HOW WE ARE HUNGRY

How We Are Hungry, Dave Eggers’ new book of stories: I can’t help it, I know a lot of people hate him, but I’ve seen him read three times and still maintain a fondness for him—I like the way he writes and I like his snark and he’s kind of hot, too. Also, when he signed a book for me, he drew a really detailed picture and I appreciate that. But nothing he writes will be as good as A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius to me. Some of his work since seems repetitive or self-indulgent, and I don’t like short stories much anyhow, though this collection reprinted “After I Was Thrown In the River and Before I Drowned,” a story I first read in Nick Hornby’s anthology Speaking With the Angel, and I was reminded how much I love it. Anyone who can make something moving and poetic from a story about running and jumping narrated by a very fast happy dog is OK by me.