The New Kings of Nonfiction

by Ira Glass, Bill Buford, Chuck Klosterman, et al.

Book Overview

A collection of stories-some well known, some more obscure- capturing some of the best storytelling of this golden age of nonfiction. An anthology of the best new masters of nonfiction storytelling,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1594482675
• ISBN13: 9781594482670
• Release Date: October 2007
• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
• Length: 464 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.1" x 8.0"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Collected For A Purpose

I love This American Life on NPR and was excited to discover this collection of essays assembled by the intelligent and original Ira Glass. I have always loved the viewpoint in Ira's broadcasts and looked forward to discovering the essays and writers he considered worthwhile. This is an excellent collection of non-fiction. I won't use the term "literary non-fiction" because Ira Glass hates the term. (...I'm a snob when it comes to that phrase. I think it's for losers. It's pretentious, for one thing, and it's a bore. Which is to say, it's exactly the opposite of the writing it's trying to describe.) I will agree with other reviewers here that complained that they came across some of these essays before and therefore the collection did not seem fresh. Ira writes that "some of the stories are very well known" but were included because the writers were trying to document remarkable experiences and the stories were "built around original reporting of one sort of another." You should view the stories in this book as a whole, even if you might have come across a few of them before. There is merit in assembling these stories in a collection which becomes evident after you finish the book. This story collection works because Ira is able to spot that certain something in a story or style or reporting that is original-but not novel, entertaining-but humane. You're purchasing the vision of Ira Glass in The New Kings of Non-Fiction and it's worth every penny if it were quadruple the price. Stories included: Johnathan Lebed's Extracurricular Activities - Michael Lewis Toxic Dreams: A California Town Finds Meaning In An Acid Pit - Jack Hitt Six Degrees of Lois Weisberg - Malcolm Gladwell Shapinsky's Karma - Lawrence Weschler The American Man, Age Ten - Susan Orlean Among The Thugs - Bill Buford Crazy Things Seem Normal, Normal Things Seem Crazy - Chuck Klosterman Host - David Foster Wallace Tales of the Tyrant - Mark Bowden Losing The War - Lee Sandlin The Hostess Diaries: My Year At A Hot Spot - Coco Hensen Scales My Republican Journey - Dan Savage Power Steer - Michael Pollan Fortune's Smile: World Series of Poker - James McManus I'd also recommend The Best American Essays 2007 (The Best American Series (TM)) edited by David Foster Wallace. Another good collection of stories by an editor with excellent taste.

Yay for Ira

Ira Glass knows how to pick and choose. I am a huge fan of This American Life, and this book has great stories, stories I may not have found or paid attention to, but since they're recommended by Ira, I have read and appreciated them. The stories are very interesting, and give insight into our world, from a boy's dealings with the stock market . . . and the law, to what it is like to be around Sadaam Husain, to the outlook and feeling of being a 10-year-old boy from the subburbs. And it's fun to read Ira's introduction to the stories - he kind of psyches you up for them, so you're excited and ready to read.

GREAT GIFT!

I BOUGHT A COPY FOR MY GROWN NEPHEW, BECAUSE I READ THAT IT WAS A 'BETTER GIFT THAN COLOGNE.' I WAS SO HAPPY THAT MY NEPHEW DECLARED IT 'A GOOD READ!' IT MADE ITS WAY THROUGH THE FAMILY, AND I THOUGHT IT WAS A GOOD READ, TOO. ANY FAN OF NPR STORIES OR WELL WRITTEN NON-FICTION WOULD BE A FAN. IT'S THE KIND OF BOOK YOU WANT TO SHARE!

If you want to understand the power and allure of nonfiction narrative, READ THIS BOOK!

This is a phenomenal collection of short works of nonfiction, compiled by Ira Glass of NPR's THIS AMERICAN LIFE. Every one of these pieces is a treasure, from Michael Lewis's attempt to figure out why the SEC accused a 15 year-old boy of manipulating the stock market, to Jack Hitt's description of the biggest, weirdest lawsuit in history, to Mark Bowden's attempt to answer the question "What's Saddam Hussein really like?" This will introduce some of you to a new genre, others to some new writers, and many of you to at least three books, Bill Buford's AMONG THE THUGS (about rabid English soccer fans), Malcoln Gladwell's THE TIPPING POINT (based on his chapter about Lois Weinberg, the women who knew everybody), and James McManus's POSITIVELY FIFTH STREET (which grew from the article "Fortune's Smile," which concludes this collection). The richness of these stories and the authors' joy in developing them and sharing them, will encourage you to read AND write.

Fantastic Writing

Each one of these pieces is exceptional! I became totally absorbed and could not stop reading them!! Amazingly while some were written some time ago they are quite relevant today.