What’s New at MCL: The Best is Yet to Come

Are you tired of wasting precious reading time on the 2nd Best, 3rd Best, or not Anywhere-Near-Best? Then take a look at these MCL titles where editors have culled through mountains of published essays, stories, poems, to create compact collections of the Best-est stuff out there.


Want to read something unpredictable? Check out The Best American Non-Required Reading 2008. Among the essays and short stories, peruse the quirky lists of
Best American New Band Names (ever hear of Harry and the Potters?)
Best American Last Sentences in Books of 2007 (my favorite “At least now you know what you’re eating"- which is from?)
And what kind of list does this ‘best name’ come from – Avater’s Crusader of Bayshore and Lonestar’s Ava Ava Bo Bava?
(Check the comments to see THE ANSWERS).

Other bests are-

The Best American Travel Writing 2008 – sail or fly or hike in your imagination, while your body remains in the comfy armchair to Tibet, Georgia, Brighton Beach and exotic locales. Feel thrifty & read the Annie Nocenti’s piece: The most expensive road trip in the world. Cost more than yours?

The Best American Comics 2008
The title says it all. Includes:
Burden from Papercutter by Graham Annable
The thing about Madeline by Lilli Carre
Turtle, keep it steady! by Joseph Lambert
Cupid's day off by Evan Larson .

The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2008
Dabble in these explorations of our material world:
Zonkeys are pretty much my favorite animal
Untangling the mystery of the Inca
The coming robot army
Children are diamonds.


The Best American Spiritual Writing 2008
Recharge your spiritual battery with:
Faith and quantum theory
I met a man who has seen the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, and this is what he told me

The Best American Poetry 2008
Linger a bit with Robert Bly’s lyric:
Wanting Sumptuous Heavens, where he writes:
No one grumbles among the oyster clans,
And lobsters play their bone guitars all summer.
Only we, with our opposable thumbs, want
Heaven to be, and God to come, again.

The Best American Mystery Stories 2008
You are sure to be mystified by the mysterious tales -- including:
Mist by James Lee Burke
Mulholland Drive by Michael Connelly
The blind man's sighted daughters by Joyce Carol Oates

And where doth that famous tidbit of a title – The Best Is Yet To Come -- itself come from?
Can you guess from the portrait shown here of the author of the phrase?
Check the comments to see THE ANSWER).

- Karen S.