The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2009

It has become a yearly tradition to read The Best American Nonrequired Reading for the variety of comics, magazine pieces, and unheralded short stories. I recently finished the 2009 edition with a introduction by cartoonist Marjare Satrapi and found a lot to like. There were several good nonfiction pieces like “Boomtown, Iraq” by Denis Johnson, “A Product of This Town” (a story about the Jena 6) by J. Malcolm Garcia, Jonathan Franzen’s tribute to David Foster Wallace, “Relations” (a piece on race) by Eula Bliss, “The Ticking Is The Bomb” (a piece on Iraq) and “Your Exhausted heart” (about the aftermath of Katrina in New Orleans) by Anne Gileson. There were also a number of entertaining short stories like “Tripletes” by Susan Breen, “Wild Berry Juice” by Rivlsa Galchen, “Monster” by Rebekah Frumkin, “The Temp” by Amelia Kachary, and “The Good Word” by Yannick Murphy.