Commentary
In its sixth year of existence, and despite its self-deprecatory name, Dave Eggers's THE BEST AMERICAN NONREQUIRED READING series continues to challenge THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES series for the title of most exciting anthology of contemporary letters. Selected in part by the young students of Eggers's San Francisco writing workshops, the 2007 collection features science writing that reads like science fiction ("The Edge Project: What Is Your Dangerous Idea?"), wonderfully sardonic and hard-hitting war correspondence (David J. Morris's "The Big Suck: Notes from the Jarhead Underground"), dazzlingly inventive short fiction by Miranda July, and the most hilarious high-school commencement speech ever written. Eggers's projects have often been accused of irreverence, and certainly there's an underlying current of whimsy in the book, but by virtue of the sheer diversity, freshness, and liveliness of its selections (no cancer or divorce stories here) THE BEST AMERICAN NON REQUIRED READING 2007 lays a legitimate claim to having its finger on the literary pulse of the country.

Publisher's Notes
The eclectic new volume in the annual series presents the finest literature from mainstream and alternative American periodicals, including fiction, nonfiction, screenplays, TV writing, and alternative comics by Alison Bechdel, Stephen Colbert, Scott Carrier, Lee Klein, Matt Klam, and others. Simultaneous.