The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2002 by Dave Eggers

The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2002 Reviews

• 
  Kathleen

  I skipped around between the stories, which happens when reading anthologies I suppose, but other editions have showed better variety in story structure and subject matter.
• 
  Trey Biederman

  3.75
  
  There were a handful of stories I really enjoyed, and several more I wasn’t a huge fan of. Most of the mid tier stories were nonfiction ones which were kind of interesting.
• 
  Keegan

  The Best American Nonrequired Reading series has long been a collection which can be expected to deliver some off-the-beaten path writing. This particularly volume, 2002, was the inaugural volume, and as such, it was different from later additions. It was interesting for me to see how the series had developed, so I burned through this edition.
  
  First, Michael Cart, esteemed author of books for younger adult readers, was the series editor, and Dave Eggers and his fleet of teenager readers was the listed guest editor. From the introduction, Cart made it clear that he had an agenda: to change the stigma associated with young adult literature. Throughout the collection, this agenda plays out, as there are stories about and by teenagers (most notably, the collections last story by Zoe Trope, a Pacific Northwestern teenager and her inability to fit in with the average student). This is an agenda I feel drifts away from later collections.
  
  There are some standout stories here: a couple from the Onion, a great little piece by Sedaris (again, running with what I feel to be Cart's agenda, the story dealt with popular kids in junior high). I really liked David Schickler's "Fourth Angry Mouse", a bizarre story about a staged reworking of Of Mice and Men using only large, numbered mice.
  
  Intermixed with these personal narratives and short stories were a smattering of investigative journalism, including an awesome story by Gary Smith, "Higher Education", in which he explores Berlin, OH, and their Mennonite high school basketball team and the first black person and coach to arrive at the school. It was a moving story and important story about the role of sports in race relations, though at times tended to be overly maudlin in it's prose.
  
  This is one thing that Eggers' and this collection do really well: blur the lines between fiction and nonfiction (which, I feel, is best portrayed by the inclusion of the Onion). There is not much that separate these stories. All of them have characters, driven by some action, overcoming obstacles and acheiving goals. There is a point-of-view, a perspective, a beginning-middle-end structure. Really, the only difference between the two is a label, which, as this collection and those that follow show, is mostly arbitrary. Good writing and good story telling, regardless of genre, is captivating, engaging literature. What does it matter if it happened or didn't?
  
  At any rate, this was a good collection, though a bit shaky at times. This could be due to the unclear agenda, the newness of the collection, or the admittedly short time in which it was brought together. That said, it shows signs of the promising collection it later becomes and it was definitely worth the read.
• 
  Julie N

  I'm a huge fan of the Best American Series, and have been collecting the Best American Short Stories and Best American Non-required Reading books for several years. Somehow, though, I've neglected to read large portions of my collection. So one of my goals this year is to read one book from either collection each month. I decided to start with the first edition of Non-Required Reading, from 2002. This series, edited by Dave Eggers, is intended for what would now be considered a Young Adult audience, although the forward to this edition, interestingly enough, discusses how passe the term "young adult" is in these modern times. It's a mixture of fiction, non-fiction, and graphic novel formats and focuses on issues that will appeal to a younger audience.
  
  Writing
  I actually read this for the first time in 2002, the summer after I graduated from high school. I think it appealed to me much more at that time in my life. And, although I've read other reviews that describe the book as a bit more pretentious and condescending than the others in the collection, I'm not sure if my opinion was colored more by my experience reading it as a pretentious high school graduate or by the actual pretension of the book.
  
  I enjoyed the essays and investigative journalism portions, but the short stories just felt very 2002 to me. Like I should put it in a box with my copy of Bridges With Spirit and Ultimate Fakebook CDs. They're just trying so very hard to be indie (although I think this was before "indie" was a thing) and intellectual. But again, this could be largely colored by my memories of my own self-important, special snowflake, too cool to be cool mind-set. Yes, I had that phase.
  
  Entertainment Value
  Again, I really enjoyed the non-fiction essays and the investigative journalism. At the same time, I wasn't really a huge fan of any of the short stories, with the exception of "Fourth Angry Mouse" by David Schickler. I felt like it was entertaining but also meaningful in a more subtle way than the other short stories, which were either purposefully obtuse or too in-your-face.
  
  Overall
  I really love the series, even though this year isn't my favorite. It was interesting to go back and read this first book in the series and see some of the rough spots that are cleaned up in following editions. I'm looking forward to continuing my read (and rereads) of the series. I think that I'll continue chronologically through the Non-required Reading, so I can better see the evolution of the content.
  
• 
  HeavyReader

  Another thrift store find that I picked up on half price day, so it cost me less than a dollar. Good score!
  
  I like the Best American Series, so I scooped this up without even reading the back. Turns out the writing in this book was selected "...for readers under twenty-five...from mainstream and alternative American Periodicals." It includes "...fiction, essays, satire, journalism--and much more." (I'm not exactly sure what the "much more" consists of.)
  
  None of the included pieces offers any context other than the author's name and the name of the periodical in which it first appeared. (There is autobiographical information about each author in the back of the book.)Personally, I don't like to skip from nonfiction to fiction; abrupt changes in genre are disconcerting to me. I also like to know if a piece is fiction or nonfiction before I start reading, and that information is just not given here. I thought this was a collection of essays until I got into "Stop That Girl" and realized (finally, with disappointment) that it was a short story. (In my defense, as I mentioned, I hadn't read the back of the book, and I was skipping around and had not read either of the editors' introductions to the volume, so I didn't know the genre details.)
  
  There's a essay (or whatever he calls them) by David Sedaris ("To Make a Friend, Be a Friend") that I had never read before. It amused me, but did not make me laugh aloud.
  
  I enjoyed nonfiction pieces by Michael Kamber ("Toil and Temptation," about undocumented workers from Mexico in NYC); and Eric Schlosser ("Why McDonald's Fries Taste So Good," about the science of flavoring prepackaged and fast food).
  
  I didn't like the fiction much, and was down right grossed out by the creepy "Blood Poison" by Heidi Jon Schmidt.
  
  All in all, it's a good read for a buck, but I'm really glad I did not pay the original $13 cover price.
  
  
• 
  Nancy

  In this BANR from 2002 so many essays, and even some fiction, were dated, yet still held up. The anthology had some incredible stories and the usual duds - five that I DNF. My overall favorite piece was an essay about a small-town basketball coach called “Higher Education” by Gary Smith.
  
  My other favorites:
  - Toil and Temptation - A timely essay about the experiences of two bothers who immigrated from Mexico, by Michael Kamber.
  - Speed Demons - A interesting, and again relevant, essay about drug addicts/addiction in Thailand written by Karl Taro Greenfeld. Different chemicals - not current opioid crisis drugs, but the same sad, futile battles.
  - Blood Poison - A gut-wrenching short story by Heidi Jon Schmidt about a “non-relationship” relationship between a father and daughter. It was so well written I almost had to put it down and move on because of the inappropriate, skin crawling, dialogue. In one exchange the 60-something father tells his 30-something daughter that she can sleep in his bed if she’s not comfortable sleeping on the sofa bed because there are no blinds on the windows. “We used to do it, when you were two years old,” he replies after she says she’d be okay on the couch.
  
  Solid anthology. Highly recommend!
• 
  Jesse

  Typically engaging, though I was a bit confused by the series editor's statement about how the material was drawn from publications "that publish material either for of interest to readers ages fifteen to twenty-five." Y'mean, like Esquire & the New Yorker & Sports Illustrated & the Atlantic Monthly & Time & the NY Times, those bastions of YA journalism?
  
  Either way, some memorable stuff. I loved Rodney Rothman's "My Fake Job" (fabricated sections be damned, it's great fiction), Heidi Jon Schmidt's "Blood Poison" (great, awkward dialogue), Adrian Tomine's "Bomb Scare" (first time I've really engaged with his stuff emotionally, very well arranged), and some damn decent investigative stuff. Like a very good magazine.
• 
  Collin

  For being the very first book in this series, it was pretty bad. I think it's because some of the news stories are dated (but still informative), the Onion articles are from back when jokes were easier to write, and a lot of the fiction tries hard to appeal to "the youth". I was just finishing high school and starting college in 2002, and I could see how maybe I would have liked these when I was younger and didn't have my own sense of what I liked in art and writing. It was just a struggle to get through a lot of this. I think with time, Eggers and his young crew have been able to cultivate better collections.
• 
  Peacegal

  While the mix of fiction and nonfiction could be a little jarring, this was a mostly pleasing collection. I don’t understand why it’s being marketed to “readers under 25”—really, anyone could enjoy the Nonrequired series.
  
  The only two entries I disliked were “Blood Poison,” which just left a bad taste in my mouth, and “The Freshman,” a convoluted teenage diary/livejournal/blog/something. (By the way, now I know why people say Dave Eggers is full of himself. He has only a brief essay which serves as his introduction, but sheesh—pretentious!)
  
• 
  Adam

  This one was good, better than 2003, but not as good as 2005. If I recall correctly. The cover is ugly. Once again, I initially didn't know this was a series for high-school age folks, and so I was dismayed at the number of straightforward, navel-gazing "coming of age" stories, the kind that first-time authors write when they want to do something emotionally affecting (you know what I mean?). If you want more varied styles and a broader array of experiences, pick up a McSweeney's.
• 
  K. L.

  The other years have been more entertaining with their selected pieces. In any case, I still enjoyed some of this one. The following are the stories I most enjoyed in order of appearance:
  "Snacks" by Sam Lipsyte
  "Stop that Girl" by Elizabeth McKenzie
  "My Fake Job" by Rodney Rothman
  "Forth Angry Mouse" by David Schickler
  "Why McDonalds Fries Taste So Good" by Eric Schlosser
  "Blood Poison" by Heidi Jon Schmidt
• 
  Kyle Smith

  This first collection of "The Best American Nonrequired Reading" feels condescending. It's a feeling that I never felt from later collections, but something ever present in this debut. I can only assume it comes from the "stories for the under-25 crowd" blurb on the back cover. The entire collection felt like shitty drivel until the last three stories: Gary Smith, Adrian Tomine, and Zoe Trope all crafted breathtaking stories.
• 
  IE

  Most of the serious, nonfiction stuff were good, but the supposedly funny ones weren't. The good outweighed the bad though, and the diversity won me over because at least there was something completely different after every article, and my short attention span was happy.
  
  I'm all for reading the more current collections and check for progress. The only other version I have is 2011, and I hate skipping all those years in between.
• 
  Igor

  My favorite story in this collection is called "Over the River and Through the Woods" or something close to that. I remember thinking it was one of the best short stories I'd read.
  
  The other fascinating short piece is "Why McDonald's French Fries Taste So Good," which I'd highly recommend reading.
• 
  Sarah

  I couldn't remember if I had read 2002 yet, so when I found it on Amazon for $.01 with $1.99 shipping I went for it. It is one of my favorites so far, and I'm still not sure if I've read it before or not. In reading the introduction I realized that this series is for young adults (15-25 year olds). I like to think that makes me hip, reading what the young kids do and all.
• 
  Abby

  Borrowed this book for the flight back to LA. Although it aims itself at an audience 25 years old and under, I enjoyed it a lot. My favorite piece was Dave Eggers's own, coyly snuck into the introduction, which seemed a little shifty since he has magazine and books of his own, but nonetheless fun to read.
• 
  Barbara

  I used it for my reflective writing course and the students really liked the Onion articles and the Eggers intro. So much so that they wanted the conclusion of the first one since I of course forgot to include the last page.
  
  Like all essay collections, there are ones that I like and ones am ennhh about. The Onion ones were pretty good.
• 
  Cassie

  I found the articles more toward the beginning of the book to be uninteresting. I guess it was a lot of cultural stuff. I liked the graphic novel excerpt as well as part of a "play" by a high schooler. It's been a while since I read this, and I'm going off of notes I left myself, so pardon me if I'm vague.
• 
  Sarah B.

  Like most collections, this one is a bit uneven, but still excellent for when your attention is going to be broken frequently. I thought this one was leaning harder on humour than the other ones in this series. Some of the pieces don't age well (both pieces from The Onion should have been left in their own year), but "Journal of a New COBRA Recruit" was timeless and excellent.
• 
  Megan

  Some of these stories I five-star loved, while others were underwhelming. I love the concept and method by which these stories are picked, however. Students under 25 years old in San Francisco choose their favorites and, based on the popularity of the votes, they end up in these compilations. I will seek out other editions of these anthologies. A great concept and some great stories.
• 
  Deborah LaRoche

  I usually don't like short stories b/c if I get really into the story, it ends before I'm ready for it to end. With the exception of one or two in this collection, though, the opposite was true. I was mostly glad they were over. Nothing terribly compelling here--maybe 2002 was just a tough year for short story authors.
• 
  Kate McCarthy

  Some books just don’t hold up too well over time. Maybe this collection never did. But, it helped me check off the final category I needed in the 2018 Read Harder Challenge while fulfilling my 2018 New Year’s resolution to read books from my shelf and pass them on. I may just pass on the following edition of the series that I also somehow have had on my self over a decade.
• 
  Ashley

  Nice sample; and reminder of the fact that I'm only 5 years behind cutting edge literature. Overall i think I'd be interested in reading Kissing in Manhattan by David Schickler, Notes to a Potential Lover by Jenny Bitner and am now hooked on Gary Smith as a sports writer.
• 
  Eli Warner

  this volume was pretty much the one that hooked me. found a copy at the library with a different cover and thought it was one i hadn't read, only to find my own copy sitting on the shelf at home. but the stories immediately came back when i thumbed through it. a classic, really.
• 
  Schuyler

  Okay, I haven't read this whole compilation. I've maybe read more than half of the stories. My five star rating is hinged entirely on the introduction/story by Dave Eggers. It is quite simply one of the best short stories I have ever read.
• 
  Windy

  I've made several stories in here required reading. Perhaps that defeats the entire purpose, but I enjoy the irony... and besides, there are some good pieces in here. My students particularly enjoyed the essay "Why McDonald's Fries Taste So Good."
• 
  Jo Ann

  I read this book on the plane to and from Minneapolis, as all the books I'd started were hardback and too heavy for travel. I really enjoyed some of the short stories, but I'm not really a "short story" fan, so on the whole, I'm giving it a 3.
• 
  Anh Le

  As is true with all kinds of collections, this book has the good and the bad. Perhaps two or three will stick for a while--one of them is certainly "My fake job," a satirical look into the purposelessness and expendability in corporation offices.