The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2015

Selections by Bryan Stevenson, Lesley Nneka Arimah, Daniel Alarcon, Rebecca Curtis, Claudia Rankine, Paul Tough, Wells Tower, and more!

For a year, a group of high school students met at a publishing house in San Francisco every Monday night to read literary magazines, chapbooks, graphic novels, and countless articles. This committee was assisted by a group of students that met in the basement of a robot shop in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Together, and under the guidance of guest editor Adam Johnson—New York Times-bestselling author and winner of both a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award—they selected the contents of The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2015. 


The writing in this book is very essential, if not required, like visiting the Louvre if you're in Paris. In any case, nothing in this book takes place in Paris, as far as we can recall, but it does feature an elephant hunt, the fall of a reality-TV star, a walk through Ethiopia, and much more.


Featured writers include: LESLEY NNEKA ARIMAH, DANIEL ALARCÓN, BOX BROWN, REBECCA CURTIS, VICTOR LODATO, CLAUDIA RANKINE, PAUL SALOPEK, PAUL TOUGH, WELLS TOWER, SHEILA HETI, HEIDI JULAVITS, LEANNE SHARPTON, TOM McALLISTER, INES FERNANDEZ MORENO, and others

Praise for the series

"Lively, eclectic and surprising." —Minneapolis Star Tribune

"Category-defying [and] engaging." —Kirkus Reviews

"A gift . . . One wonders how the world might be different if works in The Best American Nonrequired Reading were indeed required." —USA Today