The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2006

In its fifth year of existence, Dave Eggers's THE BEST AMERICAN NONREQUIRED READING series has hit its stride, culling wonderful writing from all imaginable sources and forms: stories, comics, jokes, essays, journalism, webzines, and the art world. The anthology, gathered in part by teenage writers in Eggers's San Francisco writing workshops, does a wonderful job juggling more traditional short stories from Kurt Vonnegut and Haruki Murakami (if those writers can ever be truly considered traditional) with surprising gems, spoofs, and wonders from the wide world of writing. In the end, THE BEST AMERICAN NONREQUIRED READING 2006 is perhaps the most indicative and evocative anthology of American letters in print, far outrunning its somewhat moribund partner, THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES series.

top literary genres books

Push - Sapphire +w Claireece Precious Jones is an overweight, illiterate black teenager pregnant...  read more

2.  Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen +w 3.  The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold +w 4.  Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister - Gregory Maguire +w 5.  Wicked - Gregory Maguire +w 6.  Dead to the World - Charlaine Harris +w 7.  The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky +w 8.  The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini +w 9.  Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk +w 10.  The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd +w

top fiction books

The Host - Stephenie Meyer +w A young woman's body is overtaken by an alien who wishes to control her mind,...  read more

2.  The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger +w 3.  The Lost Symbol - Dan Brown +w 4.  Under the Dome - Stephen King +w 5.  My Sister's Keeper - Jodi Picoult +w 6.  I, Alex Cross - James Patterson +w 7.  A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini +w 8.  From Dead To Worse - Charlaine Harris +w 9.  Dead Until Dark - Charlaine Harris +w 10.  Dead and Gone - Charlaine Harris +w