Best american fiction anthologies according to redditors
We found 77 Reddit comments discussing the best american fiction anthologies. We ranked the 41 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 77 Reddit comments discussing the best american fiction anthologies. We ranked the 41 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
To be honest as much as we all hate to admit it, we are part of Appalachia. We're over 400 miles from the coast so we can't be East Coast, but we don't live near plains and farm land so calling us "Mid-west" is also wrong (plus I don't want to be in the same area as Ohio). Between the two is Appalachia which we are squarely inside of although probably the best part of. [Some even call Pittsburgh the 'Paris of Appalachia'] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Paris-Appalachia-Pittsburgh-Twenty-First/dp/088748509X) [relevent as well] (http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/opinion/brian-oneill/yes-we-and-yinz-are-part-of-appalachia-223324/)
Know what's better than Encyclopedias? Great Books of the World collections.
I've got one myself, inherited from my family. Now sure, most of these books are available free and without any sort of copyright online.
But I love having the ability to go skipping my fingers across authors of history and deciding what I want to read. And these can be used as sources in a research paper, unlike 'pedias.
Some useful links:
Amazon
Google books link
So I have a friend in jail that I regularly send books to. This doesn't cover every situation, but I assume the circumstances will be similar.
He says that the (meager) prison library is very skewed towards religious books, classics, GED materials, and low-difficulty grocery store novels. Anything other than that will be appreciated. The books most requested are thick fantasy books, activity books (sudoku, physics workbooks, etc), science non-fiction, and coffee-table books or magazines with lots of pictures. These will be swapped with other inmates so that anyone interested has a chance to read.
Some things to keep in mind:
Books that have gone over well and can be found in cheap forms:
don't know why you are getting down voted for the truth...here is a great book on it
There are several annual collections published as books. One of my favorites is the Best American series
Other journalism-related books that you might consider:
-Journalism's Roving Eye, a history of foreign reporting https://www.amazon.com/Journalisms-Roving-Eye-American-Reporting/dp/0807143596
Gumbo Ya-ya gets into the history of certain groups of New Orleans, such as the Creoles, the Cajuns, the Knickerbockers and the like. Has some good old folk tales from New Orleans, as well.
Probably my favorite book about New Orleans (after Confederacy, of course).
I like to refer to us as the "Paris of Appalachia"
http://www.amazon.com/The-Paris-Appalachia-Pittsburgh-Twenty-First/dp/088748509X
Haha
Some that I love:
He actually wrote about his perspective on religion in his book Ideas and Opinions. I haven't read it myself, but a friend told me he had some interesting insights on Judaism. Amazon also has a collection of his writings on Cosmic Religion and Other Opinions and Aphorisms. Seems like the information is there if people are interested in his religious views.
There's a book of his work for ESPN--Hey Rube.
It's probably about 50% sports.
Arthurian myths are just the result of Christian colonialism on Britannia’s 6 Celtic faith cultures (Irish, Scots, Welsh, Cornish, Manx and Breton)
Meaning we are already in Christian territory and literary non worshipped territory.
And if we getting historical fun fact- Celtic law and cultural writings show close correlation to Vedic texts and their deities.
source
Gumbo Ya-Ya
Which is a collection of folk tales collected from 1930-1940 for the WPA Writers' Project and thoroughly entertaining. I will throw a caution out for the blatant racism/classism of Louisiana in the 1930's, but it's totally worth it.
OK, so I have a friend in jail serving a lot more time and the rules are probably even stricter (separate receipt needs to be sent in a different shipment or else even new books from Amazon will be destroyed).
Anyways, he says that prison libraries skew towards religious books, former crappy bestsellers (dime-a-dozen bestsellers, the crappy sort of chicklit, etc), and classics. Books that deviate from that are better.
Some general rules: books that cost less are better (at a certain point, you can receive 3x $10 books or 1x $30 book), 3-books-in-1 are better (you can have x many objects).
Books that have gone over well:
Mass appeal/tradeability is a big thing: Harry Potter, His Dark Materials, and Percy Jackson are popular.
Books with lots of nature photography are also big.
You might be interested in short stories. These are all fiction but really fun reads. Check out the Best Short Stories books, like this one, the 2014 edition. I also really liked Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut, also a book of short stories.
For nonfiction, there's this series, I find easy enough to read and each essay is fairly short. There's one for each year and they're great.
visit the amazon link : http://www.amazon.com/Words-Thomas-Jefferson/dp/1882886275
Recommended reading
In addition Becker’s and Kaboom, I’d suggest Abebooks.com if you are looking for a particular edition and don’t want to “dig.”
I was able to score a complete 2nd edition (1994) 60 vol set of “The Great Books of the Western World” for $500 on abebooks....many still in their shrink wrap!
Thanks for your comment.
You may or may not be aware that innumeracy is a bit of a problem in this country and journalists are no exception. John Allen Paulos wrote a whole book about it: A mathematician reads the newspaper. So my goal in posing that question was to learn whether this person could make sense of the available data independently or would need more "support." This is not "attacking" someone; it's "getting to know your audience."
I'm not sure which parts of my note struck you as "angry" or "slightly crazy," but that's your opinion and you're entitled to it. Having been burned before by the BS editors, I'm not eager to repeat the exercise.
You're absolutely right that $100 is not nearly enough to compensate someone for the work that this story will require. If my questions have prevented someone from doing a half-assed job, then that's probably a good thing.
Anything by Simon Singh is worth reading. In addition to what others have recommended, these books are good:
[The man who loved only numbers](http://www.amazon.com/MAN-WHO-LOVED-ONLY-NUMBERS/dp/0786884061/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1254333710&sr=8-1
)
Flatland
Prisoner's Dilemma
A mathematician reads the newspaper
A mathematician plays the stock market
Innumeracy: mathematical illiteracy and its consequences
Also, while not exactly about Maths:
Surely you are joking, Mr Feynman
What do you care what other people think?
The Art of Computer Programming
The Best American Science and Nature Writing series is great. Each year they release a collection of science journalism. 2011's edition is edited by Mary Roach, and it is fantastic. There is a wide range of stories (though 2011 seems a bit heavy on biology and ecology—but there are also pieces about space debris and black holes and AI and more).
Mary Roach is fucking rad! Thanks for reminding me that she exists - I remembered her name from this excellent collection of science/nature articles that she curated/selected. (I really like the rest of the Best American series, especially the short stories one.)
Her introduction was very good, and now I feel compelled to look up more of her work...
This comes from his espn2 articles; many of which were compiled into Hey Rube and it is a very good read.
Wittgenstein's Mistress - David Markson
DFW calls it one of the five most "direly underappareciated US novels" since 1960.
>“W’s M” is a dramatic rendering of what it would be like to live in the sort of universe described by logical atomism. A monologue, formally very odd, mostly one-sentence 6s. Tied with “Omensetter’s Luck” for the all-time best U.S. book about human loneliness.
reminds me of Stalin quote....
> one death is a tragedy, a million is statistic...
...this type of mass murder is sickening.... and on both sides of the isle most are quite on the warefare state.... many leftists even get ultra nationalist when it comes to war.... (well, when their guy is in anyway...)
I would recommend a collaborative effort written by people who are on opposite ends of the political spectrum who came together to document the history of anti-war movements in the US.
We Who Dared to Say No to War: American Antiwar Writing from 1812 to Now
While I haven't read any of his other books, I can definitely recommend A Mathematcian Reads the Newspaper by John Allen Paulos.
Maybe “Wittgenstein’s Mistress”?
Wittgenstein's Mistress https://www.amazon.com/dp/1564782115/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_XN.mDb3D3F261
I recently finished this poetry book called Escapism and Entropy by R. Anansi that’s really good
Escapism and Entropy
Rothbard was in cahoots with the New Left during the 60s on the war/corporatism issues. He wrote scholarly articles for New Left publications. He collaborated with a libertarian socialist to write A new History of Leviathan. (Tom Woods has also collaborated with an anti-war leftist). He actively tried to create an alliance with radical "freedom loving" students, many of whom were obviously economically illiterate.
What say you about that?
If you wish to purchase the book, look here. Loved the 2008 essay's, so I am passing it on
Technically, you're still in Appalachia.
At least one author has called Pittsburgh The Paris of Appalachia
We're listed as the most 'livable' city in the US. We're in the throws of heavy gentrification in the city proper, but there's huge opportunities here. We're also 12th in startup funding now.
The biggest thing of this city is that it's very neighborhood oriented. Each neighborhood has a very different vibe and culture, and in the last 5 years or so many are going through revitalization efforts. The university and healthcare systems are our two biggest industries, but we have quite a bit of tech and biomedical clout as well. The food is phenomenal here for the city size, any number of local joints to hit up.
Our biggest downside is a general lack of touristy spots (some would say that's a positive) and not as much art/culture/music as some larger cities (although it's growing yearly). I would also say we're kinda cut off from a lot of cities as we're not quite midwest, and we're not quite east coast (there's a great book on this). We're also not the craziest party town like say a Miami.
Great place to head to if you're looking to settle down though.
Vet Lit is the only thing. Coming to Powell soon, but on Amazon too
Key word is thorough. Prob and stat is actually very intuitive, the issue is that that intuition must be built from the ground up. Most university courses fail in this respect.
Let me recommend some good, useful, and fun to read books for you: Innumeracy, Beyond Numeracy, and probably most importantly A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper all by John Allen Paulos. He's sort of a pop-math author I would consider analogous to Carl Sagan for numbers.
I'm kind of all over the place it seems.
Smedley Butler - War is a Racket
https://www.amazon.com/War-Racket-Profit-Motive-Warfare/dp/1434407004
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZZD4nc08uc
A book you may be interested in is Wittgenstein's Mistress by David Markson. Although he is American, I think it fits your general bill.
Like I said, quotes out of context without the explanation of what he meant by "God" will be misconstrued as religion, something with a being not bound by the laws of physics. Einstein believed in no such entity.
Also did you send me a link to the sale of his bible as proof he was religious? I mean, I have a Quran, Bible, and Torah, what does that make me?
source
Sticking with your authors named David: David Markson's Wittgenstein's Mistress
Well there's this that's free. You may be able to find print copies on Amazon or Ebay.
There's also this.
Also: https://www.amazon.com/We-Who-Dared-Say-War/dp/1568583850
We can read perfectly well here in The Paris of Appalachia
An article on the psychological after effects from similar situations (scroll down to the first article "The Kindest Cut").
The Best American Science Writing
Every year the "Best American Series" released several titles including "The Best American Science and Nature Writing". A guest editor goes through hundred of articles culled from the best publications and compiles this volume. It would be a cheap text and include all the big names.
http://www.amazon.com/Best-American-Science-Nature-Writing/dp/0547350635
Those statistics are bunk. Even taking them at face value without looking at the sources, if you are trying to minimize the risk of death you would not want to look at all accidents you would want to look at the ones that lead to a fatality while driving. An overwhelming majority of those rear end collisions are just fender benders or trunk benders with only minor injuries. The consequences of a direct side impact are much more dire.
Read something like this
or this if you are curious about lying with statistics.
I would love a set of Great Books Of The Western World (The "new" cost is outrageous, but sets on ebay are usually <200).
Probably start here: http://www.amazon.com/War-Racket-Profit-Motive-Warfare/dp/1434407004/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1321333518&amp;sr=8-1