What an absolutely lovely little book. This is a collection of short short stories by Dave Eggers, some only a few sentences long. Each is beautiful in its own way. After each story I felt like I had to take a minute to take a breath to soak in the power of the story. I can't even explain why but the stories just seemed to capture both the beauty and loneliness of inherent in the human condition with a touch of awe and humor too. There were a few stories in this book that I literally had to bit my lip so I wouldn't bust out laughing on the bus and some that almost made me cry. Simply lovely.

However I do know that some people don't like Dave Eggers and this is very typical Dave Eggers. So if you're not a fan, even though I gave this a good review, I wouldn't recommend it.....although in that case, I don't know if we can be friends anymore. ( )

What an absolutely lovely little book. This is a collection of short short stories by Dave Eggers, some only a few sentences long. Each is beautiful in its own way. After each story I felt like I had to take a minute to take a breath to soak in the power of the story. I can't even explain why but the stories just seemed to capture both the beauty and loneliness of inherent in the human condition with a touch of awe and humor too. There were a few stories in this book that I literally had to bit my lip so I wouldn't bust out laughing on the bus and some that almost made me cry. Simply lovely.

However I do know that some people don't like Dave Eggers and this is very typical Dave Eggers. So if you're not a fan, even though I gave this a good review, I wouldn't recommend it.....although in that case, I don't know if we can be friends anymore. ( )

My first book of 2012! I read this in about an hour and I would ditto Rachel's review. Some of the short stories (and they were very short) were very good and made me laugh, or at least chuckle. But I found many of them rather depressing and only so-so. It's a very quick read and I would probably still recommend it to others. It is a different type of humor that I guess I do not fully appreciate. ( )

This is my introduction to Dave Eggers, and it feels like a cross between [a:Sparrow|125570|Sparrow|http://www.goodreads.com/assets/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66-251a730d696018971ef4a443cdeaae05.jpg], the "Sunbeams" section from The Sun magazine, and "Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy." His prose is captivating: strong, direct, a little staccato. "Electric" would probably be a good adjective for it. The stories themselves aren't substantive enough to be true short stories, but not short enough to be aphorisms. I'll call them "vignettes" since I don't know what else to call them. Who knows, maybe that's what they technically are.

The second story, "The Accident," gave me goosebumps and brought tears to my eyes, while the following story, "Old Enough," had me laughing out loud. It's a uniquely talented author that can provoke such disparate feelings within just a couple of pages.

I don't know if it was a case of the novelty wearing off, but the middle section didn't do much for me. It picked up again toward the end with mostly comical sketches. Eggers definitely has a misanthropic streak and also seems to have a compelling fascination with transformation. I'm definitely curious to check out more of his stuff. My favorite vignettes were the following:

The Accident
Old Enough
The Commercials in Norway
Go-Getters
No Safe Harbor
On Making a Good Man by Calling Him a Good Man
Thoughtful That Way
We Can Work It Out
The Anger of Horses
How the Air Feels to Birds
The Man Who ( )

Typical Eggers short stories. If you have read any of his other short works then you will probably like this. A couple laugh out loud moments, but mostly more pre-middle age self loathing with some awe of the expansive world mixed in. ( )