The Santa Clara

Issue date: 11/9/06 Section: Scene

Media Credit: WWW.HOUGHTONMIFFLINBOOKS.COM The latest edition of "Best American" covers a variety of media and literature.

It's not a lack of quality literature that keeps most college students from listing reading as one of their favorite activities, it's the lack of hours in the day. But, as busy as we all are, there are books out there that merit the time it takes to read them. One such book is the 2006 edition of "The Best American Nonrequired Reading." Edited by renowned author Dave Eggers, this eclectic literary collection takes on a form radically different than that of its predecessors.

Along with the usual short stories, Eggers includes lists of America's bests, ranging from the "Best American Things to Know about Chuck Norris" to the "Best American Ringing Defeat of Religion Masquerading as Science."

This book also includes cartoon strips interspersed throughout the pages like a clip from the Daily Show with Jon Stewart featuring Stephen Colbert and the Iraqi constitution.

An unprecedented variety of media is used, mirroring how pervasive things like television, film and art have become in modern society, making the world more connected than ever before.

Even though the featured stories are written by American authors, most of them have international premises. For example, Jeff Parker's "False Cognate" details a man's bizarre journey on a bus in Russia, and Cat Bohannon's "Shipwreck" recounts a woman's trip to China to see Body Worlds.

In "Shipwreck," deceased people who have donated their bodies to art are skinned, their muscles and organs are exposed with artful incisions and their bodies are contorted in improbable angles. Raising the question of what defines art, this story is one of many that intrigue and fascinate while simultaneously prompting intellectual debate.

Each selection is truly interesting, often educational in a cultural sense, as well as being entertaining. Read "Room No. 12" by Naguib Mahfouz for a fantastic tale of Madam Bahiga al-Dahabi, her dozens of eccentric guests and Blind Sayyid the Corpse Washer.

Kurt Vonnegut even makes an appearance in this book with "Here is a Lesson in Creative Writing," complete with his own personal illustrations.

International customs and politics are a recurring theme in many of the book's featured works; Guy Delisle's "Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea" is a comic strip about what life is like in the communist regime of Kim Dong Il. Iraq, Dubai and post-Katrina New Orleans are also locations that are thoroughly explored in various stories.

"The Best American Nonrequired Reading" is admittedly incapable of being finished; it would be impossible to include every piece of literature worth reading from a year of publications in a single book. However, the selections that Eggers includes seem to be a sufficient cross-section of work, politically aware, socially pertinent and consistently unique.

As the title states, no one is required to read this book, but its contents are probably far more enjoyable than an OMIS textbook or some calculus homework. You may even get more out of these stories because they display both great talent and social relevance.

Convenient for the college student demographic, most of the pieces are relatively short, making the lack of time an obsolete excuse for not reading. Currently for sale at the Santa Clara Bookstore, "The Best American Nonrequired Reading" is a book worth your time.

Contact Sarah Clise at sclise@scu.edu.

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