The Best American Series® 2008
Best—selling authors handpick the year's finest writing in short stories, comics, mysteries, essays, travel, science and nature, sports, spirituality, and nonrequired reading.
By Salman Rushdie (Edited by); Heidi Pitlor (Series edited by) The Best American Short Stories 2008 gathers an array of inventive and unforgettable stories. Favorite and newcomer writers explore contemporary topics such as cloning, literary envy, cults, and teenage sex, as well as timeless subjects: love, sibling rivalry, immigration, and religion. In Kevin Brockmeier's stunning "The Year of Silence," an unnamed city must face the absence of all sound, followed by an excess of noise. Katie Chase's bold and unsettling story, "Man and Wife," her first one published, brings to life an arranged marriage between a nine—year—old and a grown man. In A. M. Homes's "May We Be Forgiven," two brothers' rivalry undoes their marriages and eventually their lives. Nicole Krauss writes of an inherited desk that comes to represent the burden of memory for a poet in her beautiful story, "From the Desk of Daniel Varsky." And Stephen Millhauser's ingenious "The Wizard of West Orange" imagines Edison and his colleagues inventing machines dedicated to the sense of touch. In his introduction, Salman Rushdie writes, "Some of these stories are immense, the so—called 'grand narratives' of nation, race, and faith, and others are small: family stories, and stories of elective affinities, of the friends we choose, the places we know, and the people we love; but we all live in and with and by stories, every day, whoever and wherever we are." The cultural relevance and intellectual potential of the short story are on display in this year's volume of the best—selling collection. Visit bestamericanshortstories.com to read excerpts, table of contents, author bios and more.
By Robert Atwan (Edited by); Adam Gopnik (Edited by) Here you will find the finest essays "judiciously selected from countless publications" (Chicago Tribune), ranging from The New Yorker and Harper's to Swink and Pinch. In his introduction to this year's edition, Adam Gopnik finds that great essays have "text and inner text, personal story and larger point, the thing you're supposed to be paying attention to and some other thing you're really interested in." David Sedaris's quirky, hilarious account of a childhood spent yearning for a home where history was properly respected is also a poignant rumination on surviving the passage of time. In "The Ecstasy of Influence," Jonathan Lethem ponders the intriguing phenomenon of cryptomnesia: a person believes herself to be creating something new but is really recalling similar, previously encountered work. Ariel Levy writes in "The Lesbian Bride's Handbook" of her efforts to plan a party that accurately reflects her lifestyle (which she notes is "not black—tie!") as she confronts head—on what it means to be married. And Lauren Slater is off to "Tripp Lake," recounting the one summer she spent at camp — a summer of color wars, horseback riding, and the "wild sadness" that settled in her when she was away from home. In the end, Gopnik believes that the only real ambition of an essayist is to be a master of our common life. This latest installment of The Best American Essays is full of writing that reveals, in Gopnik's words, "the breath of things as they are."
By George Pelecanos (Edited by); Otto Penzler (Series edited by) The award—winning author and Emmy—nominated television writer George Pelecanos serves as editor of the twelfth installment of this genre—expanding anthology, featuring twenty of the past year's most enthralling, suspenseful, and slyly illuminating mystery stories.
A cut--dried case for a wily crime—scene reconstructionist is turned on its head in Michael Connelly's "Mulholland Dive." A terrible secret shared between two childhood friends resurfaces decades later as one of them lies on her deathbed in Alice Munro's masterful "Child's Play." James Lee Burke tells the haunting tale of a Hurricane Katrina evacuee who unexpectedly finds comfort from an unimaginable loss in "Mist." And in Holly Goddard Jones's "Proof of God," a young man's car is repeatedly vandalized as proof that someone knows about the truths he'd never willingly reveal. As Pelecanos notes in his introduction, the twenty "original and unique voices" in this collection pay homage to the genre's forebears by taking crime fiction into a thrilling new direction. "But make no mistake," he says, "we are all standing on the shoulders of writers who came before us and left an indelible mark on literature through craftsmanship, care, and the desire to leave something of worth behind."
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Dave EggersFrom the Introduction, Featuring an Interview with Judy Blume:
"The book you're holding is part of a series which every year seeks to compile a varied and unexpected anthology of fiction, nonfiction, essays, journalism, comics, and humor. The books in the Nonrequired series are still assembled in much the same way they've always been—passionately and unscientifically. This anthology, part of the Best American juggernaut that includes everything from the original Best American Sheetrock Poetry to the newest addition, Best American Canadian Marsupial Short Fiction Featuring Lewd Woodworking, is considered the best of them all, chiefly because ours usually features the highest volume of cursing." Lynda BarryThis newest edition to the Best American Series--"A genuine salute to comics" (Houston Chronicle)--returns with a set of both established and up--coming contributors. Editor Lynda Barry and and brand new series editors Jessica Abel and Matt Madden--acclaimed cartoonists in their own right-- have sought out the best stories culled from graphic novels, pamphlet comics, newspapers, magazines, mini—comics, and the Web to create this cutting—edge collection "perfect for newbies as well as fans"--The San Diego Union Tribune. This newest volume features luminaries like Chris Ware, Seth, and Alison Bechdel alongside Paul Pope's "Batman" and beloved daily cartoonists like Matt Groening.
Visit bestamericancomics.com for more information including table of contents, and author bios.
Anthony BourdainIn his introduction to The Best American Travel Writing 2008, editor Anthony Bourdain writes that the pieces that "spoke the loudest and most powerfully to me were usually evocative of the darker side, those moments fearful, sublime, and absurd; the small epiphanies familiar to the full—time traveler, interspersed by a sense of dislocation—and the strange, unholy need to record the experience." With this in mind, Bourdain and series editor Jason Wilson have assembled a wide—ranging and wonderfully eclectic collection that delves headlong into those darker moments and subtle realizations, looking to absorb, provoke, and offer a moving record of what it means to travel in the twenty—first century. |
