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How We Are Hungry

dave eggers

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Dave Eggers presents his first collection of short stories. The characters are roaming, searching, and often struggling, and revelations do not always arrive on schedule. Precisely crafted and boldly experimental, How We Are Hungry simultaneously embraces and expands the boundaries of the short story.

218 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1,2004

This edition

Format
218 pages, Hardcover
Published
October 13, 2004 by McSweeney's
ISBN
9781932416138
ASIN
1932416137
Language
English

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About the author

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dave eggers

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Dave Eggers is an American writer, editor, and publisher. He is best known for his 2000 memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, which became a bestseller and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. Eggers is also the founder of several notable literary and philanthropic ventures, including the literary journal Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, the literacy project 826 Valencia, and the human rights nonprofit Voice of Witness. Additionally, he founded ScholarMatch, a program that connects donors with students needing funds for college tuition. His writing has appeared in numerous prestigious publications, including The New Yorker, Esquire, and The New York Times Magazine.

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Community Reviews

Rating(4 / 5.0, 99 votes)
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99 reviews All reviews
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FloatDarkSphere
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Eggers is a phenomenal writer. He can pack a vicious emotional kick into only a few pages. The stories were about rather mundane things, but that's where Eggers shows his excellence - he made me want to crawl into a hole and hide there in shame for the plainness and mediocrity of both humanity and myself. But in an eye-opening way.
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PlotLover
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I love Dave Eggers, but this book had me torn. If you take this book as a collection of stories, there are some parts that really really shine. As a whole though, the collection is really not that memorable. Some of the stories are really poorly thought out, almost sophomoric. The stories that I did like in here I really enjoyed like 'Quiet' , 'Up the Mountain Climbing Down Slowly' and 'After I was Thrown Into the River and Before I Drowned) which were absolutely amazing. I can see the latter of these not leaving me for some time.

There are some stories ('Your Mother and I') which are super pretentious, which takes away from how beautifully Eggers writes. Maybe that's why his books like What is the What, AHBWOSG, and Zeitoun shine: the non-fiction element makes it impossible for him to have massive amounts of pretension that lay on just the writing. I'd say save yourself some time by just reading the good stories, but I think it's something that you can skip.
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nessiesmith2012
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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This book is a collection of short stories rather than a novel. Although its definitely nice to see new short fiction come out since it seems like a rare form of literature these days, I don’t really feel this book lived up to potential. Quite a few of the stories, such as “Quiet” and “Climbing to the Window, Pretending to Dance” were quite good, however several other stories were too experimental or just seemed incomplete which brought down the collection. My main complaint was that the book was a little too short and could have used a few more stories, especially his ultra-short stories which I think I found the most entertaining. All in all it is nice to see new collections of short stories but this particular book fell a little short of my expectations.
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jigujiguuijigu
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I devoured this book in a day... so considering that I'm a slow and sporadic reader, that alone must be a testament to how much I enjoyed it. This is a collection of short stories. Generally, I don't go for short stories, as it takes me a while to warm up to a character and story, but I really got into some of these. Some stories, of course, were better than others. The tone seemed a little less indulgent than AHWOSG and YSKOV, and that may be an advantage of some, but for me personally, it's the passionate, unrestricted tone that I love about Egger's work.
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Zev___
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I read only a few sentences in this book while browsing the library. all of the sentences were incorrect sentences. this did not please me.
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D4rkn3s5
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Yeah, this wasn't very good. I like Eggers' other stuff, and I love me some McSweeney's, but this - not so much. They seemed like rough drafts. There's even one (Notes for a Story of a Man Who Will Not Die Alone) that has a great premise, but he doesn't actually write the story, he brainstorms how he would write the story. I know, I know, he's being very purposeful about all of this, I'm sure, but I don't think it makes for a very enjoyable reading experience. I wasn't interested in any of the characters, except (for some reason) Grant from Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly. That is actually a pretty solid story, but I'm not recommending the rest. I do really respect and appreciate Eggers' aching sincerity, and I think that's worked well for him in his other work. Sorry Dave! I promise to keep reading your stuff!
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aesir_valkyrie15
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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i was bored raw the entire time, and i was unreasonably enraged by the [short story?:] "there are some things he should keep to himself" which consists of four blank pages. so enraged, in fact, that i ended up filling up those pages myself with my .005 pigma micron pen. that'll learn ya! i thought. tho, immediately after i had this thought, i felt a sneaking suspicion that i had fallen into some kind of trap, that i had been, somehow, coerced. i began cursing the name of the author, and cursing the tear on page 125 of my first edition copy, which i ordered directly from the mcsweeney's website, and cursing my secondary existence as someone who steals space in someone else's published book. . .
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