The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2012

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Overview

The Best American Series®
First, Best, and Best-Selling

The Best American series is the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and nonfiction. Each volume’s series editor selects notable works from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites. A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the best twenty or so pieces to publish. ...

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The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2012

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More About This Book

Overview

The Best American Series®
First, Best, and Best-Selling

The Best American series is the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and nonfiction. Each volume’s series editor selects notable works from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites. A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the best twenty or so pieces to publish. This unique system has made the Best American series the most respected — and most popular — of its kind.

The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2012 includes

Kevin Brockmeier, Judy Budnitz, Junot Díaz, Louise Erdrich,
Nora Krug, Julie Otsuka, Eric Puchner, George Saunders,
Adrian Tomine, Jess Walter, and others

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Editorial Reviews

From Barnes & Noble

Dave Egger's Best American Nonrequired Reading is not your grandmother's idea of an anthology. This year's installment contains goodies from writers including Eric Puchner, Judy Budnitz, Junot Diaz, Louise Erdrich, Julie Otsuka, Nora Krug, Jess Walter, Kevin Brockmeier, Adrian Tomine, George Saunders, and others. Perfect for a slightly offbeat audience.

Publishers Weekly
Staying true to its mission of eclecticism, the 11th volume in this series makes room not just for magazine articles and short stories, but also comic strips, letters, text messages, tweets, and committee minutes. Given that those last mentioned items come from the Occupy Wall Street protests, however, this anthology shows more signs of earnest timeliness than might be expected from the title’s tongue-in-cheek grandiosity. Some of the 32 selections, once again chosen by high school students in the writing programs known as 826 Valencia and 826 Michigan cofounded by McSweeney’s editor Eggers, venture to Russia and Japan in, respectively, Anthony Marra’s “The Palace of the People” and Nora Krug’s “Kamikaze.” Widely different corners of American immigrant experience, meanwhile, figure into short-form memoirs from Junot Díaz, Jose Antonio Vargas, and Wesley Yang. This year’s guest introducer, the late Ray Bradbury, wrote just weeks before his death. While in theory Bradbury’s presence should more than justify fantastical selections like Jess Walter’s trendily zombie-themed “Don’t Eat Cat” or Eric Puchner’s Harrison Bergeron–like “Beautiful Monsters,” Louise Erdrich’s and Mark Robert Rapacz’s harder-bitten fiction impresses more. Nonfiction from John Jeremiah Sullivan and Jon Ronson, meanwhile, more than measures up to the series’ essentially lighthearted spirit, also captured by this year’s cover illustrator, Brian Selznick. (Oct.)
From the Publisher
"If you need to fall in love with reading again –or just want a reminder that high school students deserve a lot more than their reading lists give them–then THE BEST AMERICAN NONREQUIRED READING 2012 is the book for you ."
-Bust   "As a devoted fan of this series (this is the 11th volume), I can report that this year's anthology of 32 selections might be the best yet ."
-Elizabeth Taylor, Chicago Tribune   “An eclectic annual that will leave readers marveling over many of the discoveries ...category-defying... All readers will find their own favorites that justify the collection as a whole.”
-Kirkus Reviews   "Lively, eclectic and surprising ..."
-Minneapolis Star Tribune
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780547595962
  • Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  • Publication date: 10/2/2012
  • Series: Best American Nonrequired Reading Series
  • Pages: 412
  • Sales rank: 56,602
  • Product dimensions: 5.40 (w) x 8.10 (h) x 0.80 (d)

Meet 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 .

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Customer Reviews

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Sort by: Showing 1 Customer Review

  • Posted November 20, 2012

    Enjoy composite

    It is nice to have a compact location of several modern short stories that come reviewed and recommended. Loved the Bradbury intro. Rest his soul.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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