The Morning News

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Currently: "I am old-fashioned and think that reading books is the most glorious pastime that humankind has yet devised." http://tmne.ws/14845
1 day ago

New Finds • A Good Best

Book Cover There must be some explanation for the fact that it wasn’t until 2008 that someone had the clarity of thought to anthologize their well-considered selection of the best writing on the internet. Possibly it is that whatever cabal decides these things was finally overwhelmed by the torrent of quality prose pouring out of the virtual realm. Or maybe someone unfettered by any proprietary bonds to old media. Which brings me to Dandy Dan Wickett (who was once derided by a small-minded L.A. Times critic for having a day job) of the Emerging Writers Network and his Dzanc Books cadre—who may not have removed the scales from the eyes of the mainstream media (now known to all as MSM) that was done by the circulation and ratings plunge that evidenced a looming irrelevancy—but has exhibited both the multifaceted legitimacy of new media and its vastness as a wellspring of creativity by publishing Best of the Web (Dzanc Books) in 2008 and 2009.

The latest iteration of Best of the Web is guest edited by Lee K. Abbott and aheres to the series mandate to “compile the best fiction, poetry, and nonfiction that online literary journals have to offer in an eclectic collection in the manner of other broad-ranging anthologies.” Additionally, there is a comprehensive appendix containing valuable information about 300 or so online literary venues. That’s worth the price of admission alone.

Of the contributors I recognized, few are household names—Blake Butler, Matthew Derby, Roy Kesey, Terese Svoboda, Todd Hasak-Lowy, Stephen Dixon—the rest are discoveries waiting to be made, which is what commends this wide-eyed effort. —Robert Birnbaum, Nov. 30, 2009
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Reading • Anthology 101

Book Digest Receiving an advance copy of The Best American Mystery Stories 2008—guest-edited this year by George Pelecanos—reminds me that Houghton Mifflin’s onslaught of its franchise The Best American Series anthologies is not far behind. What started in 1915 as simply The Best American Short Stories now has every stripe of superlative excessive collections, including the imaginative and contrived The Best American Nonrequired Reading. But the 21st century is all about exploiting Brand, right? So let me move on. If not the “best” stories, Pelecanos’s 19 selections are certainly quite wonderful, as he is certain to upset purists by including fine writers like Elizabeth Strout, Alice Munro, Thisbe Nissen, James Lee Burke, Robert Ferragamo, Michael Connelly, Chuck Hogan, and Joyce Carol Oates. My favorites are a poignant, flashback-filled story by Kyle Minor (“A Day Meant to Do Less”), Scott Phillips’s well-modulated nostalgia (“The Emerson, 1950”), and Stephen Rhodes’s Wall Street morality tale (“At the Top of His Game”).

For many years, Shannon Ravenel edited the New Stories From the South anthology; she’s turned over the reins to Kathy Pories and yearly guest editors: Alan Gurganis in 2006, Edward P. Jones in 2007, and Z.Z. Packer in 2008. As expected, these anthologies do feature many of the South’s favorite sons and daughters (which, if you are out of touch with that region’s rich literary tradition and culture, is a major public service); in this instance, Packer’s introduction is an intriguing, smart, and provocative essay entitled “The Double Indemnity of the South”:
And as backward as we’ve been portrayed—or as backward as we’ve sometimes portrayed ourselves, slipping behind a curtain of innocent and naïve agrarianism, rural somnolence, and sleepy everlasting vowels—the truth is that every awful and beautiful thing that has happened in America happened in the South first.
Kudos to Dan Wickett and Dzanc Books for finding a need and filling it well with the initial Best of the Web 2008. The volume’s editor, Nathan Leslie, writes:
This anthology does not attempt to capture some very vital aspects of the online experience—no multimedia experience, no interactive texts, no surfing here. We limited ourselves to four genres—poetry, fiction, flash fiction, and creative nonfiction. There are others; this isn’t our attempt to build Rome in a day… Rome will come. It will take time. For now I simply hope you like the anthology we put together. Read, enjoy, savor.
 —Robert Birnbaum, Aug. 21, 2008
Discuss This • Tweet this • Post to Facebook • FILE UNDER: Alan Gurganis, Alice Munro, Anthologies, Best of the Web, Chuck Hogan, Dan Wickett, Dave Eggers, Dzanc Books, Edward P. Jones, Elizabeth Strout, George Pelecanos, James Lee Burke, Joyce Carol Oates, Kathy Pories, Kyle Minor, Michael Connelly, Nathan Leslie, New Stories From the South, Robert Ferragamo, Scott Phillips, Shannon Ravenel, Southern Literature, Stephen Rhodes, The Best American Series, Thisbe Nissen, Z.Z. Packer
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