Stories that I really liked:

"Quiet"
"Your Mother and I"
"Notes for a Story of a Man Who Will Not Die Alone"

Stories that I'm indifferent about:

"Another"
"What It Means..."
"On Wanting..."
"Climbing to the Window, Pretending to Dance"
"She Waits, Seething, Blooming"
"Naveed"
"About the Man Who Began Flying After Meeting Her"
"Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly"
"When They Learned to Yelp"
"After I was Thrown in the River and Before I Drowned"


Stories I Hated:

"The Only Meaning of the Oil-Wet Water"

Read this in Chicago and LA. Some great stories; painfully human.

How The Water Feels to Fishes Review (done in the style of every story in this book):

He used to think he and Dave Eggers were the same. He thought they shared the same values, found humor in the same things. But he got older, and so did Dave Eggers. And the things he found funny, interesting, and valuable changed. The things Dave Eggers found funny, and interesting, and valuable changed too, but in a different way. Or maybe Dave Eggers was the same as always, and it was he alone who had changed. He pondered this and ate a piece of toast.

Tomorrow, he thought, I'm going to swim. And he felt free.

He doesn't think he and Dave Eggers are the same anymore.

I love Dave Eggers’ seemingly effortless writing style. He has the rare ability to transport you to the other side of the world with just one or two simple sentences. My favorite author. ❤️

Thanks to Adam Hodge for the creative wedding party gift! Really enjoyed it.

My favorite short story in this book was:
- “After I Was Thrown In The River And Before I Drowned”

Other favorites (in order) included:
- “Up The Mountain Coming Down Slowly”
- “On Wanting To Have Three Walls Up Before She Gets Home”
- “Notes For A Story Of A Man Who Will Not Die Alone”
- “About The Man Who Began Flying After Meeting Her”
- “Your Mother And I”

A few of my favorite sentences:
- “...thrust his head rhythmically into the future” (p. 10)
- “...and I go and go and go my name is Steven” (p.205)
- “All I want to do is run and then jump. I am telling him that if we both just run and jump without bumping or biting we will run faster and jump farther. We will be stronger and do more beautiful things.” (p.211)

I like this guy’s writing. Like his first book, some of the stories are achingly self-conscious in style. I think he writes like modern art, pushing the boundaries and trying things out in a contemporary context. I don’t think this is a flaw though – just his style of writing. I recognise his characters, and his parodies, the streets/wilderness and circumstances of his character’s lives and therefore the storytelling feels real and fresh for me. Not every story is successful and just like some people hate modern art, I think some people would hate his stories.

Sure, not every short story here will move each reader, but even with the ones that make you think "okay...what was the point of that?" its hard to deny Dave Eggers' unique gift with words, his interesting and well-formed characters, and his admirable creativity when it comes to manifesting abstract ideas and emotions into the mind and heart of his readers.

My favorite story, I think, was "Quiet" because it reached deep and resurrected some painfully real emotions on a personal level. I can't promise everyone will feel them, but I did, and I needed it.

There are a few stories which I maybe didn't "get" with the first reading, but will probably re-read in the future and hopefully enjoy.

I also appreciated the various story lengths. They come in all sizes, so you can basically choose one depending on how much time you have to read...just a convenience, really.

This is an eclectic collection of short stories by McSweeny's Dave Eggers. Many of these stories are spooky and surreal dealing with suicide, climbing mountains, soldiers, a woman with one arm. Some stories were harder to shake and move on to the next than others.

The story that really sold me was "Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly". A young woman who hasn't really ever completed anything embarks on a climbing expedition up Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest peak in Africa. It's the longest story in the collection and builds as you wonder whether or not she'll make it to the top and survive the climb.

I admired how Eggers approached every story with a seemingly different narrative style and voice. I felt like I digging through a free pile of someone else's things, all of them good but ultimately nothing I'd really want to take home.

These short stories -- ranging in length from a page to 50 pages -- explore different manifestations of human hunger (in the sense of feeling that something is missing). They were well written, but I found myself getting annoyed with the voice of the privileged person who finds him/herself in oh-so-much agony upon discovering the injustice in the world. I guess it's unfair to expect anything else from Dave Eggers, and certainly it's the reaction I want those people to have, but... their reactions to the indignities of the world are not what I'm interested in.

All that said, I really enjoyed one of the longer stories near the end, entitled "Up the mountain coming down slowly". It's about this woman who joins a group that's climbing Kilimanjaro, and it explores the dynamics between the climbers, the guides, the porters...

i listened to this book while commuting around MN and WI my first week home for a visit from shanghai. i was reading "a heartbreaking work..." at the same time. i liked to two together, you may want to try it! there is a wonderful story from the perspective dog, a description of surfing that made me understand how it works and probably feels (yet still think its a skill i may never learn), and lots of great moments that showed nicely the failings of the narrators as very real humans. maybe i will go back and actually read it sometime.

Please read this book. (But then oh please don't tell me if you don't love it.)