Table of Contents
Editor's Note xi
Introduction David Sedaris xv
I
Best American Woman Comedy Piece Written by a Woman: From therumpus.net Wendy Molyneux 3
Best American Sentences on Page 50 of Books Published in 2009 5
Best American Magazine Letters Section: From Newsweek Stephen Colbert 8
Best American Fast-Food-Related Crimes 10
Best American Gun Magazine Headlines 11
Best American Six-Word Memoirs on Love and Heartbreak: From Six-Word Memoirs on Love and Heartbreak 13
Best American New Patents: From United States Patent and Trademark Office 14
Best American Tweets: From twitter.com 16
Best American Letter to the Editor: From Bidoun 17
Best American Overqualified Cover Letters: From Overqualified Joey Comeau 18
Best American Fictional Character Names 22
Best American 350-Word Story: From Orion Barry Lopez 23
Best American Farm Names 24
Best American First Lines of Poems Published in 2009 26
Best American Journal Article Titles Published in 2009 28
Best American Illustrated Missed Connections: From missedconnectionsny.blogspot.com Sophie Blackall 29
Best American New Band Names 37
Best American Lawsuits 38
Best American Poems Written in the Last Decade or So by Soldiers and Citizens in Iraq and Afghanistan 40
II
War Dances: From War Dances Sherman Alexie 49
Like I Was Jesus: From Harper's Magazine Rachel Aviv 75
Burying Jeremy Green: From Shenandoah Nora Bonner 95
The Carnival: From Mome Lilli Carré 104
Capital Gains: From Granta Rana Dasgupta 137
The Encirclement: From Granta Tamas Dobozy 165
Man of Steel: From Ninth Letter Bryan Furuness 180
Half Beat: From The Greensboro Review Elizabeth Gonzalez 198
Gentlemen, Start Your Engines: From San Francisco Panorama Andrew Sean Greer 213
Didier Lefèvre, and Frédéric Lemercier. The Photographer: From The Photographer, translated from French by Alexis Siegel Emmanuel Guibert 238
What, of this Goldfish, Would You Wish?: From Tin House, translated from Hebrew by Nathan Englander Etgar Keret 262
Fed to The Streets: From L.A. Weekly Courtney Moreno 268
The Tiger's Wife: From The New Yorker Téa Obreht 287
Breakdown: From Mome T. Ott 308
Ideas: From The Paris Review, translated from Spanish by Mara Faye Lethem Patricio Pron 316
Vanish: From Wired Evan Ratliff 323
Seven Months, Ten Days in Captivity: From New York Times David Rohde 345
Tent City, U. S. A.: From GQ George Saunders 395
The Nice Little People: From Zoetrope: All-Story Kurt Vonnegut 431
Freedom: From Boston Review Amy Waldman 439
Contributors' Notes 456
The Best American Nonrequired Reading Committee 463
Notable Nonrequired Reading of 2009 472
About 826 National 479
