The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2003

The "fresh anthology of hip American writings" (Forth Worth Morning Star-Telegram) returns this year with a spectacular array of fiction, nonfiction, and humor, drawn from traditional and alternative magazines by Dave Eggers.

Presents the finest literature from mainstream and alternative American periodicals, including both fiction and nonfiction dealing with a broad spectrum of subjects from magazines from the "New Yorker" and "Rolling Stone" to the "Onion."

This brilliant collection highlights a bold mix of fiction, nonfiction, screenplays, television writing, and more alternative comics than ever. Compiled by Dave Eggers and students from his San Francisco writing center, contributors include Judy Budnitz, "The Onion, The Daily Show, This American Life," and George Packer.

In these wondrously strange and revealing stories, Tom Kealey chronicles the struggles and triumphs of the young and marginalized as they discover many ways of growing up. Their names are Merrill, Omar, Shelby, Laika, Winston, and Toomey, but most people don't see them. They are boxers in training and the children of fishermen. They are altar boys in a poverty-stricken parish. They are assistant groundskeepers and assistant camel-keepers. They travel with the circus, care for disabled siblings, steal police cars, and retrieve the stolen boots of a priest. Ranging in abode from Puget Sound, Washington, to Pamlico Sound, North Carolina, they are abandoned yet courageous and plucky children and teenagers living on the edges of society. Thieves I've Known is a collection of powerful, moving stories about the lives of a redemptive and peculiar cast of young characters who become easy to know and difficult to forget.

Harold's end is a street hustler power ballad from San Francisco novelist JT Leroy. A young boy finds solace in a gift from an older, seemingly compassionate man. As with other Leroy stories, it goes from dark to incomprehensibly black. Internationally renowned Australiam artist Cherry Hood has created eight unique watercolour paintings based on the character descriptions in the story.

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • With a new foreword by Tim Ferriss • “Vagabonding easily remains in my top-10 list of life-changing books. Why? Because one incredible trip, especially a long-term trip, can change your life forever. And Vagabonding teaches you how to travel (and think), not just for one trip, but for the rest of your life.”—Tim Ferriss, from the foreword There’s nothing like vagabonding: taking time off from your normal life—from six weeks to four months to two years—to discover and experience the world on your own terms. In this one-of-a-kind handbook, veteran travel writer Rolf Potts explains how anyone armed with an independent spirit can achieve the dream of extended overseas travel. Now completely revised and updated, Vagabonding is an accessible and inspiring guide to • financing your travel time • determining your destination • adjusting to life on the road • working and volunteering overseas • handling travel adversity • re-assimilating back into ordinary life Updated for our ever-changing world, Vagabonding is an indispensable guide for the modern traveler.

A New York Times notable book and winner of The Northern California Book Award for Best Short Fiction, these nine brave, wise, and spellbinding stories make up this debut. In "When She is Old and I Am Famous" a young woman confronts the inscrutable power of her cousin's beauty. In "Note to Sixth-Grade Self" a band of popular girls exert their social power over an awkward outcast. In "Isabel Fish" fourteen-year-old Maddy learns to scuba dive in order to mend her family after a terrible accident. Alive with the victories, humiliations, and tragedies of youth, How to Breathe Underwater illuminates this powerful territory with striking grace and intelligence. "These stories are without exception clear-eyed, compassionate and deeply moving.... Even her most bitter characters have a gift, the sharp wit of envy. This, Orringer's first book, is breathtakingly good, truly felt and beautifully delivered."—The Guardian

An eclectic collection of fiction, essays, poetry, and graphic work selected by high school students with the help of New York Times best-selling author Edan Lepucki. Over the past year, fifteen Bay Area high school students have gathered each week in the basement of an independent publishing house to pore over online and print literary journals, magazines, books, plays, and graphic novels. They read things they couldn't shake and engaged in deep conversations about how good writing brings people together, no matter what else is happening around the world. With the help of New York Times best-selling author Edan Lepucki they have compiled The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2019.

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.