Editor: Sarah Vowell (introduction) Type: Fiction, non-fiction, short stories, essays, comics, poetry, memoir Published: 2017 I read it: November 2017 If 2016 was the volume that felt like a last big inhale before American politics crashed down at the end of that year, then this year’s BANR collection is the painful exhale, reading like a…
Author: Stephen King Type: Non-fiction, essay (Kindle single) Published: 2013 I read it: August 2017 (re-read) Throughout my re-reading adventure of The Dark Tower series, I kept thinking back to this essay that Stephen King released in the spring following the Sandy Hook school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. I had remembered that part of King’s goal…
Author: Dave Eggers (series editor), Zadie Smith (introduction) Type: Fiction, non-fiction, short stories, essays, comics, humor (anthology) Published: 2003 I read it: May 2017 2003. The first year of the Iraq war. The release year of a bunch of my favorite albums before I turned more noticeably into new tastes. A full decade before my first…
Author: Mark Twain Editor: Frederick Anderson Type: Non-fiction, essays Full title: A Pen Warmed-Up in Hell: Mark Twain in Protest Published: 1870-1907 (original essays); 1979 (this collection) I read it: December 2016 In the Introduction, editor Frederick Anderson offers nuggets of Twain outtakes that set the tone for the book. And even in these earliest…
Author: Rachel Swaby Type: Non-fiction, essays Full title: Headstrong: 52 Women Who Changed Science—and the World Published: 2015 I read it: December 2016 Rachel Swaby opens her book by telling about her inspiration for it—the obituary of Yvonne Brill. Published in 2013, the article started off listing Brill’s success as a mother and wife, as…
Editor: Rachel Kushner (introduction) Type: Fiction, non-fiction, short stories, essays, comics, poetry, memoir Published: 2016 I read it: October 2016 The primary challenge of any anthology is deciding what to pick, so in this edition of the BANR series the curators tried to be explicit about their goals for the year. Daniel Gumbiner, on behalf…
Editors: James Houghton, Larry Bean, and Tom Matlack Type: Non-fiction, essays Full title: The Good Men Project: Real Stories from the Front Lines of Modern Manhood Published: 2009 I read it: December 2015 I knew this book was a right place, right time scenario for me when the opening story was set in the city…
