The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2006

by Eggers, Dave

• ISBN13: 9780618570515
• ISBN10: 0618570519
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-10-11
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Summary

From Dave Eggers:For this year's edition of The Best American Nonrequired Reading, we wanted to expand the scope of the book to include shorter pieces, and fragments of stories, and transcripts, screenplays, television scripts -- lots of things that we hadn't included before. Our publisher readily agreed, and so you'll see that this year's edition is far more eclectic in form than previous editions. Along the way to making the book, we also came across a variety of things that didn't fit neatly anywhere, but which we felt should be included, so we conceived the front section, which is a loose Best American roundup of notable words and sentences from 2005. It is, like this book in general, obviously and completely incomplete, but might be interesting nevertheless.

Table of Contents

Introduction by Matt Groening	xi
I
Best American Fake Headlines	3	(3)
FROM The Onion
Best American Daily Show Exchange on the Anniversary of Watergate	6	(1)
FROM The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Best American Ringing Defeat of Religion Masquerading as Science	7	(3)
FROM Kitzmiller v. Dover
Best American Answers to the Question "What Do You Believe Is True Even Though You Cannot Prove It?"	10	(11)
FROM The Edge Foundation
Best American Excerpt from a Military Blog	21	(7)
FROM A Soldier's Thoughts
Best American Epigraph Wherein a Contemporary Writer Quotes a Great Writer Who Died in 2005	28	(1)
FROM Saturday, by Ian McEwan
Best American First Sentences of Novels of 2005	29	(8)
Best American New Words and Phrases	37	(3)
FROM The Oxford Dictionary of English, Revised Second Edition
Best American New Band Names	40	(1)
Best American Things to Know about Chuck Norris	41	(2)
FROM Chuck Norris Facts
Best American Things to Know about Hoboes	43	(14)
FROM The Areas of My Expertise
II
Cat Bohannon. SHIPWRECK	57	(14)
FROM The Georgia Review
Judy Budnitz. NADIA	71	(23)
FROM One Story
Guy Delisle. PYONGYANG: A JOURNEY IN NORTH KOREA (EXCERPT)	94	(14)
Tom Downey. THE INSURGENT'S TALE	108	(16)
FROM Rolling Stone
Gipi. THE INNOCENTS	124	(31)
FROM Wish You Were Here
THE IRAQI CONSTITUTION	155	(26)
FROM The Washington Post
Miranda July. ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW	181	(12)
FROM the original shooting script
Michael Lewis. WADING TOWARD HOME	193	(24)
FROM The New York Times Magazine
The Lincoln Group. ARE IRAQIS OPTIMISTIC?	217	(3)
Naguib Mahfouz. ROOM NO. 12	220	(11)
FROM Zoetrope: All-Story
Rick Moody. PIRATE STATION	231	(4)
FROM Gargoyle
Haruki Murakami. THE KIDNEY-SHAPED STONE THAT MOVES EVERY DAY	235	(18)
FROM The New Yorker
Jeff Parker. FALSE COGNATE	253	(11)
FROM Hobart
David Rakoff. LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT	264	(13)
FROM Don't Get Too Comfortable
Joe Sacco. TRAUMA ON LOAN	277	(9)
FROM The Guardian
George Saunders. THE NEW MECCA	286	(26)
FROM GQ
Sam Shaw. PEG	312	(15)
FROM Open City
Julia Sweeney. LETTING GO OF GOD?	327	(21)
FROM This American Life
Kurt Vonnegut. HERE IS A LESSON IN CREATIVE WRITING	348	(7)
FROM A Man Without a Country
David Foster Wallace. KENYON COMMENCEMENT SPEECH	355	(10)
Contributors' Notes	365	(10)
Notable Nonrequired Reading of 2005	375

Excerpts

INTRODUCTION Late at night, when all sober people are asleep, Im probably slouching in bed, all Tivod out, reading something like The Insanity of Normality, by Arno Gruen. Or a P. G. Wodehouse novel. Or another Isaac Bashevis Singer short story in the three-volume Library of America edition. Or maybe Im squinting at the latest Acme Novelty Library comic book by Chris Ware. Whatever it is, the next morning Im another bleary guy with dark circles under his eyes muttering about being late for work in the back of the line at Starbucks. Im also the guy not dancing at the happening party on Saturday night. Instead, Ive scuttled over to the corner of the den with my head tilted, running my eyes down each shelf of books, looking for titles Ive never heard of. Back at home, my dining room table is so stacked with books and magazines and newspapers and scripts and storyboards and comics and mail-order catalogs that Im forced to tap out this little introduction on my kitchen table, which right now has on it - lemme count - four books, two daily papers, and the latest issue of the New York Times Book Review. My bathroom has a couple dozen books next to the toilet, and my bedroom is piled so high with books that I fear its erotic only to me. Sometimes I think I have a slight problem. Then I remember most of my friends are also readingly obsessed. Its a struggle for our kind to send flowers on Valentines Day instead of a book. We think all librarians are hot. When we read one of those newspaper articles about some mad old coot found dead in his apartment, crushed by thousands of books, we think to ourselves, How romantic. We not only slow down at every used-book store, we slam on the brakes and make illegal U-turns. We haunt those musty old stores so often that sometimes we run into actual copies of books we once owned, and greet them like long-lost pets. A few years back, in a sleazy used-book store in Hollywood, I found one of my favorite books, G. Legmans demented Rationale of the Dirty Joke, and discovered that the very copy I had grabbed was one I had given as a gift a few years before. I bought the book, crossed out "Merry Xmas 1997" in my dedication, wrote in the current year, and gave it to the same ex- girlfriend that Valentines Day. My obsessive love of reading began before I could read at all. As a wee tyke I remember being entranced by my older brother Marks 1950s-era Little Lulu, Donald Duck, and Mad comic books. "You know how much you like looking at those pictures?" Mark asked me. "Well, when you can read the words in the balloons, its a zillion times funnier." In the first grade, my eager smile faded when I was handed my preliminary reading book. That first primer had no words in it, just pictures, and kindly Mrs. Hoover sat with us and cruelly went through the whole thing, illustration by illustration, acquainting us with the utterly lame Dick and Jane and baby Sally and dog Spot and kitten Puff. Finally we g

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Excerpted from The Best American Nonrequired Reading
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