The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2003

by Dave Eggers (Editor), Zadie Smith (Introduction)

Since its inception in 1915, the Best American series has become the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. For each volume, the very best pieces are selected by an editor who is widely recognized as a leading writer in his or her field, making the Best American series the most respected -- and most popular -- of its kind.

Dave Eggers, who will be editing The Best American Nonrequired Reading annually, has once again chosen the best and least-expected fiction, nonfiction, satire, investigative reporting, alternative comics, and more from publications large, small, and on-line -- The Onion, The New Yorker, Shout, Time, Zoetrope, Tin House, and McSweeney's, to name just a few. Read on for "Some of the best literature you haven't been reading . . . And it's fantastic. All of it." (St. Petersburg Times).

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Essays, Anthologies, Humor, Literature, American

330 pages, Paperback

First published October 10, 2003

About the author

Dave Eggers is an American writer, editor, and publisher. He is best known for his 2000 memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, which became a bestseller and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. Eggers is also the founder of several notable literary and philanthropic ventures, including the literary journal Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, the literacy project 826 Valencia, and the human rights nonprofit Voice of Witness. Additionally, he founded ScholarMatch, a program that connects donors with students needing funds for college tuition. His writing has appeared in numerous prestigious publications, including The New Yorker, Esquire, and The New York Times Magazine.

Reviews

[Lobstergirl · Rating 2 out of 5]

I used to pay full price for things like this at Borders and then never read them. So twenty years later, it was time to read it and cull it. "Nonrequired" is truth in advertising at least. There were only two pieces worthy of reading, Mark Bowden's long article on Saddam Hussein for the Atlantic Monthly ("Tales of the Tyrant"), and George Packer's New York Times Magazine article in which he followed a woman's donated t-shirt from the Upper East Side of New York to a resale market in Uganda.

You couldn't always tell which were fiction and which nonfiction, annoyingly.

[Suica · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is just not as good as its 'best American essays' counterpart. I mean, the good essays are from the New Yorker for a reason. I feel that this book is trying too hard to be quirky that eventually, it really becomes quirky and simply not memorable. I really struggled through the pages, and even the introduction by Zadie Smith is not interesting, ugh.

I had had such high hope for this. This year of reading really cannot get any worse for me huh? I think I will just stop reading books for now and start again at the beginning of January 2016. Plenty of magazines I've accumulated throughout the year are waiting. I can't wait to read me some fantasy books next year - my husband bought me the whole set of Games of Thrones and I just bought The name of the wind so they'd better be good. Or I can just read classics books - haven't read one in a while. My husband just bought me a bunch of them too and oh boy, their sizes are just intimidating.

Anyway, I've been putting this song on constant repeat mode:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSxyf...
Isn't it such a perfectly structured song? :) And this one is not bad either:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kErOt...
Isn't JYP a genius?

Errr... and good lord, Knock Knock (2015) is horrible but Keanu, I love you still.

[Gretta · Rating 3 out of 5]

By design this collection is eclectic. There were a lot of pieces that didn’t speak to me, but the ones that did REALLY did. And Zadie Smiths Forward brilliantly made the case for why we should read things that are perhaps lesser known “non required”. “The Meticulous Grove of Black and Green” was a stand out (it made me cry). It’s the story of a man who’s life has not gone as he’d hoped and so he worships a filmmaker who is the epitome of toxic masculinity, and yet in the protagonists own life he take care of his wife and son (an adopted boy who was disabled my his bio father’s own toxic masculinity). Incredible and I was astounded to see this story was completely obscure! This is why I read short story collections. For these treasures.

[Paul Perry · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars overall
Individual ratings:

Foreword - Dave Eggars 3
Introduction - Zadie Smith 4
The Guide to Being a Groupie - Lisa Gabriele 2
Things We Knew When the House Caught Fire - David Drury 4
The Pretenders - Chuck Klosterman 4
How To Write Suspense - James Pinkerton 3
Stuff - JT Leroy 4
Saint Chola - K. Kvashay-Bayle 4
I'll Try Anything With a Detached Air of Superiority - The Onion 3

A moderately interesting collection, but more of a mixed bag than I'd expect from anything claiming to be a 'best of' overview. The stand-out stories were the David Drury, JT Leroy and Kvashay-Bayle, respectively about the prejudices expressed against a family that doesn't fit in an exclusive community, a homeless girl findng unexpected artistic comfort and a young teenage Muslim girl coming to terms with her place in American society just before the Iraq war. Chuck Klosterman's reportage on the modern phenomenon of the tribute band was funny and insightful, and Zadie Smith intro was an excellent little essay on finding a balance between required and experimental reading, as well as finding one's voice as a writer.

Both the Onion piece and the James Pinkerton story were vaguely amusing but rather slapstick in their approach to satire while Lisa Gabriele's tale of a rebellious teenage girl read like a college creative writing exercise. Both this and 'Saint Chola' used a second person narration, but here it seemed somehow to distance rather than include the reader.

There was something oddly backward-looking about this collection on the whole; all the fiction or memoirs dealt with looking back to childhood or adolescence, while Klosterman's piece is partly about nostalgia and the Onion's oddly old fashioned - although possibly as it is a satire of those awful New Yorker articles that do actually read like that.

I also have the 2004 collection, so am interested to see how that compares.

[Gregg · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked these stories, although some of them went down better than others. I didn't have the attention span necessary to attend to the subtleties of humor in "A Primer for the Punctuation of Heart Disease," although I wasn't completely addled and did recognize that the author was playing around with emoticons and the human psyche. Liked Eggers' musings on his brother's wedding, liked the Atlantic Monthly article on Sadaam Hussein, and absolutely loved Zadie Smith's introduction, as she talks through the approaches of reading through famous quotes about reading (Francis Bacon's words, Nabokov's, etc.). I made it a point to get the sound recording just so I could hear her earthy, cockney accent decrying the guilt trips that kept her from reading for pleasure for so long. You can hear, in her shortened breath, all the smoking she's been doing. No matter. Write me in your next book, Zadie. I'll make it worth your while.

[Symphony Space]

Week of December 16, 2010 - December 22, 2010
What the Blind Can See
"Things We Knew When the House Caught Fire" by David Drury, performed by Keith Szarabajka
Collected in: The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2003, edited by Dave Eggers (Houghton Mifflin Company)

[seine · Rating 4 out of 5]

best travel reading ever.

[Demetria · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very cool collection of short fiction and non-fiction. It's a very diverse group of writers and definitely worth a read. Great for long flights and vacations too.

[Ann Mat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like any other anthologies, there are good stories and ok ones, but I don't think that it is deemed the best. Although I understood the pressure of screening the whole thing within a year by a bunch of talented students as a working committee. It was strangely contemporary for some, and others feels quite archaic since it was aligned with the political values at that time. It is not really timeless, but I can imagine how it feels when they were talking about the stories two decades ago. I expected a lot since it was introduced by Zadie smith and edited by Dave Eggers. As their second anthology, they might have tried some things out. The genre was also pretty sparse, and it is hot cohesive. I liked the concept of some like George Packer, David Drury, and Lynda Barry. I can't remember the others, or it doesn't resonate with my politics or interest. In the end, it is a matter of preference and I felt like it has a lot of bombs. I have the 2013 version and] expected that it would be way better than this.

[Victoria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read for Book Riot's 2022 Read Harder Task #18: Read A Best ___ Writing of The Year For A Topic and Year Of Your Choice.

Actual rating is 4.41 stars as the average.

So this wasn't a perfect fit but I wasn't going to pass up on a chance to read this wonderful mix of nonfiction and fiction, prose and comics, funny and sad. Especially and well mainly for one reason only.

"The Guide To Being A Groupie" by Lisa Gabriele. As a woman who grew up cutting her social media teeth on the groupie Internet of yore, this short story was like a religious text to me. When I first read, probably a decade or so ago at this point, it was like someone zeroed in on me and my group of friends at the time. We re-read it constantly and it's just as good now. Still the standout piece from this collection, although I'll be the first one to admit that nostalgia is influencing me.

The best part about it though, is that it's 2003. It's painfully 2003 even at it's most timeless you can't escape the fact that these pieces were chosen for a 2003 era audience and it's so proud of the fact that you snuggle up to this work even more because of it.

[Bret McGuire · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some truly wonderful stories in this collection. Light's "Three Days. A Month. More." is devastating. ZZ Packer's "The Ant of the Self", Kvashay-Boyle's "Saint Chola" and Drury's "Things We Knew When the House Caught Fire" are also standouts.

The trouble is that the rest of the collection is somewhat uneven. Boudinot's "The Littlest Hitler" and Budnitz's "Visiting Hours" fit nicely in with the stories mentioned above. And Mark Bowden's lengthy story about the Hussein family is still as disturbing as it was when it was first published. But after these stories the quality becomes more uneven.

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Collections of short stories are difficult to rate. Some will be good, others less so. I was pleasantly surprised by the collection here, though. I didn't dislike any of them. Not a lot stood out as exceptional, though. One, however, did for me. Things We Knew When the House Caught Fire by David Drury. The story of some neighborhood kids that didn't fit in but didn't seem to care, either. It was memorable because it did manage to capture that mystique about childhood and the fog of our memories from those times.

[Ronn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This fascinating collection of essays, excerpts, and short stories runs in subject matter from a psychohistory of Saddam Hussein to they joys that can be had from non-intellectual activities like bowling and shopping at a mall [in a detached and smugly superior way, an Onion article]. There was nothing that didnt keep me engaged enough that I wanted to skip over, and plenty that will have me looking for more.

[Chloe A-L · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full disclosure, i have not read one of the stories in here at ALL (The Ant Of The Self) because for some reason I have an advanced readers copy of this? like the one they send to reviewers? and some of the stories are "pending authorization to publish" as of the publishing of the mock-up and I couldn't find it easily online and i just wanted to rate this book and be done.

[Adelaide · Rating 4 out of 5]

The introduction by Zadie Smith drew me in, and the rest was quite good as well. I especially enjoyed "Tales of the Tyrant" by Mark Bowden and "A Primer for the Punctuation of Heart Disease" by Jonathan Safran Foer.

[John Bond · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great collection. You must read the stories by JT Leroy and K Kvashay-Boyle. Blew me away.

[Tim Hart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid entry in the series. A personal favorite was "Lost Boys" by John Verbos

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love these collections. Some really, really good pieces in this one...hard to go back to mediocre novels after sampling the best.

[Christine Zac · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this in 2003 and literally just read it.
Good book of short stories- they are mostly quite raw and edgy, for teen/young adult audience. Overall a good set.

[Brigitte Weil · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked a lot of these better than the ones in the 2002 version. Still trying to clear the random old books off my shelves…

[behsforensics]

Cutting is for The Littlest Hitler
By Ryan Boudinot

Another cutting is for How to Write Suspense
By James Pinkerton

[Patrick McCoy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Last week I spotted The Best Nonrequired Reading 2003 edited by David Eggers. I had read the inaugural issue of 2002 and enjoyed it (a few of the selections came across as juvenile). There were three stories that I had previously came across, and really enjoyed ("Visiting Hours" by Judy Budnitz in Harper's, "Saint Chola" by K. Kuashay-Boyle in McSweeney's, and "Rooster At The Hitchin Post" by David Sedaris in Esquire), which is a good thing-it shows Eggers has similar taste to mine. I have to say that most of the standout material in this particular issue was journalistic pieces. These include: Mark Bowden's study of Saddam Hussein, "Tales of the Tyrant" from Atlantic Monthly, George Packer's piece on the second hand clothing that is worn in the third world, "How Susie Bayer's T-Shirt Ended up on Yusuf Mama's Back" from New York Times Magazine, a profile of a baby born during the South Central Rodney King Riot, "Riot Baby" by Daniell Voll for Esquire. That's not to say there wasn't any good fiction, because I really liked "The Art of Self" by ZZ Packer from The New Yorker and will be on the lookout for more of his stuff. Overall it was eclectic and entertaining-highly recommended.

[Kathleen (itpdx) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of short stories and essays by new authors (in 2003) and established and well-know authors. And like all such collections there were some stories that were excellent and others that I didn't like. Sherman Alexie is one of my favorite authors and his piece did not disappoint me. Mark Bowden's profile of Saddam Hussein, Tales of the Tyrant has been haunting me. Chuck Klosterman's The Pretenders about a Guns N Roses tribute band had me laughing out loud. Whereas James Pinkerton's How to Write Suspense struck me as stupid and four times too long. He should check out The Onion's piece I'll Try Anything with a Detached Air of Superiority for a good punchy length for satire.
I can't seem to find David Drury's book of short stories that was supposed to be coming out with his piece Things We Knew When the House Caught Fire which I really enjoyed.
The editor's idea to order the stories by alphabetizing the authors' names created some interesting juxtapositions for those of us who read such collections from front to back.
This is a good collection to discover new favorite authors and catch up with old favorites.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the most varied collections of short stories I have read in quite some time. Occassionally it becomes clear that the collection is meant for people to say "this is the most varied collection I've read" which does show it lacks some sort of central theme, something to hold on to, etc.

The variations are in structure as well as tone and voice so unlike many other prose collections or collections of one author's short stories it is will keep your mind stimulated to be sure.

I personally read this book in spurts at home and in various cafes, airports, etc., which I think was the best way I could've read it. Sitting at home I would've been struck more at the dissimilarities in the stories and not been able to appreciate them as much as individual works that just happen to have been collected.

As in any collection, there are stronger and weaker ones, but I would recommend this reading for someone who likes shorter, varied reads, someone who has little time to spend reading at a shot, and I would definitely pick up another year's volume if I pass it by.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read a few books in this series and it seems that every year it's a pretty solid collection of long form journalism, short stories, and humor pieces. Dave Eggers and his team make a conscious effort to mix big names with unknown authors. I wish I could say that my favorite stories were by these great undiscovered talents. However, these are the pieces I would give five stars:

-Zadie Smith's introduction examining how people read.
-Mark Bowden's "Tales of the Tyrant," a look inside Saddam Hussein's extravagant lifestyle.
-Jonathan Safran Foer's New Yorker essay "a Primer for the Punctuation of Heart Disease."
-Amanda Holzer's humorous list, "Love and Other Catastrophes: a Mix Tape."
-Chuck Klosterman's profile of a Guns N Roses cover band titled "the Pretenders."
-The Onion's article "I'll Try Anything With a Detached Air of Superiority."
-George Packer's examination of "How Susie Bayer's T-Shirt Ended Up on Yusef Mama's Back."
-David Sedaris' account of his brother Rooster's wedding, "Rooster at the Hitchin' Post."

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first audiobook I've ever experienced (thanks to my overzealous clicking/buying during the bn.com warehouse sale, I overlooked the "CD" part of the description), and I think I'm ready to listen to more. Dave Egger's Forward has me rolling (not literally, of course, as I was driving), especially his sheer hatred for the Alan Parson's Project; Zadie Smith's Intro made me think I was listening to a British, better educated, more well-spoken and much more readerly version of myself; there are a few how-to's, such as "How to Write a Suspense Novel" (lightening crashes!) and "The Guide to Being a Groupie", as well as a couple of tear-jerkers (most notably, "Stuff" by the con-writer herself J.T. Leroy and "Things We Knew When the House Caught Fire"). Sadly, the audio version only has a select few of the 25 stories available in the print version, so I feel a little left-out of the joys mentioned in the reviews. Ah well, can't win em all, right?

[nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

So far:

I'm mostly interested in selections involving heinous dictators: The Littlest Hitler and Tales of a Tyrant, an examination of the life of Saddam Hussein! I don't know why, but they're the most engaging pieces I've read thus far, and they're absolutely nothing alike. I mean, I'm pretty sure I have in fact been living under a rock ("solid as a rock!"... Arrested Development? Yes? Anyway...) for much of my life, but even so it felt surprising to realize how little I'd thought about the topic. I'd never really considered what it must be like to be Saddam Hussein or what it would be like to meet with him. Or even to live in a desert country. To actually fear for your life because you might not be able to complete a brick wall in under five hours ...Now I have. Er... thanks, Mr. Bowden.

[Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

My dad had picked this one up and got bored with it. I loved Zadie Smith's introduction to the novel concerning what you feel you should be reading and how you often miss a lot of contemporary literature because you spend all your time reading what you "should" be reading. It brought up my overwhelming emotions that I can never read everything out there, but then lead me to think that this probably means I should just read whatever I want to. A few of the stories that I loved: "The Littlest Hitler" by Ryan Boudinot made me laugh out loud; "Tales of the Tyrant" by Mark Bowden--creative nonfiction about Saddam Huessien; "Saint Chola" by K. Kvashay-Boyle; and (my favorite) "Rana Fergina" about two very different girls who come together to dissect a frog, by Dylan Landis. Lots of new authors to look into!

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a mixed bag. Overall, the book was enjoyable and a quick read. Some stories I thoroughly enjoyed, others I had a harder time finishing.

Disclaimer: I read an article about authors J.T. Leroy and Nasdijj. Nasdijj claimed to be Navajo and wrote several "memoirs" about death on the reservation but he wasn't actually a Native American. Similarly, J.T. Leroy claimed to have a background of prostitution, addiction, and homelessness, but was actually an "avatar" created by author Laura Albert. Even so, the story by J.T. Leroy in this collection was one of my favorite stories.


If you want to read more about Nasdijj and J.T. Leroy, here are the articles I found:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rob-spi...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JT_LeRoy

[Chloe · Rating 2 out of 5]

This collection is, at best, a compendium of hit and miss articles and short stories and, at worst, a collection of writers that remind me of everything I don't like about Dave Eggers. This book has been bathroom reading, sitting on the back of the toilet in case I find myself trapped in the commode for a long duration. The problem is that I am so uninspired to read it that I've taken to bringing in other reading materials.

One bright note: I loved the article about Saddam Hussein written by Mark Bowden though it is fairly over-flowing with the jingoistic imperial zeal that marked most pundit's tone on Iraq leading up to the US invasion in 2003. There's also a fantastic article on Idi Amin that is worth reading.