For some reason I didn't find this volume as fun to read as the first.

Still, I found these stories particularly interesting:

Donovan Horn's "Moby-Duck, or The Synthetic Wilderness of Childhood"
Discusses the spill of thousands of rubber bath toys from a cargo ship and their washing up on beaches years later. Also, the history of rubber ducks.

Katie Campbell's "The Egg and I"
She considers donating her eggs and goes over the complex process of doing so. It made me decide that I'll never do it myself, however tempting thousands of dollars may be. ( )

Since reading this book, more than three years ago, I've started a number of reviews. The difficulty I've had, I believe, is due to the very large umbrella that the series title spreads. Creative nonfiction is a many-splendered thing, and any collection of the "best" of it is sure to be a diverse one. As with any diverse collection, there's bound to be bits that fit your taste and bits that don't. I can no longer pinpoint which essays I found to be shining gems and which I felt fell flat, though there were some of each. But, even those that weren't so much my cup of tea might very well be someone else's.

If memory serves, the backbone of the book was Donovan Hohn's "Moby Duck," which appears to have since been extended into a full-length book.

At 326 pages and 28 essays this is a generous collection of nonfiction, but I only found six essays that stood out enough to remark on. Yet, how how good those six are, they make the book as a whole worthwhile seeking out. Probably the best essay is "Moby-Duck" by Donovan Hohn. It's the longest in the book, comprising nearly 60 pages or 20% of the entire length. The pun on "Moby-Dick" is not just because of its length. Like in the novel, the essay is a weird hodgepodge of style and content, sometimes a straightforward journalism about ocean currents and the plastic derbies that floats in it, other-times existential angst on the modern human condition. It is one of the best nonfiction essays I've ever read, a nod to the literary greatness of Moby-Dick.

There are two superb mini-biographies. The first, called "Pursuing The Great Bad Novelist" by Laura Sewell Matter, is about the Victorian romance novelist Charles Garvice (1850-1920), whom you have probably never heard of. The Wikipedia article (see previous link) gives some background about him, but Laura's story about how she came to learn of Garvice from a book page leaf that washed up on the beach in Iceland is literary gold. The other min-biography is called "The Dangerous Joy of Dr.Sex" by Pagan Kennedy (an original piece first published in this book). It is about Alex Comfort, the stodgy English professor who was the unlikely author of the ever-popular The Joy of Sex. His story is basically an encapsulation of the sexual revolution and how far and quickly things changed in a single lifetime.

There are two psychology essays, the first "Instead of the Rat Pack" by Gwendolyn Knapp is about the authors mother who never throws things out and hoards stuff in her house to the point of excess requiring "active intervention." The other is a short web piece called "Shrinks Get It Wrong Sometimes" from Shrinktalk.Net, about a patient who foresees his own death. Finally there is a true crime essay called "The Suicide Murder? of Joseph Kupchick" by James Renner. It concerns a young man who apparently killed himself, but there are many clues to suggest it was actually murder. His father and mother become the lead investigators as the police and journalists write it off.

--Review by Stephen Balbach, via CoolReading (c) 2010 cc-by-nd ( )

At first glance of the title, it seems hard to believe that there could be such a category as 'creative nonfiction', but Lee Gutkind and others want you to think otherwise. In this volume, the second in a series, there is a diverse collection that spans many topics; hope, death, mystery, racism, just to name a few. The most enthralling voices are in Katie Campbell's "The Egg and I", Emily Bernard's "Figurines", and James Renner's "The /Murder/ Suicide? of Joseph Kupchik". Most stories are of personal reflection, of the emotions felt by the author from some event they were a part of or had only read about. Some essays, like Stefan Fatsis' "My Glove: a Biography" and Pagan Kennedy's "The Dangerous Joy of Dr. Sex", follow through their curiosity and delving into history to reach desire within themselves, which in turn takes the reader along a nostalgic ride. Others tend to be laborious, such as "Moby-Duck: or, The Synthetic Wilderness of Childhood" by Donovan Hohn, and "The Art of Writing a Story about Walking across Andorra" by Rolf Potts, which can be tedious reads. Mr. Hohn had a scientific journey, that seemed never-ending, and wrote a very long story that could be better categorized as a serial along side the other stories within that are more-or-less short stories. Even a few of the submissions are more like blog postings and not essays, which feel very breezy while reading, though in this reviewer's case, could have been placed directly after Donovan Hohn's effort in order to alleviate the burden of tired reading.

All-in-all, Gutkind and company have put forth a study in non-fiction that can by torn apart, conversed, and re-shaped, much like the other volumes in this series. Whether the printers got it right in their selection will be left for history to decide. On the whole, a good collection for thought and bookshelf. ( )

creative nonfiction is the sort of thing that grew out of the new journalism movement in the 1960s, though few practitioners prefer to see it that way. but there is a clear line between the type of personalized investigative reporting that was being done by tom wolfe and joan didion and, yes, hunter s. thompson that reaches us today in the types of work presented here.

this is a great collection (as was volume 1) of nonfiction that looks to present a multifaceted and nuanced view of the world, either through the eyes of the author or their subject. pieces are of varying lengths and subjects and, as with all collections, there is something for everyone.

the short story, and in particular the literary short story, have evolved to the point where the readership has been alienated by style over story and substance. creative nonfiction takes the facts and presents them in a way that makes them feel fresher and more entertaining than fiction.

as a side note, this might be a good book to try with a teen reader who is looking for something more substantial and realistic. there's a lot to chew on in these pieces. ( )