Overall this was a 3-star collection, but the most notable entry by far is a short story called "Where We Must Be" by Laura van den Berg. It's a slightly bizarre take on the tragic love story archetype (there is a Bigfoot impersonator involved) that manages not to fall victim to that brand of for...
I'm giving this collection and overall rating of 4,though there were some pieces in there that I disliked intensely. The overall quality of the selections, though, was fantastic. My favorite, I think, was "Bill Clinton, Public Citizen" - it was interesting and contained perhaps the most effecti...
I kind of want to give this three stars, but I won't because the nonfiction was so good. Having reading 2009 and 2010 within the last year, I have to say that BANR definitely has better nonfiction than fiction. I like both genres, but prefer fiction a little more and I think their aesthetic/int...
This annual of non-required reading requires a few flip-throughs at the bookshop before deciding to buy it. I'll skip some years, but bought this edition. As with any reading, it's tough to tell in a bookshop if the writing will engage me. ... Three things I liked about the 2012 edition: — Ray Br...
McSweeney's 28 is made up of 8 small hardbacks contained within a cardboard container. The two sets of 8 books make up two fantastic painted covers, one of which is the one you see as the main cover, of a boy with his ear to the ground while a fire or a tree radiates from him. The books are very ...
Definitely worth the read. The collection of shorts has a fair amount of variety, from the heart wrenching tale of an innocent man behind bars to a lyrical tumble into one woman's mania. Makes for a fast read, too. I purchased this bundled with "There is a Nation" (which I am currently reading). ...
Preface to the fourth edition:I wrote this a few years ago, back when I had just finished reading the book, but before I had died. I still haven't died so that's beside the point. I'm procrastinating right now, and copying this from another site where this originally appeared.Original PrefaceTh...
Meh. An 00s word for a very 00s book. Like Eggers' You Shall Know Our Velocity (2002), it has a pre-lapsarian naivety: stories of middle-class white Americans who, before the crash, rarely worry about money, and who go on holiday to exotic locations and stay wrapped up in their own worlds. A narr...
One of my least favorite books of all time. I think it's a lot of b.s., to be honest. I cringed with frustration as I turned every page, and I only wanted to finish it so that I could say I found nothing redeeming. Oh sure, he was flashy and could draw a cheap laugh, but it was like admiration fo...
When the civil war between the north and the south of Sudan reaches Achak's far western Dinka village of Marial Bai, he is a child of about seven years old who still spends most of his time with his mother, or playing on the floor of his father's general store. He did sometimes go out with the ot...
Before the third screen, there had always been a lull, maybe ten or twelve seconds, between when she’d answered a query and when she knew whether or not the answer had been satisfying; she’d used the time to memorize the boilerplates and do a few follow-ups, every so often to check her phone. But...
AT SUNRISE there was a sign. PETERSSEN SILVER MINE, 2 MI. They’d been driving for five and a half hours, going north and northwest, and staying off the main roads. A dozen times she’d hit dead ends and closed roads and had turned around, the state seeming determined not to allow her to travel in ...
THERE HAD TO BE some reason Alan was here. Why he was in a tent a hundred miles from Jeddah, yes, but also why he was alive on Earth? Very often the meaning was obscured. Very often it required some digging. The meaning of his life was an elusive seam of water hundreds of feet below the surface, ...
The boy is asleep on the couch above me. He has taken his towels-for-blankets and has arranged himself on the end of the couch, his feet neatly stuffed into the cushions. And now he is whimpering. He is having a nightmare, his face contorted like a toddler’s, his petulant frown robbing him ...
She had never told a bald-faced lie to her children before, but now it seemed necessary. Otherwise they would all lose their composure. She planned to enroll them in school on Monday, and to have the strength to be thrown into such a situation they had to believe that their father was healthy and...