This years version of The Beat American Nonrequired Reading edited by David Eggers was filled with all kinds of great stories. The book is divided into 2 sections with the first part comprised of all kinds of short lists or small items and the second part consisting of larger stories either fiction, non fiction or comics.
The first section is quick, fun & often hilarious. My favorites out of this years section were gun headlines, six-word memoirs on love and heartbreak, far names, illustrated missed connections by Sophi Blackall & lawsuits. The best of the best was probably from the six-word memoirs from Audrey Adu-Appiah "I loved the idea of you." Right behind that were the illustrated missed connections, they were all real craigs list posting from NYC that Sophi Blackall chose to draw. Her blog is http://missedconnectionsny.blogspot.com/ where you can find the following examples;
The second section had a fantastic section of stories. All of them were amazing and the following were my particular favorites althought it's hard to leave any of them off.
Kurt Vonnegut's short story The Nice Little People was published after his deal and I had originally read it in Look At The Birdie. Great short little story about an ordinary man who finds an extraordinary object.
George Saunders' Tent City, U.S.A. was about a reporter who went to live among a community of homeless people.
Evan Ratliff Vanish was a interesting piece of nonfiction when he participated in a contest by Wired challenging him to disappear completely & for readers to find him. It focused more on the facts of what happened rather than the psychological impact it had on him
Ideas by Patricio Pron was a quick thriller about a small community where kids started disappearing mysteriously.
Tea Obreht's The Tiger's Wife was a story about a tiger escaping from a zoo in a town that the Nazi were taking over at the beginning of world war II and what happened to him. One of my favorites in the issue.
Fed To The Streets by Courtney Moreno was a story about an ambulance driver. I'm still not 100% sure if it's fiction or nonfiction but the story was amazing.
Etgar Keret wrote What, Of This Goldfish, Would You Wish a story about what would happen if you found a goldfish that gave wishes. It was translated by Nathan Englander who is another author I've enjoyed tremendously.
Gentlemen, Start Your Engines by Andrew Sean Greer was originally published in an issue of McSweeney's that I've read and is about Andrew and his husband spending their anniversary at a Nascar event. Funny story & reminded me somewhat of David Sedaris.
Rana Dasgupta wrote Capital Gains a story of how modern India has been dealing with the new middle class and massive amounts of money to be made. Fascinating story and one that I would recommend anyone reads.
Burying Jeremy Green by Nora Bonner is about how a classroom is dealing with an incident that happened at recess when a stranger jumped the fence.
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