Somewhat uneven but a delightful collection of stories. The language is wonderful. Some short pieces experimental, quite bizarre. The longer stories moving, engaging. What will this writer do next?

This was my introduction to Dave Eggers, and let's just say I wasn't thrilled. There were some pretty interesting short stories here, but the majority of this book was crippling with its pretense. Other readers have mentioned that he is all style and no substance, and they weren't kidding. Every story is populated with overly-dramatic, self-centered, narcissistic assholes, yet I am supposed to believe that the violent juxtapositions between the horrid and the beautiful is where we live? Give me a break. I've never seen a flower that changed my life, and I've never met a one-armed midget hooker. Alas, we arrive at the center of my struggle with modern American white writers -- I don't give a shit about this type of masturbatory "literature."

Notes for a Story of a Man Who Will Not Die Alone
Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly❣️

Quiet not worth reading

This is a mostly enjoyable collection of stores. There are moments when I felt like Mr. Eggers got a bit carried away with his conception of his own cleverness, as in "Notes for a Story of a Man Who Will Not Die Alone". Come on, Mr. Eggers. Save it for your blog. People who are rabidly enamored of you may want to read stuff like that; I do not. I enjoyed "After I was Thrown Into the River and Before I Drowned" more than I thought I did. I was annoyed by "There are Some Things He Should Keep to Himself". Faulkner did it ages before Eggers, and did it WAY better, creating blank space that actually contributes to the story rather than to the author's self-congratulating.

All that being said, it's a quick read, and there are some enjoyable nuggets. I did like "The Only Meaning of the Oil-Wet Water", mainly for the scene in the boat, and "Another" has a certain frenzy that was somewhat appealing.

I definitely preferred some of the story lines more than others. And for some reason I can never remember the name of this book. I think because the names of the stories inside the book are so intriguing.
For Example: "What It Means When a Crowd in a Faraway Nation Takes a Soldier Representing Your Own Nation, Shoots Him, Drags Him from His Vehicle and Then Mutilates Him in the Dust".

I loved his language and simple technique of writing in 'Notes for a Story of a Man Who Will not Die Alone' I feel like Dave Eggers REALLY can interpret voices well.

And definitely get the hard back version, because the paperback version is missing 1 story.

‭How We Are Hungry, Dave Eggers
How We Are Hungry is a collection of short stories by Dave Eggers, originally published by McSweeney's in 2004. The hardcover first edition includes the following pieces:
Stories: "Another"; "What It Means When a Crowd in a Faraway Nation Takes a Soldier Representing Your Own Nation, Shoots Him, Drags Him from His Vehicle and Then Mutilates Him in the Dust"; "The Only Meaning of the Oil-wet Water"; "On Wanting to Have Three Walls up Before She Gets Home"; "Climbing to the Window, Pretending to Dance" = "Measuring the Jump"; "She Waits, Seething, Blooming" ; "Quiet"; "Your Mother and I"; "Naveed"; "Notes for a Story of a Man Who Will Not Die Alone"; "About the Man Who Began Flying After Meeting Her"; "Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly"; "There Are Some Things He Should Keep to Himself"; "When They Learned to Yelp"; "After I Was Thrown in the River and Before I Drowned".
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز شانزدهم ماه آگوست سال 2012 میلادی
عنوان: چطور گرسنه هستیم؛ نویسنده: دیو اگرز؛ مترجم: بابک مظلومی؛ تهران، نشر نیکا، 1392؛ در 214 ص؛
‏عنوان: چه معنی دارد که دسته‌ ای توی یک مملکت دور افتاده، سرباز مملکت شما را بگیرند، به گلوله ببندند، از خودرو بیرون بکشند و بعد توی خاک بغلتانند و مثله‌‌ اش کنند؛ نویسنده: دیو ایگرز (اگرز)؛ مترجم: اسدالله امرایی؛ ‏مشخصات نشر: تهران: امرود‏‫‬، 1392؛ مشخصات ظاهری: در ‏‫98 ص؛ ‏شابک: 9786005327922؛ یادداشت: کتاب حاضر نخستین‌بار تحت عنوان «چطور گرسنه هستیم» در سال 1391 توسط کتاب «نشر نیکا»‫ با ترجمه «بابک مظلومی» منتشر شده است. ‏عنوان دیگر: «چطور گرسنه هستیم»؛ ‏موضوع: داستان‌های نویسندگان آمریکایی -- سده 21 م
داستان‌های این مجموعه حکایت بی‌قراری، و عطش روح آدمی را دارند. شاید برای همین «اگرز» عنوان: «چطور گرسنه هستیم» را، برای کتاب برگزیده، عنوانی که نام هیچ یک از داستان‌های این مجموعه نیست. از: «یکی دیگر»، و «من و مادرت»، گرفته، تا «وقتی زوزه کشیدن را یاد گرفتند»، و «پس از این که به رودخانه پرت شدم و پیش از این که غرق شوم»، از داستان‌های این مجموعه هستند. «دیو اگرز»، داستان‌ نویس، روزنامه‌ نگار، و ناشر آمریکایی هستند. «دیو اگرز»، در سال 2005 میلادی، موفق به دریافت دکترای افتخاری ادبیات، از دانشگاه براون شدند. ایشان مؤسس انتشارات مک سوئینیز است. ا. شربیانی

Meh. An 00s word for a very 00s book.

Like Eggers' You Shall Know Our Velocity (2002), it has a pre-lapsarian naivety: stories of middle-class white Americans who, before the crash, rarely worry about money, and who go on holiday to exotic locations and stay wrapped up in their own worlds. A narrative that is embarrassingly honest and likely accurate, but would be unfashionable and frequently vilified online now - especially as it doesn't actively signpost embarrassment and guilt as much as one is supposed to. One could argue that Eggers' writing career has followed that modern therapeutic maxim (that isn't right for everyone, for sometimes these things aid each other simultaneously): deal with your own shit before trying to help others: his early books looked at self, family and friends of similar backgrounds, then he moved on to big political, sometimes global themes.

I enjoyed Velocity a few years ago, but many of these short stories I found quite boring. I used to really like Eggers (also Heartbreaking Work - evidently right for the 'loved-it-at-the-time' tag) and remember saying, possibly not on here, it might have been on a creative writing course pre-GR, that he perfectly captured how things feel and I wished I could write that way. I read about half of How We Are Hungry in 2011 and was fairly impressed then. Now I find it mostly flat and detached emotionally, and characters are dull because they're rarely interested in anything except themselves, family and friends, and express it in a numbed, ordinary way. Which is at least fast to read. They're still working out how they feel about everyday stuff in a late-twenties way - a noticeably bad fit for the characters aged 40+, whose voices rarely sound like they are that age. Currently, Richard Powers is the author who fits ... how I see life, which isn't quite the right phrase, and anyway the very idea of writers fitting your life or outlook at certain points sounds like something from a rubbish, wanky MFA in a comment thread: but emotions and experiences in Powers' fiction are more vivid than in early Eggers, and he and his characters are fascinated by complex topics outside themselves.

Stuff I did like in How We Are Hungry:
-'Your Mother and I': a father, probably 40ish, is reminiscing about life to a pre-teen kid, except he and his wife literally 'put the world to rights' as one can only do in daydreams. Some of it's big stuff, other little personal irritations. It's charming and unexpected, and it clicked with conversations I have with friends about stuff we wish we could change.
Quote: About then, we had a real productive period. In about six months, we established a global minimum wage, we made it so smoke detectors could be turned off without having to rip them from the ceiling, and we got Soros to buy the Amazon to preserve it.
-'Naveed'. A girl, twenties presumably, realises she's about to sleep with her thirteenth person and resolves to pull a fourteenth ASAP so her 'number' won't be 13 and she won't have to hear jokes about a 'baker's dozen' and so on. Her expectation of judgement was a shame - in my circle that wasn't a big number at all, and no one was judgemental about that stuff anyway, [who are these people who are still like that and young and not religious?] so being on '13' for as short a time as possible was simply superstition - but it was one of those funny little internal thoughts that one never expects to see in writing.
- 'Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly'. Really should be bracketed with the dull stories about Americans on exotic holidays. But more interesting personally as it's about mountaineering & trekking, stuff that, if I were fit and well, I'd rather be doing in my spare time than sitting about on GR - albeit in less environmentally fucked ways than this expedition. I liked the mundane accounts of things one usually hears in a different style and with more drama in non-fiction, and attention to experiential details that those writers either ignore or are too seasoned to have to deal with in the first place.
- 'After I Was Thrown in the River and Before I Drowned'. Depressingly titled story, but actually rather exhilarating even where the circumstances don't ring true. Told from dog POV (Kafka inspiration?). Hint: the two events are years apart.
- I marked the only two things that made me laugh. They make me sound like a bit of a sicko, but anyway. She wanted to open umbrellas in the faces of cats, make them scurry and scream. Wot? And a little less bizarrely: The problem is that Fish has never had a fascination with people who try to kill themselves. Maybe if he took more of an interest in the concept, Adam wouldn't keep trying to prove how intriguing it is.

Elsewhere, it does one of two things that really annoy me in fiction just now. At least the collection doesn't contain any dreams or fortune telling scenes that come true. (Will someone PLEASE write more stories in which they don't.) But there are characters who say they know what will happen in a new friendship, e.g. I knew then that I would get her a job where I worked, that she and I would become closer, that I would know the things I want to know about her. I tend to know instantly if I like people IRL, so that basic feeling I've no problem with - but this stuff, no. And it's getting boring the frequency with which it appears in books. There are more interesting ways for writers to show their working if they want to do some meta reveal of their storyboard. Like 'Notes for a Story of a Man Who Will Not Die Alone' - cool plan structure, which half reminded me why I used to like Eggers. A mis-step though to make the man a retired ob-gyn (it's hard for a male one not to seem a little odd, and anyone who'd had much to do with healthcare would see dying as a messier and less predictable business than the character does). The plot was kind of charming along the lines of Dave Gorman / Danny Wallace projects, but I wondered if I would have noticed ten years ago how crashingly egotistical the character's idea was; now that realisation spoilt the potentially endearing nature of the piece. In both its good and bad points it seemed remarkably of its time.

I only read this because I'd started it in the past - and it's short. Not sure I'd recommend it for anyone other than Eggers completists.

This is only the second Eggers book I have read, the first being Zeitoun, which I loved. I really enjoyed several on the stories in this book. Many of them are very short, 2-3 pages and I felt most of them ended very well. There were a few that definitely left me wanting more. A few of the longer stories seemed to drag on a bit to much for me, Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly and After I Was Thrown In The River And Before I Drown. Overall I'd still recommend this book based on the writing style

I don't know what to make of this book.

I love Eggers' writing style, and some of the passages here are stunning, describing totally mundane things in ways that make you notice them (Clouds! Cheap hotels! Waiting! Lots and lots of waiting!). Tiny mundane dramas are also portrayed really interestingly, in ways that make them feel momentous, and that nurture our sympathy for the people going through them. The stories use different styles, and going on for different durations (sometimes only one page, sometimes the space of a long short-story), so that they can get exactly around whatever it is that is at their heart, and not take any more or any less space than is necessary for that one goal. Great!

Despite this, I can't get into the book as a book. It's been months since I started it, and I have still only read about half of the stories. It has (temporarily I'm sure!) turned me off of short stories , even though I am normally a huge fan of the genre. I can't identify why this is, what is missing that would keep me going, or what is present that is turning me off. I definitely don't see the stories (as good as they may be individually) cohering to make something bigger.

A quick read but I don't think I get Dave Eggers. His prose sounds nice but what is he really trying to say? There's a lot about God but not in a way that's interesting or understandable to me. Maybe this is just mean snark but I find his long titles (anticorrelated to the length of the story itself) pretentious-sounding. Your milage may differ.

I'm going to assume based on the title and the back of the book that this collection is supposed to elucidate something about our "animal" hungers versus our civility. I guess if you believe in a rational God, this is weird and confusing. If you believe that people evolved from animals and rationality is kind of a new (and energetically expensive) way of thinking, this is less shocking. The book is also a response to the Iraq War (the Bush one).

Another - OK, a guy is trying to lose himself in the desert and his Egyptian guide is going to help him do that and there will be a bit of a personal price to pay for colonialism and imperialism (but hey, really not that bad). Note the biting horse imagery - this will come back again and I don't know what it means unless the horse is supposed to be subjugated people (ugh).

"What it Means..." - I guess this is about how nationalism is pretty irrational. Sure. That is a thing that is true.

"The Only Meaning..." - I didn't get where this was going. I guess points for trying to write a female character but I'm not sure I bought her. Is it supposed to be about feeling untethered as you turn 30, being stuck in a rut and sleeping with friends just because? Is learning to surf a metaphor for learning to balance, all the while not sure why you're even doing it? Hmm.

"On Wanting..." - Love is ever trying to impress by cramming yourself into some (culturally defined) roles that your partner finds hot. Well, that's nice.

"Climbing to the Window..." - Really didn't get this one. Is the visiting cousin just as messed up or is he just tired and stressed out and out of his depth? The suicidal cousin who also seems pretty sociopathic didn't seem realistic to me but perhaps I shouldn't assume that all suicidal people are similar. This story could be pretty effectively devestating as a story of a guy who doesn't have a lot of family and they don't do too much for him but...it left me confused and not engaged.

"She Waits..." - did this one get a lot of pushback for going full-heartedly for the stereotypically over-involved, drama-loving single mom? Because I don't see how it wouldn't. On the other hand, I kind of buy it.

"Quiet" - not gonna lie, already forgot what this was about. Oh, the sort of rapey one that's the gender-flipped version of "The Only Meaning..." Again, no idea what to make of this one but it grossed me out. I guess in our woke era, we'd read it as an Internet Nice Guy's perspective on raping a friend. I really wonder how Eggers intended it.

"Your Mother and I" - funny and cute, but also pretty smug. Suburban liberals can fix everything if you just let them, y'all. (Maybe the smugness is being skewered - I like to think so because of the awkward Nacho Night but it's hard to tell.)

"Naveed" - again, a female protagonist I just don't get. I want to assume Eggers means well and tries to understand American female perspectives and wants to show those subtle ways that aculturation creeps into even the most "liberated" person's skull but...eh.

"Notes for a Story..." - I like this one, seems like a fun story and I like the bullet point style. (Not obvious to me why the notes style was chosen but hey, why not.)

"About the Man..." - just a little vignette about how people want to re-invent themselves while falling in love or thinking about falling in love. Seems about right.

"Up the Mountain..." - my favourite of the series but really had more foreshadowing than was necessary. Just sad as fuck. I kind of like the implication that Rita is white but her foster sons (? kids?) were probably black; she goes to another continent to see how racism plays out differently but similarly. A great metaphor for how we press on and do what we set out to, even when the evidence (that we ignore) is pretty clear that, if we're really good and considerate people, we should change our plans. The biting horse makes a reappearance here.

"After I Was..." Another WTF from me. Pretty sure dogs don't give themselves weird, competitive physical challenges or kill squirrels without eating them or only like kids and hate adults. Again, the interest in God and the afterlife was meaningless to me. I'm guessing Eggers grew up Christian or around a lot of Christians and is trying to grapple with that.

I think I talked my star rating up a little here as I liked Mountain, About a Man, Notes on a Story and...that's about it.

I doubt I will every find a book of short stories that I will love more than this.

For some reason I didn't notice this was a collection of short stories until I was about a 1/3 of the way through. Expecting a novel and having nothing come back together is kind of disappointing. The stories just weren't that good- or maybe they would be okay if you like Seinfeld. They were long boring stories about nothing and staring very unlikable characters. Finally, being that these were short stories, the fact that Mr. Eggers cannot do math completely ruins the whole story. If the Dr. is 33, and knew her friend for 17 years, the did not meet in 7th grade. There is a HUGE difference between finally being willing to have sex, and traveling to get it, with platonic friend you met at 12 and one you met at 16.