The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2007


Book Description

Presents selections of mainstream and alternative American literature, including both fiction and nonfiction, that discuss a broad spectrum of subjects.




The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2012


Book Description

A selection of the best writing, including fiction, nonfiction, poetry, comics, and blogs, published during 2011. Edited by Dave Eggers.




Best American Nonrequired Reading


Book Description




We Think, Therefore We are


Book Description

Featuring contributions from Stephen Baxter, Eric Brown, Robert Reed, and Ian Watson, this brilliant collection of fifteen original stories explores the nature of artificial intelligence, playing on our fear and fascination with robots, computers, and technology. Original.




Bandit


Book Description

'Raw, poetic and compulsively readable ... I can't wait to buy a copy for everyone I know.' Kathryn Stockett, author of The Help The summer she turned thirteen, Molly Brodak's father was arrested for robbing eleven banks. In time, the image she held of him would unravel further, as more and more unexpected facets of his personality came to light. Bandit is her attempt to discover what, exactly, is left, when the most fundamental relationship of your life turns out to have been built on falsehoods. It is also a scrupulously honest account of learning how to trust again, and to rebuild the very idea of family from scratch. Refusing to fence off the trickier sides of her father's character, Brodak tries to find, through crystalline, spellbinding prose, a version of him that does not rely on the easy answers but allows him to be: an unknowable and incomprehensible whole – who is also her father. Unforgettable, moving, and utterly relatable, Bandit is a story of the unpredictable complexity of family.




A Sand Book


Book Description

Longlisted for the National Book Award "Mind-blowing." —Kim Gordon DEADPAN, EPIC, AND SEARINGLY CHARISMATIC, A Sand Book chronicles climate change and climate grief, gun violence and bystanderism, state violence and complicity, mourning and ecstasy, sex and love, and the transcendent shock of prophecy, tracking new dimensions of consciousness for our strange and desperate times.




There's Nothing Funny About Design


Book Description

". . . no one has ever written about graphic design in quite this way. The title sounds more like a short story, and at times I found myself reading it as though it were a fictional exploration of a designer's consciousness. When I did, itsenergy, relentlessness, emotion, and abundance of detail made sense, as did its literary style. Barringer writes entertainingly and has a gift for intricate metaphor. . .Designers who enjoy ambitious writing will find plenty toadmire . . ." From Rick Poynor's I.D. Magazine review of "American Mutt Barks in the Yard" (Emigre; 68) By winning the 2008 Winterhouse Award for Design Writing, David Barringer firmly established himself as the freshest and most interesting writer on the subject. His articles, which have appeared in publications from Print to Emigre, are notable for his strong personal point of view, literary style, and even humor, not always attributes associated with writing about design. In this collection of essays, Barringer's first, he wonders why drug names have so many X's in them, ponders the rise of gory DVD covers, and ruminates on his father's business card collection, pythons, and the human skullproving again and again that design is everywhere you look for it, (but may not have seen) without the powerful magnifying lens of this talented and exciting observer and writer.




Signposts in a Strange Land


Book Description

At his death in 1990, Walker Percy left a considerable legacy of uncollected nonfiction. Assembled in Signposts in a Strange Land, these essays on language, literature, philosophy, religion, psychiatry, morality, and life and letters in the South display the imaginative versatility of an author considered by many to be one the greatest modern American writers.




East Fifth Bliss


Book Description

There are seven defining moments in a person's life. For Morris Bliss, the difficulty is in knowing which moments are defining. Morris Bliss, at thirty-five, is clamped in the jaws of New York City inertia - he wants to travel but has no money; he needs a job but has no prospects; he still shares a walk-up apartment with his father. Enter Stefani, an 18 year-old in a Catholic school uniform, and Morris's once static life quickly unravels when Stefani's father, unwittingly calls on Morris to work for him. Life becomes further entangled when his best friend is recruited by a cartel that local sex markets, and begs for Morris to save his bacon. Most importantly, Morris's father, a taciturn widower, finally reveals the truth surrounding the strange death of Morris's mother. A body at rest will remain at rest. Unless acted upon. With the agony of his inertia finally broken, Morris Bliss fights to keep his life from careening out of control. He must learn to adapt if he is to survive.




The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2015


Book Description

Adam Johnson, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Orphan Master's Son, works with group of high school students out of 826 San Francisco to select the year's best new fiction, nonfiction, poetry, comics, and category-defying gems aimed at readers 15 and up.