In a small but comfortable conference room, in a publishing house in San Francisco, a group of high school students met weekly over the past year to read literary magazines, chapbooks, graphic novels, and countless articles. They had some good times. There was a whiteboard in the conference room, and often cartoons were drawn on this whiteboard. The cartoons were of varying quality. By the end of the year, with the help of a similar committee of high school students in Ann Arbor, and their guest editor, Rachel Kushner, they selected the contents of this anthology. *The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2016* features stories about Bulgarian spaceships, psychedelic mushroom therapy, and a cyclorama in Iowa. If you don’t know what a cyclorama is, you aren’t alone. Read on to find out.*The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2016 *includes N. R. KLEINFIELD,  ANNA KOVATCHEVA, DAN HOY, ANTHONY MARRA, MICHAEL POLLAN, MARILYNNE ROBINSON, DANA SPIOTTA, ADRIAN TOMINE, INARA VERZEMNIEKS* and others*Rachel Kushner, guest editor, is the author of *The Flamethrowers,* which was a finalist for the 2013 National Book Award and one of the *New York Times*’s top five novels of 2013. Kushner’s debut novel, *Telex from Cuba,* was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award, a winner of the California Book Award, and a *New York Times* bestseller and Notable Book.words : 135230