The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2011

Edited by Dave Eggers

The Best American series is the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and nonfiction. For each volume, the very best pieces are selected by a leading writer in the field, making the Best American series the most respected—and most popular—of its kind.

I’m not sure where I picked this book up, but I’ve had it for quite awhile. It was one of the those books I’ve always meant to casually read, leaving it on my nightstand, and reading a story now and again. But I ended up reading them one after another.

It was a great collection. A mix of fiction and non-fiction, essays and memoir and comics.

Some of my favorite stories from the collection (fiction):

-“The Deep” by Anthony Doerr

-“Weber’s Head” by J. Robert Lennon

-“Pleiades” by Anjali Sachdeva

 

Some of my favorite non-fiction entries:

-“Second Lives” by Daniel Alarcon

-“An Oral History of Adama Bah” by Adama Bah

-“Game of Her Life” by Tim Crothers

-“Solitude and Leadership” by William Deresiewicz

-“What Killed Aiyana Stanley-Jones?” by Charlie Leduff

-“For Us Surrender is Out of the Question” by Mac McClelland

 

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