airplane because i got all involved in a copy of "real simple" magazine instead (<3). the "best american" series is usually pretty good. they collect together a sampling of what they consider to be the best of the best of what was published that year, & they're usually pretty on point. the non-required series is helmed by dave eggers, who i could really live without, but he gets a crew of high school stu...

While not as strong as BANR 07, it was a good effort. I remember picking up BANR 07 and being blown away by the stories, all pretty good. From Allison Bechdel's Fun Home to Conan O'Brien. My favorite stories were from Miranda July, Nam Le and Mattox Roersh. Even the intro was super damn funny. BANR 08 was a little off the mark. Sure it had some good stories. A lot of mediocre ones too. The Majorie Celona story was good. Patrick Tobin's story made me laugh out loud, and the "where we must be" sto...