The New Kings of Non-Fiction

My sister M gave me this book for my birthday, with the description that it was like This American Life in print. After all, it's edited by Ira Glass and it does have a similar feel to his radio show.

After reading the first few essays, I would also describe it as the New Yorker in book format. Indeed, several of the essays were originally published in the New Yorker.


Ira Glass has picked out what he considers to be some of the best non-fiction writing around. For the most part, I agree. The majority of the essays were fascinating. I loved the story of the New Jersey teen who was day trading, got into manipulating stock prices for profit and got called up by the SEC.


And the profile of a regular 10-year old boy (also from New Jersey) was so full of funny and endearing details. My favorite was Susan Orlean's description of what it would be like to be married to him:

If Collin Duffy and I were to get married, we would have matching superhero notebooks. We would wear shorts, big sneakers, and long baggy T-shirts depicting famous athletes every day, even in the winter. We would sleep in our clothes. We would both be good at Nintendo Street Fighter II, but Collin would be better than me...

And on it goes. I need to send it to my sister who has an almost 10 year old son to see if she thinks it describes him at all.


The essay on the Manchester United soccer fans was frightening. And so packed with details. The author of the essay, Bill Buford, was right there the whole time with them, as a participant observer, and so you get the insider view. The whole mob mentality and the craziness of their devotion was shocking.


There were a few essays I didn't like as much, but all in all, it was a fun read.


I would have like an updated version of some of the essays. The one on Saddam Hussein ended abruptly towards the beginning of the Iraq war started, so we don't get any extra information about how his ego and vanity suffered in the wake of the prolonged US occupation and his eventual capture and execution. Some of the essays seemed a little dated.