I normally find reading or reviewing anthologies as tedious, because there is so much good mixed in with the bad. This particular anthology started off strongly, the stories in the beginning were beautifully written, the subjects were interesting and kept my attention. Towards the end of the book, I found the subject matter of the stories to be boring, and it left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Ever read something that someone wrote because they thought it would make them seem edgy or a more intelligent writer? I ran into pages of that towards the end of this book.

If you're interested in writing short stories, and want to dissect their construction, then yes, I would recommend this to others. I had to read it for school, and I'm glad that I got it out of the unread pile, so that I read something better. ( )

This is the inaugural issue (2007) of a yearly anthology of the "best" in creative nonfiction. The included authors are not super-stars like John Wolfe or John McPhee, rather entries are chosen by a team of academics from a pool of over 600 small-run literary journals, and online blogs, so the writers names are new, and pieces are occasionally somewhat experimental. It is edited by Lee Gutkind, who is called the "Godfather" of creative nonfiction, a field that really came into its own in the 1990s and exploded with popularity in the 2000s. There are 27 pieces in total, of which my 9 favorites are described below. I would like to given it more stars, but 9 out of 27 is sparse territory for a "best" anthology, even if these 9 are really very good. I do plan on continuing to read future volumes in the series, the experience is akin to walking in a crowded public space, you never know what's coming next, but if you don't like it, something new comes along.

Carol Smith in "The Cipher in Room 214" describes a suicide in a Seattle Washington hotel by a woman whose identity has remained a mystery - it's a haunting case for everyone who has investigated it, she is at once famous in death and anonymous in life. It's very literary - on her death she left a dried maple leaf next to her bed, and at her grave site, where the state buried her, is windswept with maple leaves. Spooky.

John O'Conner in "Badlands" gives a expose of a competitive eater in New York named Badlands. Overweight and not seemingly very bright, he seems to have found the one thing he does well, eat, and loves the spotlight even if he rarely wins. It's at once funny, sad and grotesque - a quick immersion into a strange American subculture, like an episode from Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends. "The Pain Scale" by Eula Biss is an experimental piece but it works well as she describes the many psychological complexities behind the seemingly simple 1-10 pain scale measure - horrifically, we learn that 30 years ago babies were routinely operated on without anesthesia..

Rebecca Skloot in "The Truth About Cops and Dogs" gives a fantastic account of a pack of wild dogs in Manhattan(!) that routinely killed pet dogs - but due to a loophole in local law, no one was able to do anything about it. After the authors own dog was attacked and nearly killed by the pack, she wrote this article which appeared in a local paper and garnered city-wide sympathy. Jeff Gordinier in "Miles To Go Before We Sleep" recounts his trip on the Poetry Bus, a nationwide bus tour of poetry readings. Responses from passing vehicles on the highway to a bus with big red letters on the side that said POETRY BUS "ran the gamut: confusion, suspicion, laughter, longing, euphoria. You could see it in their eyes first, and then their scrunched brows, and then in the way they moved their lips: Poetry Bus?! What the hell is that?"

Olivia Chia-lin Lee in "Pimp" describes becoming a high-class prostitute in San Francisco. It's probably a fake memoir, a working out of her own childhood issues and/or adult fantasies, but her insight into the male psyche is precise, and entertaining. In "The Woot Files", Monica Hsiung Wojcik writes up an etymology of the origin of "w00t" and other l33t-speak jargon, successfully incorporating an AIM chat session. In "66 Signs That The Former Student That Invited You To Dinner Is Trying To Seduce You", Lori Soderlind writes 66 numbered passages describing a scene in which she is invited to dinner by one of her students who then tries to seduce her. There are a few twists to the story with clues to the mystery which make this a curious and interesting read, not the sort of thing one reads in mainstream publications but well worth it. In "Wild Flavor", Karl Taro Greenfeld describes life in a Chinese boom-town where wild animals - raccoons, cats, dogs, badger, ostrich etc.. - are kept alive in cages and killed at 'Wild Flavor' restaurants. The scenes of wild animal holocaust are directly connected with the rise and spread of the SARS virus and Greenfeld describes one restaurant worker who is infected by the blood of a sick animal. Greenfeld went on to write the book China Syndrome about SARS.

--Review by Stephen Balbach, via CoolReading (c) 2010 cc-by-nd ( )

I just finished this a day or two ago. It was actually really good. Tons of different and interesting topics. Some really pieces. Some were boring as fuck but most of them were pretty cool. I liked the style of the ones that were originally blogs the best but all of the styles were interesting.
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