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Join NOW!The third annual 826 Valencia Write-a-thon is this coming weekend, Sunday, August 26. Grab your pens and pencils, computer, or typewriter and head down to 826 for a full day of inspired, 826-powered writing. The event is a fundraiser for 826 Valencia’s free student programs and works not unlike any other walk — or mara […]
...more“In the end, what makes ‘A Hologram for the King’ is the conviction with which Eggers plunges into the kind of regular working American we don’t see enough in contemporary fiction, and gives voice and heft to Alan’s struggles in an information economy in which he has no information and there’s not much of an […]
...moreDave Eggers will be signing copies of his new book, A Hologram for the King, at two independent San Francisco bookstores this week: Tuesday, July 17th: Books Inc. (Opera Plaza) Noon to 1 pm, 601 Van Ness, San Francisco, CA Wednesday, July 18th: Green Apple Books Noon to 1 pm, 506 Clement St, San Francisco, CA Stop […]
...moreAt The New York Times, Michiko Kakutani reviews Dave Eggers’ A Hologram for the King, calling it a “comic but deeply affecting tale about one man’s travails that also provides a bright, digital snapshot of our times.” For more on the novel, which is due out on June 28th, don’t miss Rumpus editor Stephen Elliott’s […]
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Dave Eggers’s new novel, A Hologram For The King, (due out from McSweeney’s June 28) is set in Saudi Arabia.
...moreDavid Carr and A.O. Scott have a short video up at the Times about the state of modern criticism. As the length would suggest, it’s a light discussion. The subject is really the reviewing of Hollywood-Industrial-complex movies rather than criticism writ large — the kickoff being a certain blockbuster star being Twitter-angry with Scott over his […]
...moreBy pretty much all accounts, last night was tense but hopeful for the Occupy movement in the Bay Area. (For an account of the national movement, check out Brian Spears’ roundup from this morning.) This is somewhat of a relief after Tuesday night, when a coalition of Bay Area police used tear gas, nonlethal rounds, […]
...moreDave Eggers writes about the teacher that inspired him to write—a relatable meditation on wanting to impress his favorite high school mentor who initially piqued his interest in the literary arts, and how this memory extends to the importance of quality teachers today. “I don’t remember Mr. Criche gearing his lesson plans toward any state-regulated […]
...moreThe last book that I loved was You Shall Know Our Velocity! by Dave Eggers, which is about two friends, Will and Hand, who come into $32,000 around the same time one of their friends dies unexpectedly. They are devastated by his death, and decide that they can’t keep the money because of the pain […]
...moreJohn Wilwol reviews Tea Obreht’s new novel, The Tiger’s Wife, which vibrates with the low rumble of unanswered and unanswerable questions that keeps us up at night.
...moreI hate it when people buy me books for the holidays. I’m a firm believer that certain books enter into our lives at exactly the right moments, and if a well-meaning gift-giver were to intervene with the latest Nicholas Sparks novel swathed in sparkly snowflake paper, it would throw off my literary karma. I prefer […]
...moreThis week in San Francisco, it’s Ladies Night at The Rumpus! Also, Dave Eggers plays ping pong, art for the blind, sitting and lying in protest of the Sit/Lie law, and crafty alternatives to traditional holiday shopping. Monday 12/13: What do the Jackson Arms Shooting Range and The Rumpus have in common today? It’s Ladies […]
...moreThis week in San Francisco, Granta at City Lights, literature meets food at Feast of Words and to-the-death battle at Literary Death Match, and Believer Magazine hangs out at Electric Works. Monday 12/6: Celebrate issue 113 of Granta magazine at City Lights with readings by Daniel Alarcón, Carlos Labbé, Andrés Felipe Solano, and Carlos Yushimito. […]
...moreFashion Week in New York has come to a close. And so therefore must our week-long run of literary fashionables. We end our series with The Performing Artist and The Humanitarian. Miranda July and Dave Eggers are both noted for being torchbearers of their generation, a generation for the members of which one career, along […]
...more“Whimsical, highly aestheticized, conspicuously casual, reverent of childhood and its signifiers, bound by the dialectic of irony and sincerity, the style of McSweeney’s has become the style of post-post-Modernism. “It is No One Belongs Here More Than You and Everything Here Is The Best Thing Ever, yes, but also American Apparel and Avenue Q, the […]
...moreBlog is a fun word to say, even if I’m tired of hearing other people say it. Eggers on Salinger. Michaelangelo’s poem “When the Author Was Painting the Vault of the Sistene Chapel.” (via) “Hey Oscar Wilde! It’s Clobbering Time!” Jacket Copy has fun with illustrators’ pictures of their favorite literary figures and characters. “If […]
...moreIn New York this week Richard Price is interviewed by Philip Gourevitch, David Byrne presents Creation in Reverse, Joyce Carol Oates and Elaine Showalter chat over brunch, Tao Lin (who will also be reading at The Rumpus’s first anniversary party) and CAConrad read at The Animal Farm Reading Series, Dave Eggers at the Strand, Women […]
...moreWith newspapers folding and cutting corners all around the country, it’s easy to give up entirely on the fourth estate. But now look who’s riding in on their white horse: those writers you newspaper types wouldn’t give jobs to before because they tried to make their articles all “literary.” Take that, 5 W’s.
...moreThis week in New York the Rumpus and Tin House present MORE THAN YOU EXPECTED with Rick Moody, Starlee Kine and Eugene Mirman followed by a meteor shower, Martin Amis and Chip Kidd celebrate Nabokov’s work with special exhibit of The Original of Laura, Pseudo-Futurist video game improvisation, a week of events centered on National […]
...moreMONDAY, October 12, 2009 – SUNDAY, October 18, 2009 This week in New York, The New Yorker Festival hits town. And yes, while the “Humor Revue,” “About Towns,” and “Kaffeeklatches” seem to have been sold out before they were on sale, there’re still some good readings and “Screen Gems” available, and a slim, if precariously […]
...more“We need to be able to digest and give people who are very far away the time and space to tell their story in their own words
...moreI’m in the middle of Tamim Ansary’s Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World through Islamic Eyes, and it’s incredibly illuminating. Ansary pretty much covers the entire history of Islam in an incredibly readable and lucid way. I’ve been recommending this book to everyone I know. Especially when people are looking for a comprehensive-but-approachable way to […]
...moreIt’s summertime. BookExpo is in the past. Writers have taken a little break from accosting critics. The book blogs finally have some free time. And like most people, they are spending that time poking around the Internet and finding lots of things that are a little bit brilliant, from a homeless book club to a […]
...moreIt’s Sunday again, which means that my Grandmother is pacing impatiently somewhere beyond the grave, worrying about the fate of my immortal soul.
...moreSummer is coming. What will you be reading? Will it be that Henry James novel you’ve meant to read since 1987 or that book with the vampire-zombies with tantalizing unmentionables?
...moreDave Eggers discusses Zeitoun, his optimism for print publications, what the kids are reading, and the advantage of attending a state school.
...moreTED, or Technology, Entertainment, Design, began as a conference in 1984 that brought together leaders in those three fields with the mission of spreading ideas. Now, the annual conference challenges presenters to give “the talk of their lives” in 18 minutes. And while attending the talks can be cost-prohibitive for most, the talks can be […]
...moreThe book blogs are in a tizzy! One second, it doesn’t look good for literature. The cancer has spread. The postmortem is imminent. But then all of the sudden they are saying everything is fine and pointing us in the direction of some really cool stuff, like kids who read and write and stories embedded […]
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