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The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2014
“Lively, eclectic and surprising.” — Minneapolis Star Tribune
Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket, author of the enormously popular young adult series A Series of Unfortunate Events, takes over as editor for this volume. He will work with the students of 826 Valencia and 826 Michigan writing labs to compile new fiction, nonfiction, poetry, comics, and other category-defying gems, ensuring that “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 this is the book for you” (Bust).
Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket, author of the enormously popular young adult series A Series of Unfortunate Events, takes over as editor for this volume. He will work with the students of 826 Valencia and 826 Michigan writing labs to compile new fiction, nonfiction, poetry, comics, and other category-defying gems, ensuring that “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 this is the book for you” (Bust).
415 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 7, 2014
63 people are currently reading
882 people want to read
About the author
Daniel Handler
56 books3,095 followersDaniel Handler is the author of seven novels, including Why We Broke Up, We Are Pirates, All The Dirty Parts and, most recently, Bottle Grove.
As Lemony Snicket, he is responsible for numerous books for children, including the thirteen-volume A Series of Unfortunate Events, the four-volume All the Wrong Questions, and The Dark, which won the Charlotte Zolotow Award.
Mr. Snicket’s first book for readers of all ages, Poison for Breakfast, will be published by Liveright/W.W. Norton on August 31, 2021.
Handler has received commissions from the San Francisco Symphony, Berkeley Repertory Theater and the Royal Shakespeare Company, and has collaborated with artist Maira Kalman on a series of books for the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and with musicians Stephin Merritt (of the Magnetic Fields), Benjamin Gibbard (of Death Cab for Cutie), Colin Meloy (of the Decemberists) and Torquil Campbell (of Stars).
His books have sold more than 70 million copies and have been translated into 40 languages, and have been adapted for film, stage and television, including the recent adaptation of A Series of Unfortunate Events for which he was awarded both the Peabody and the Writers Guild of America awards.
He lives in San Francisco with the illustrator Lisa Brown, to whom he is married and with whom he has collaborated on several books and one son.
As Lemony Snicket, he is responsible for numerous books for children, including the thirteen-volume A Series of Unfortunate Events, the four-volume All the Wrong Questions, and The Dark, which won the Charlotte Zolotow Award.
Mr. Snicket’s first book for readers of all ages, Poison for Breakfast, will be published by Liveright/W.W. Norton on August 31, 2021.
Handler has received commissions from the San Francisco Symphony, Berkeley Repertory Theater and the Royal Shakespeare Company, and has collaborated with artist Maira Kalman on a series of books for the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and with musicians Stephin Merritt (of the Magnetic Fields), Benjamin Gibbard (of Death Cab for Cutie), Colin Meloy (of the Decemberists) and Torquil Campbell (of Stars).
His books have sold more than 70 million copies and have been translated into 40 languages, and have been adapted for film, stage and television, including the recent adaptation of A Series of Unfortunate Events for which he was awarded both the Peabody and the Writers Guild of America awards.
He lives in San Francisco with the illustrator Lisa Brown, to whom he is married and with whom he has collaborated on several books and one son.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 84 reviews
November 11, 2014
There were a ton of absolutely amazing pieces in here about all manner of things from the person who gets you out of a cult to articles on Dave Chappelle, to a podcast transcript and some amazing graphic novel pieces. I think my biggest issue ended up being the poetry. So many times the poetry was right after a really strong heavy moving piece and it was just very difficult to switch gears. One thing that this did make me think about is whether we, as a culture, just don't find humor important. There were almost no pieces that were only funny. If this is the best shouldn't there be at least one funny something in here? Do we as a society not think that humor can be the best? Just something to think about.
April 12, 2017
This book hit me like a fucking brick. Honestly, I'm blown away. I read this book on trains and planes, and in several cities. I read this book over the course of one month, and honestly each day has been punctuated by some part of it. I have poured more tears over this than I ever thought I would have when I bought it on a whim. I just feel changed and new and it was lovely and sad and funny and thoughtful. Take your time with it. Don't expect too much. Just let it breathe.
April 9, 2015
I usually really like this series. The ones I've read in the past have been fun, whimsical, serious at time, interesting, shedding light on obscure interests or experiences.
This one was frickin' depressing! Every story in here (WARNING: I couldn't take it any more after page 200) was gloomy, sad, telling the tale of the less fortunate and the despair associated with them, injustice, or death. All the stories are well written, and I will say that some of these are important stories. IMPORTANT. We need to know about the absolute despair those in Afghanistan and Iran face when they have to choose between the life they know and the life they tell themselves they can win through to via a boat-person immigration. That's some weapons-grade despair right there. To me, that's the last thing I would call "non-required". Some of it should be read by our lawmakers and those that have a hard time looking outside their own backyard or pocketbook.
Mr. Handler's fingerprints as the writer of the Edward Gorey-esque books A Series of Unfortunate Events (under the nom de plume Lemony Snicket) are all over this. All we can hope is that his anti-depressants kick in soon.
After all my ranting about my disappointment with this particular series, the first story in the book, On the Study of Physics in Preschool Classrooms was absolutely delightful and weird and whimsical. It was the stories after that which were the problem.
My argument with this collection is that it absolutely makes itself non-required. I don't want to read it anymore. Life it hard enough as it is without immersing yourself in despair for pleasure. I think they call that masochism.
This one was frickin' depressing! Every story in here (WARNING: I couldn't take it any more after page 200) was gloomy, sad, telling the tale of the less fortunate and the despair associated with them, injustice, or death. All the stories are well written, and I will say that some of these are important stories. IMPORTANT. We need to know about the absolute despair those in Afghanistan and Iran face when they have to choose between the life they know and the life they tell themselves they can win through to via a boat-person immigration. That's some weapons-grade despair right there. To me, that's the last thing I would call "non-required". Some of it should be read by our lawmakers and those that have a hard time looking outside their own backyard or pocketbook.
Mr. Handler's fingerprints as the writer of the Edward Gorey-esque books A Series of Unfortunate Events (under the nom de plume Lemony Snicket) are all over this. All we can hope is that his anti-depressants kick in soon.
After all my ranting about my disappointment with this particular series, the first story in the book, On the Study of Physics in Preschool Classrooms was absolutely delightful and weird and whimsical. It was the stories after that which were the problem.
My argument with this collection is that it absolutely makes itself non-required. I don't want to read it anymore. Life it hard enough as it is without immersing yourself in despair for pleasure. I think they call that masochism.
November 24, 2014
I really love this series but I was pretty disappointed in this year's collection. These pieces just didn't speak to me. Also I couldn't tell which bits were fiction and which were nonfiction. I've found this to be the case within other BANR anthologies as well but my confusion was more pronounced this time, perhaps it was the lack of extra categorical titles? Regardless, it distracted me and pulled me out of the reading experience. However, there were two stories in the set that did grab me: the interview with Mona and the short story The Real Alan Gass. That story, in particular, nailed me to the wall. I still find myself pondering it. I'm looking forward to reading more by Thomas Pierce.
April 23, 2021
This collection was incredible! Delightful and weird and sometimes really really sad. Fantastic all around.
January 14, 2015
Three are several pieces here that I loved, but there were more I couldn't get invested in and ended up skimming or skipping. The lack of front section was massively disappointing, as that has been my favorite part of past collections.
March 29, 2015
I really loved some of these pieces, but others fell flat. Thus the book took me a lot longer to read than I expected it to.
April 10, 2024
I don’t really read anthologies but this one was fantastic! both in execution and in idea. High school students did this!! thats so cool! and Lemony Snicket helped??? Favorites include but aren’t limited to: Hugo, Embardaza, If He Hollers Let Him Go, If you were a Dinosaur my love, and I Feel YES. I was very sad to learn that this anthology series has since been discontinued, but I’m glad I got to read one at least.
July 1, 2025
Oh how fun !! Thank you for sharing Caitlyn :)
November 24, 2015
This year's Best American Nonrequired Reading was the first to not be edited by Dave Eggers, instead taking over was Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket), and despite that gentleman's prediliction for humor, this collection is kind of grim. There are moments of lightheartedness, but even those are tempered by the macabre. For example, I think I laughed the most at a story by A.T. Grant called "The Body," which is about who carries around a dead body wherever he goes.
I missed the Frontmatter section, which has gone bye-bye, which used to include all manner of short things found in all sorts of places. To be sure, this year's book is very diverse, with poems, essays, an interview, graphic novels, and a few 15-second plays. But I wonder if the term "nonrequired" has any meaning any more, because is it really appropriate to call Jeanine Di Giovanni's "Seven Days in Syria" nonrequired? It is a devastating piece by this generation's Martha Gellhorn. Or Rebecca Rukeyser's "The Chinese Barracks," about the hard life of cannery workers, or Cole Becher's "Charybdis," a short story about a soldier come home from Iraq who starts taking long walks and does, well, I'll leave it that. There's a lot of fiction about soldiers who have returned home from many wars, but this is one of the best I've read.
When I think of "nonrequired," I think offbeat. Not inconsequential, but not the meat and potatoes of a meal, but the parsley, or maybe the dessert. An essay (or is it fiction--it's not clear) like "Hugo," by Karen Maner, which has a pet store employee caring for a fish with scoliosis. We get wonderful observations like this: "Slightly underweight males aged eighteen to twenty-four demonstrated a marginally higher interest in iguanas than the average customer, whereas slightly overweight males in the same age bracked expressed more interest in bearded dragons."
Another favorite is "If He Hollers Let Him Go," a profile of comedian Dave Chappelle (done without Chappelle's participation) and the issues of race in entertainment. There's also a wonderful short story (I'm pretty sure this is fiction) by Thomas Pierce called "The Real Alan Gass," which is about a man whose girlfriend is having dreams that she's married to a man called Alan Gass, and he becomes strangely jealous, so he tracks down a man called Alan Gass.
In keeping with the grim nature of the book, though, the book has a trio of outstanding but depressing pieces. One is a story by Adam Johnson, who just won the National Book Award, with his story "Nirvana," about a man with a wife suffering paralysis from Guillain-Barre syndrome, and "The Saltwater Twin," by Maia Morgan, which starts as a nostalgic memory from childhood that suddenly veers into child abuse by a grandfather. Yikes! Nathaniel Rich has a story about a guy who infiltrates cults, which is white-knuckle stuff.
For the most "norequired" of the nonrequired, though, I'm intrigued by the 15-second plays, which would make for a very short night at the theater. Imagine an eight o'clock curtain and being out by 8:01. Here is the most intriguing, in it's entirety, "Little Thing," by Slyvan Oswald: "Loud loud Tito Puente. It's the fifties or the sixties. Happy hour. The adults are drinking V.O. on the rocks. Sexy dancing don't look. You are the kid with white hair and a purple nose, playing dead on the coffee table while they streak by during the cha cha. They must not notice you have died. The telephone rings. Answer it."
I missed the Frontmatter section, which has gone bye-bye, which used to include all manner of short things found in all sorts of places. To be sure, this year's book is very diverse, with poems, essays, an interview, graphic novels, and a few 15-second plays. But I wonder if the term "nonrequired" has any meaning any more, because is it really appropriate to call Jeanine Di Giovanni's "Seven Days in Syria" nonrequired? It is a devastating piece by this generation's Martha Gellhorn. Or Rebecca Rukeyser's "The Chinese Barracks," about the hard life of cannery workers, or Cole Becher's "Charybdis," a short story about a soldier come home from Iraq who starts taking long walks and does, well, I'll leave it that. There's a lot of fiction about soldiers who have returned home from many wars, but this is one of the best I've read.
When I think of "nonrequired," I think offbeat. Not inconsequential, but not the meat and potatoes of a meal, but the parsley, or maybe the dessert. An essay (or is it fiction--it's not clear) like "Hugo," by Karen Maner, which has a pet store employee caring for a fish with scoliosis. We get wonderful observations like this: "Slightly underweight males aged eighteen to twenty-four demonstrated a marginally higher interest in iguanas than the average customer, whereas slightly overweight males in the same age bracked expressed more interest in bearded dragons."
Another favorite is "If He Hollers Let Him Go," a profile of comedian Dave Chappelle (done without Chappelle's participation) and the issues of race in entertainment. There's also a wonderful short story (I'm pretty sure this is fiction) by Thomas Pierce called "The Real Alan Gass," which is about a man whose girlfriend is having dreams that she's married to a man called Alan Gass, and he becomes strangely jealous, so he tracks down a man called Alan Gass.
In keeping with the grim nature of the book, though, the book has a trio of outstanding but depressing pieces. One is a story by Adam Johnson, who just won the National Book Award, with his story "Nirvana," about a man with a wife suffering paralysis from Guillain-Barre syndrome, and "The Saltwater Twin," by Maia Morgan, which starts as a nostalgic memory from childhood that suddenly veers into child abuse by a grandfather. Yikes! Nathaniel Rich has a story about a guy who infiltrates cults, which is white-knuckle stuff.
For the most "norequired" of the nonrequired, though, I'm intrigued by the 15-second plays, which would make for a very short night at the theater. Imagine an eight o'clock curtain and being out by 8:01. Here is the most intriguing, in it's entirety, "Little Thing," by Slyvan Oswald: "Loud loud Tito Puente. It's the fifties or the sixties. Happy hour. The adults are drinking V.O. on the rocks. Sexy dancing don't look. You are the kid with white hair and a purple nose, playing dead on the coffee table while they streak by during the cha cha. They must not notice you have died. The telephone rings. Answer it."
February 17, 2015
I actually do enjoy reading the Best American selections whenever we get the sets in at work every year, and especially from the Nonrequired anthology. (I am so excited that there’s going to be a Best American Horror anthology next year, fronted by Joe freaking Hill.)
The thing is though, I haven’t really sat down and read one of these all the way through. I usually just end up flipping through the books at work and reading the selections that I like. And to be fair, I really only bought this because of the Welcome to Night Vale selection. (I’m very easy to please. That and it was two bucks on Amazon for the ebook.) And I do like some of the selections that appeared in the book, but there’s also lot in here that I felt like I was slogging to get through to read. And the thing is there’s not many stories in here that stick with me afterwards. They’re not bad, but I came away from a lot of them thinking, “Oh. Okay.” (Or every three or four stories, “Yes, we get it. White person talking about the POC experience. Moving on.” Seriously, there’s like four stories about this, including one about refugees trying to get to Australia that I was just frowning at the whole time. More egregious seeing as this ends with a piece by Zadie Smith, which is one of the better ones in here.)
I’m thinking I’m just going to keep with my typical “Browse through at work” and see what I like from there. Again, I don’t think this was a bad purchase, but I’m also not thinking I’m going to go out and get a physical copy anytime soon.
The thing is though, I haven’t really sat down and read one of these all the way through. I usually just end up flipping through the books at work and reading the selections that I like. And to be fair, I really only bought this because of the Welcome to Night Vale selection. (I’m very easy to please. That and it was two bucks on Amazon for the ebook.) And I do like some of the selections that appeared in the book, but there’s also lot in here that I felt like I was slogging to get through to read. And the thing is there’s not many stories in here that stick with me afterwards. They’re not bad, but I came away from a lot of them thinking, “Oh. Okay.” (Or every three or four stories, “Yes, we get it. White person talking about the POC experience. Moving on.” Seriously, there’s like four stories about this, including one about refugees trying to get to Australia that I was just frowning at the whole time. More egregious seeing as this ends with a piece by Zadie Smith, which is one of the better ones in here.)
I’m thinking I’m just going to keep with my typical “Browse through at work” and see what I like from there. Again, I don’t think this was a bad purchase, but I’m also not thinking I’m going to go out and get a physical copy anytime soon.
August 7, 2017
I ordered a used copy because, for some reason I no longer recall, I was desperate to read Zadie Smith's essay. "Joy."
Other reviewers have complaints I share—uneven quality, some lack of clarity about fiction vs. nonfiction—but this was the first of the Nonrequired Reading I have read, so I didn't miss the front material.
There are experiences here, some lived and some experienced—the Alaskan fish processing plant, Iraq, Guillain Barré syndrome—that should have been wonderful. I read the entire Alaska story and it wasn't. The stories about Iraq are just more war stories, more people destroyed by war. Nothing to see here, move on. I should have connected especially to the Guillain Barré story because my friend Frank went through that. Instead I recall Frank telling me that he did not become scared until six months in when he'd begun to actually make significant improvement, and that at first, when he could not move at all, he was certain he was fine. The story on the page was not so interesting. Maybe it was Nirvana. I never cared much.
Like many others, I gave in to skimming. It is nonrequired after all, I felt justified when I read the first page or ten pages of an essay or story and realized I really did not care where it went. I flipped past to the next.
Sadly, I felt that way about "Joy" because while I loved the paragraph about her not-quite-three-year-old daughter objecting to her "being the dog" she lost me once she flashed back to the nightclub and ecstasy. sigh
Other reviewers have complaints I share—uneven quality, some lack of clarity about fiction vs. nonfiction—but this was the first of the Nonrequired Reading I have read, so I didn't miss the front material.
There are experiences here, some lived and some experienced—the Alaskan fish processing plant, Iraq, Guillain Barré syndrome—that should have been wonderful. I read the entire Alaska story and it wasn't. The stories about Iraq are just more war stories, more people destroyed by war. Nothing to see here, move on. I should have connected especially to the Guillain Barré story because my friend Frank went through that. Instead I recall Frank telling me that he did not become scared until six months in when he'd begun to actually make significant improvement, and that at first, when he could not move at all, he was certain he was fine. The story on the page was not so interesting. Maybe it was Nirvana. I never cared much.
Like many others, I gave in to skimming. It is nonrequired after all, I felt justified when I read the first page or ten pages of an essay or story and realized I really did not care where it went. I flipped past to the next.
Sadly, I felt that way about "Joy" because while I loved the paragraph about her not-quite-three-year-old daughter objecting to her "being the dog" she lost me once she flashed back to the nightclub and ecstasy. sigh
April 2, 2015
This is the first collection in the series not to be edited by the series founder. Instead, we have a guest appearance by Lemony Snicket of The Series of Unfortunate Events fame, and he opens the book with a prologue in his inimitable style. As usual, the collection is very uneven. I found the poetry to not be very compelling and the graphic art mediocre, and I missed the miscellaneous section from previous editions (best first sentences to novels, best comedy essay written by a woman, etc). However, both the nonfiction and short story essays were very good, and some outstanding. Those include:
• AP Style by Dan Keane (Zoetrope)
• The Man Who Saves You From Yourself by Nathaniel Rich (Harper’s Magazine)
• K becomes K by V.V. Ganeshananthan (Ploughshares)
• Charybdis by Cole Becher (The Iowa Review)
• If You were a Dinosaur, My Love by Rachel Swirsky (Apex Magazine)
• AP Style by Dan Keane (Zoetrope)
• The Man Who Saves You From Yourself by Nathaniel Rich (Harper’s Magazine)
• K becomes K by V.V. Ganeshananthan (Ploughshares)
• Charybdis by Cole Becher (The Iowa Review)
• If You were a Dinosaur, My Love by Rachel Swirsky (Apex Magazine)
January 5, 2015
The Best American Nonrequired Reading series appears to target a younger demographic than Best American Essays, Best American Travel Writing, etc. At any rate, the choice of selections to include - short stories, nonfiction pieces, poems, comics - are shaped by a class of high-school aged editors. Perhaps as a result, the fiction shows a strong tendency towards the surreal, while the nonfiction essays and articles tend to show how terrible life is for less privileged peoples of the world (for example, people trapped in the Syrian civil war, or women in Peru who sleep with foreign tourists, or undocumented migrants trying to reach Australia). In general, the nonfiction pieces and some of the poems really grabbed me, while the fiction did not.
January 3, 2015
I've been reading this anthology for years -- and love how it gives me a lens to young people and especially to new writers. This edition made me feel old and out of touch with young people though I can't say exactly why. My favorite essay was "If He Hollers Let Him Go." Oh, and I miss the front matter. A lot.
March 25, 2016
I've never read the Best American Nonrequired Reading series before, so I don't have any gripes about the format change from previous years. Nonfiction pieces were particularly interesting in this collection, as well as a couple of standout fiction pieces from Adam Johnson and Andrew Foster Altschul.
August 19, 2021
Well, this was an unsatisfying collection of short pieces. I am not even done with it, but having completed one of the readings and getting prepared to read the next, I find myself so bored that I decided now is the time to write the review. This is only the second of the Best American Nonrequired Reading series that I have read, the first being the 2013 edition. Two thousand and thirteen's I enjoyed, with only a few selections not hitting the mark. Two thousand and fourteen is just the reverse: only a few selections are engaging and the rest are mediocre or start off well enough but are too long and wear out their welcome. The writings, in case you are unfamiliar with this series, are selected by students, mostly high school, some college. I never saw that as a drawback in the the 2013 edition, but in 2014's, I found myself thinking, "I could see why a teenager would like this"---invariably something that I didn't thing was so hot. I will continue to read other years, but now I know to expect an inconsistency in quality in volume to volume.
Addendum:
Now that I've completed this, I can list my favorite selections. As a compilation, this book still rates 2 stars, but each of these rates 4:
On the Study of Physics...
The Dream Boat
The Chinese Barracks
The Real Alan Gass
Nirvana
Joy
Addendum:
Now that I've completed this, I can list my favorite selections. As a compilation, this book still rates 2 stars, but each of these rates 4:
On the Study of Physics...
The Dream Boat
The Chinese Barracks
The Real Alan Gass
Nirvana
Joy
January 24, 2023
when rating an anthology you’re judging the content curated, but this book provides a sweet little narrative written by daniel handler (and lemony snicket, two in one!!), an author i love very much, that makes even the introduction pleasant. as for the content in this book, there’s a very diverse selection of different medias from different sources. very grateful for the new perspectives i was able to be educated on through essays and poems and stories that i had no prior knowledge of. while some were heavy and depressing and tested my patience, overall this anthology is very valuable. the balance of not the most enjoyable to incredible works are skewed to the enjoyable side making it so worth it to read through. from well developed papers to cutesy graphics to floral everything i just enjoyed reading this book so much. worth the read
August 17, 2017
This collection of short stories, poems, and other short passages is a great way to learn about the mysterious ways humans treat each other under specific circumstances. Its filled with a vast vocabulary, varied selections of writing styles, and mindsets of individuals who have the capacity for emotion well past their physical nature. I highly recommend this book to people who don't mind reading horror stories about human slaughterhouses or quirky comedies about pets and mysterious cult initiations.
September 10, 2018
My favorite pieces from this collection:
+Matthew Schultz - On the Study of Physics in Preschool Classrooms
+Dan Keane - AP Style
+Nathaniel Rich - The Man Who Saves You From Yourself
+Amos Oz - Two Women
+Anders Nilsen - Rage of Poseidon
+A. T. Grant - The Body
+Kathryn Davis - Body-Without-Soul
+Rebecca Rukeyser - The Chinese Barracks
+Gabriel Heller - After Work
+Cole Becher - Charybdis
+Nick Sturm - I Feel YES
+Matthew Schultz - On the Study of Physics in Preschool Classrooms
+Dan Keane - AP Style
+Nathaniel Rich - The Man Who Saves You From Yourself
+Amos Oz - Two Women
+Anders Nilsen - Rage of Poseidon
+A. T. Grant - The Body
+Kathryn Davis - Body-Without-Soul
+Rebecca Rukeyser - The Chinese Barracks
+Gabriel Heller - After Work
+Cole Becher - Charybdis
+Nick Sturm - I Feel YES
December 13, 2021
This was my first Best of collection and I enjoyed a lot of it. My favorites include: "AP Style," "Seven Days in Syria," "The Body," "Street Cleaning Day," "The Real Alan Gass." But above all of the others "The Man who Saves You From Yourself" and "Charybdis" were amazing pieces. They both were a little off beat but so real at the same time. Both are well worth the read.
May 5, 2017
impressive collection of things/poems/stories/articles/etc. Completely unexpected. I haven't read any of these before and it was surprising and delightful. If i didn't have a thousand other things to read, i would probably go read the previous years of this collection.
August 14, 2017
Really nice collection, especially the non-fiction about Syria.
March 10, 2019
Love! Short stories with a lot of emotion and a great variety of topics. I want to read more of these collections.
September 22, 2020
As with all anthologies, loved some, liked some, didn't get others. I also think at this point I just need to accept I don't understand most poetry, and not feel bad about it.
April 30, 2022
Solid collection!
January 13, 2025
This volume was VERY non-essential. A very forgettable collection of what nots.
March 18, 2017
I wish I could give this book more than 5 stars. The variety of the work presented, the set up of the readings, everything about it is fantastic. Highly recommend-- especially if you're interested in expanding the genres you read without having to read several different books or if you're interested in finding other books to read-- great excerpts!
March 1, 2023
This is a collection that I picked up at a charity book sale last year without paying much attention to it except that it was on the nonfiction table. When I got it home, along with a few dozen others, I was intrigued by the idea of "non-required reading" and the fact that the collection is compiled by high school students. The editor being Daniel Handler and the intro by Lemony Snicket didn't hurt. It went on the mountain of to-be-read books and was pulled off recently when I needed something to balance the memoir I was reading about Rhodesia.
This collection has everything -- or nearly everything. Poetry, plays, graphic novels, interviews, essays, short stories of every sort, and some pieces I was unable to classify as either nonfiction or fiction. I didn't like them all - it might even be less than half that really spoke to me. But the collection as a whole was its own thing and I enjoyed it. Embarazada will probably haunt me for a while, in part because of the current political situation in the US. Have Cake and Tea with Your Demons was simply delightful, as was On the Study of Physics in Preschool. If He Hollers Let Him Go, about Dave Chapelle, was interesting in large part because he has again become controversial -- I felt I understand him a little more but will never agree with him. K Becomes K is haunting in its nonviolent violence. And The Dream Boat will break your heart.
This collection has everything -- or nearly everything. Poetry, plays, graphic novels, interviews, essays, short stories of every sort, and some pieces I was unable to classify as either nonfiction or fiction. I didn't like them all - it might even be less than half that really spoke to me. But the collection as a whole was its own thing and I enjoyed it. Embarazada will probably haunt me for a while, in part because of the current political situation in the US. Have Cake and Tea with Your Demons was simply delightful, as was On the Study of Physics in Preschool. If He Hollers Let Him Go, about Dave Chapelle, was interesting in large part because he has again become controversial -- I felt I understand him a little more but will never agree with him. K Becomes K is haunting in its nonviolent violence. And The Dream Boat will break your heart.
July 31, 2015
It's always been difficult for me to review anthologies. The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2014, like every anthology I've read, contains 1-star selections, 5-star selections, and everything in between. How do I prescribe an overall score to something so varied?
Though such a task is obviously oversimplified, if I were to summarize this collection's contents in one word, that word would be wonder. Most of the pieces, regardless of the levity of their tone, express a wide-eyed eagerness toward absorbing the surrounding world. Authors seem more intent on dreaming about their topics than hammering the reader with an agenda. Such a quality is surprisingly lacking in good fiction. It's nice to see literary wonder so heavily present here.
As a result of the thread of wonder connecting the pieces in this book, it's often difficult for the reader to discern what is fiction and what is truth- or even, what is both or neither. It's a metaphysical experience. I thoroughly enjoyed it, though readers in search of a more grounded collection may not be a fan.
Some of the pieces felt overly-whimsical to the point of ridiculousness, and I had difficulty extricating any meaning at all. But on the whole, the Best American Nonrequired Reading 2014 left me feeling pensive and enriched.
Recommended for:
• Daydreamers
• Curious folk
Though such a task is obviously oversimplified, if I were to summarize this collection's contents in one word, that word would be wonder. Most of the pieces, regardless of the levity of their tone, express a wide-eyed eagerness toward absorbing the surrounding world. Authors seem more intent on dreaming about their topics than hammering the reader with an agenda. Such a quality is surprisingly lacking in good fiction. It's nice to see literary wonder so heavily present here.
As a result of the thread of wonder connecting the pieces in this book, it's often difficult for the reader to discern what is fiction and what is truth- or even, what is both or neither. It's a metaphysical experience. I thoroughly enjoyed it, though readers in search of a more grounded collection may not be a fan.
Some of the pieces felt overly-whimsical to the point of ridiculousness, and I had difficulty extricating any meaning at all. But on the whole, the Best American Nonrequired Reading 2014 left me feeling pensive and enriched.
Recommended for:
• Daydreamers
• Curious folk
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