The Best American NonRequired Reading 2004 Edited by Dave Eggers

My guilty favorite of the Best American series, filled with pieces chosen by high schoolers. Mixture of essays, stories, comics, whatever they feel like putting in there.

Highlights of this one are:

We Have a Pope!: An imagining of a marketing master trying to manipulate the system to get the first American pope. Funny.

The Hidden Lives of Lakes: People of a small, wintry village notice that underneath the ice of their lake, all of the people who ever died in their town seem to be living a watery second life.

The Fifteen Year Layover: I thought that Tom Hanks movie was based on a true story, but here’s another one about a man who has lived in an airport for 15 years.

Transmissions from Camp Trans: The story of the alternative protest camp (Camp Trans) that happens on the outskirts of the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival in the wilds of Michigan each August. MWMF prohibits trans women from attending, and this is the story of one summer fighting the good fight.