NONREQUIRED... but certainly recommended

For my birthday last year, Stephanie gave me a copy of the 2004 edition of The Best American Nonrequired Reading. Since then, I've picked up the 2003 edition and now the 2006 edition. I'm hooked. There's great fiction, essays, news, fake news, blog excerpts, and all kinds of great stuff in it- even the full text of the Iraqi constitution. Stuff that you'll never come across in a classroom or stuffy literary quarterly, but absolutely compelling, funny, fascinating, and all over the map. From big name publications like Rolling Stone and the New Yorker, to broadcasts from This American Life and The Daily Show, to small quality websites like Hobart. Highly varied, it's just damn good reading.

Since its creation five years ago, the Nonrequired series has been edited by Dave Eggers, whose literary debut, a novelized memoir called "A Heartbreaking Tale of Staggering Genius" earned him enough dough to start McSweeney's (a quarterly journal as well as a hilarious website), and a number of philanthropic pursuits (including 828 Valencia, a writing lab for youth). It was also a finalist for the Pulitzer!

His latest book, "What is the What" is also amazing, but for so many reasons that I'll have to make it a separate future post.

Also, the intro this year is by Matt Groening of Simpsons, Futurama and Life In Hell fame. Past intros have been written by Viggo Mortenson (The King of Gondor himself!) and some other great folks.

If you're looking for a great read and don't mind a pretty random selection, pick up or check out one of these volumes today!