The Best American Non-Required Reading 2008 ed. by Dave Eggers

If you haven't heard me say it before, let me say it again: I LOVE the Best American series. Especially this one. Edited by Dave Eggers, of Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and McSweeney's fame, it's a compilation of all the stuff that didn't make it into the other Best American books: graphic novel excerpts, essays from online publications, short stories that didn't make Best American Short Stories or Mystery Stories, etc. And, usually, for my taste, this collection has the most interesting stuff of any of the three I read.

I loved "Neptune's Navy," the piece on Sea Shepherd, the radical environmental group dedicated to stopping whaling AT ANY COST. You may have just heard about them in the news: one of their small craft was destroyed by a Japanese whaler. There was also an essay on Bill Clinton and what he's been up to post-presidency. This compilation totally gets five out of five Whatevers. Recommended for the eclectic reader!

(Sorry this is getting posted so late. I finished this over my vacation, but my husband has been having some fairly major health problems since I returned, so I have been a little preoccupied...)