db's review
The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2003 (The Best American Series (TM))
by Dave Eggers
db's review
The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2003 (The Best American Series (TM)) by Dave Eggers
db's review
rating:
bookshelves:
shortstories,
vignettes
I liked these stories, although some of them went down better than others. I didn't have the attention span necessary to attend to the subtleties of humor in "A Primer for the Punctuation of Heart Disease," although I wasn't completely addled and did recognize that the author was playing around with emoticons and the human psyche. Liked Eggers' musings on his brother's wedding, liked the Atlantic Monthly article on Sadaam Hussein, and absolutely loved Zadie Smith's introduction, as she talks through the approaches of reading through famous quotes about reading (Francis Bacon's words, Nabokov's, etc.). I made it a point to get the sound recording just so I could hear her earthy, cockney accent decrying the guilt trips that kept her from reading for pleasure for so long. You can hear, in her shortened breath, all the smoking she's been doing. No matter. Write me in your next book, Zadie. I'll make it worth your while.
