The Best American Non-Required Reading (2003) - Dave Eggers (ed.)

http://www.powells.com/biblio?isbn=9780618246960 : I received this as a gift from Ashley a long time ago and have picked it up every once in awhile to read a piece or two. It is a collection of essays, stories, commentary, articles and other types of writing edited by Dave Eggers ("A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius"). I really enjoyed this collection - it was fun to read all the different styles of writing from hilarious to heart-breaking. My favorite piece was Judy Budnitz's short story "Visiting Hours", from Harper's Magazine, which tells the story of a brother and sister from a not quite perfect suburban family. I also enjoyed James Pinkerton's "How to Write Suspense" from Modern Humorist, which satirically outlines the key factors to any successful suspense story (I actually laughed out loud while reading this in a dentist's waiting area). There are a wide-variety of "Best American" collections each year ranging from Short Stories to Sports Writing to Non-Fiction. I've found them to be generally fun to flip through - not necessarily reading the whole book in one shot. This one was no different, and most of the pieces were good finds by Eggers that were a nice change of pace from my usual reading.