Reviews for The best American nonrequired reading 2006

The average rating for The best American nonrequired reading 2006 based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-01-16 00:00:00 Neil Flynn As most of you already know, I’d rather pull off my own fingernails that endure anything Dave Eggers had a hand in creating. Obviously, the exception that proves the rule is the Best American Nonrequired Reading series. As the name would imply, the editors pulled from both fiction and non-fiction in an effort to piece together a collection of writing that represents the best of the pervious year. With each of the entries coming from the past year, it’s difficult to find anything that’s not relevant. While there are a few splashes of Eggers’ ego problem — namely the inclusion of such chapters as Best American New Band Names and Best American Things to Know about Chuck Norris — the majority of the book is an excellent collection. For example: Tom Downey’s The Insurgent’s Tale takes you behind the scenes of the Iraqi Jihad; Guy Delisle’s Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea uses the graphic novel format to spotlight the author’s trip across the 38th parallel; and Judy Budnitz’s Nadia entertains with a fictional glimpse into the mail order bride business. If you’re looking for an anthology (or even a short story collection) give the Best American Nonrequired Reading series a try. It’s better than most and is 98% Eggers’ Ego Free.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-11-07 00:00:00 Wesley Gregory "It's a big world, and I really like it. In all things, we are the victims of the Misconception from Afar. There is the idea of a city, and the city itself, too great to be held in the mind. And it is in this gap between the conceptual and the real that aggression begins. No place works any differently than any other place, really, beyond mere details. The universal human laws---need, love for the beloved, fear, hunger, periodic exaltation, the kindness that rises naturally in the absence of hunger/fear/pain-- are constant, predictable, reliable, universal, and are merely ornamented with the details of local culture. What a powerful thing to know: that one's own desires are mappable onto strangers, that what one finds in oneself will most certainly be found in the Other. Just before I doze off, I counsel myself grandiosely: Fuck concepts. Don't be afraid to be confused. Try to remain permanently confused. Anything is possible. Stay open, forever, so open it hurts, and then open up some more, until the day you die, world without end, amen."