Dave Eggers: ‘Once you have a machine think and write for you, you’re cooked as a species’

 

Dave Eggers

Dave Eggers: ‘Once you have a machine think and write for you, you’re cooked as a species’

As his new novel is published, the US author talks about nurturing the next generation of creatives, debating Sam Altman – and why he writes on a boat in San Francisco Bay

Sophie McBain

Sat 27 Jun 2026 

All Time 100 Nonfiction Books / No 004 / A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers XLISTO

 

All-TIME 100 Nonfiction Books

 No 004

Politics and war, science and sports, memoir and biography — there's a great big world of nonfiction books out there just waiting to be read. We picked the 100 best and most influential written in English since 1923, the beginning of TIME ... magazine

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers

By Erin SkardaAug. 17, 2011

It may seem arrogant to refer to one’s first published book as a Work of Staggering Genius, but in Dave Eggers’s case, the truth is in the pages. The Pulitzer Prize nominated memoir, published in 2000, is easy to get lost in with its conversational narrative that’s at once paranoid and adept, casual yet sincere. And while it is heartbreaking to witness the deterioration of an otherwise unremarkable suburban family, as both Eggers’ parents succumb to cancer within a span of 32 days, the book is also undeniably uplifting and succeeds as an honest (if partly fictionalized) portrayal of the strength of family in the face of adversity. Eggers excels at conveying the weight of the burden laid upon him when, at age 21, he accepts the role of parent to his 8-year-old brother Toph. Though his “new model” parenting methods might not be considered normal by society’s standards, Eggers doesn’t hide from the fact that nothing about his and his brother’s situation is “normal.” Instead, he demands that the universe repay him and Toph for the heartache they’ve endured. Eleven years, six books, a successful publishing imprint and numerous nonprofits later, it seems that Eggers has been repaid in full.

TIME

Dave Eggers / ‘The US is becoming a Christian theocracy’

 

Dave Egger
Photo by Elisa Fernández

Dave Eggers: ‘The US is becoming a Christian theocracy’

The American author is an active member of the technological resistance in his writing and his way of life: he works on a small boat with no internet, doesn’t own a smartphone and isn’t selling his new book on Amazon

Dave Eggers, el escritor de éxito que no quiere vender en Amazon: “España es la sociedad más evolucionada del mundo”

Iñigo López Palacios

October 2, 2002

Dave Eggers writes on a boat. “A boat as big as this table,” he explains in the Madrid hotel where the interview takes place. “Basically, it’s in a dock in the San Francisco Bay. I go there and I sit down with my computer, which is 20 years old and has never been connected to the internet, and I write.” Eggers has followed this routine ever since he had to go online at home during the pandemic. “I have two kids and we installed internet at home because they had to attend class and do their homework online. Our home is very different since.”

Dave Eggers / The Definition Of Reg

Short short stories

The Definition Of Reg by Dave Eggers

Saturday 12 June 2004

The man, named Reg, works in a small office. He is 27 years old. There are three people in Reg's office: Reg; an older woman named Bea; and a man named Stu, who is about 40. They all get along well, and talk often during and after work about a wide range of subjects. One Friday, when their boss has encouraged all of them to dress more casually if they so choose, Reg comes to work in a short-sleeved polo shirt and khaki pants. Stu, who is married and straight, comments on what Reg is wearing. "I didn't know you were so buff!" Stu says. Reg is standing about four feet from Stu, removing a new dry-erase board from its packaging, and Stu is looking him over. "I always thought you were kind of skinny," Stu says, "but you're well-built, man! Like a jock! Do you work out?" Reg shrugs and tells Stu that he doesn't work out, but sometimes plays lacrosse, a sport he played in college. Stu is still looking him over. "Well, you should wear stuff like that more often. That shirt's good on you. Chicks would dig that, I bet. You gotta show off those pipes," he says, now pointing to Reg's arms. Reg is hoping he is not blushing and Stu is not finished: "You've got nice shoulders, Reg. You swim?" Reg admits that he did a bit of swimming as a young man. "Looks like it," Stu says. "Man, you think you know a guy, then he comes to work like some kind of Adonis!" There is a long pause as Reg wonders if Stu is finished commenting on his body, and while Stu continues to examine Reg, deciding if there is any more commenting that needs to be done. Finally Stu's phone rings, and he turns to answer it and the moment is over. Reg returns to his desk and tries to work. How can he work? He feels touched, massaged. He feels as if he's been slathered with peanut butter and that Stu has licked it off. Reg is straight, and knows that Stu is straight, and that he doesn't mean anything sexual by his comments, but still Reg wonders, briefly, what it would be like to kiss Stu. He imagines the bristles of Stu's goatee against his own chin. He wonders if Stu's tongue, if men's tongues generally, are thicker than women's. He tries to work, but finds he cannot concentrate. Is he in love with Stu or in love with his own body, now that it has been immortalised by Stu's gorgeous words? He cannot sit still. He goes to the bathroom and flexes his arms. He pushes up his sleeves a bit to reveal more bicep. He masturbates into the toilet. He jogs in place. He returns to his desk and writes down Stu's exact words. He daydreams of spending more time with Stu, basking in his approval, in being appreciated this way. All Reg has ever wanted, he now realises, is this kind of thing, to be gazed at, to be admired. It electrifies every part of him; it's more pleasing to him than the affirmation of any work he's ever done or could do, and he wants more of it. He wants it always, and he finds himself wondering how far - into a different lifestyle, as a gay man, as a young man dating an older man, as a seducer, as a homewrecker - he would be willing to go to get it. He wonders how to tell Stu that if this is going to work, Stu will need to lose some weight, because right now he looks like a goddamned heifer.

THE GUARDIAN

Dave Edgers / The End Is Night

 

Short short stories

The End Is Night

by Dave Edgers
Saturday 4 June 2005

There once was a man who thought, one day, on a lark, while looking at a lark - he was looking out of the window and there it was, a well-built lark with a dirty mind and a filthy mouth - that maybe he should write some very short stories and publish them in a land very far from his own land, which was California, which has a ludicrous man as its governor. The man, then, began writing these short stories, one a week, and they were published in this far-off land, which is sometimes called London, and sometimes England, and also the UK and Britain and sometimes Europe or Over There. The man wrote these short stories each week, and sometimes, when he had finished writing one, he thought that he liked it. Other times, he read over what he'd written and didn't like it quite so much, but often it was too late, and these short stories went out to the people of the land described before, and, presumably, ruined their days. But, overall, the practice of writing these tales, which often involved bears and sometimes squid and once in a while people, was a pleasurable one. Yes, it was, until one day, when the writer suffered a bout of some kind of disease. It was not a normal disease, in that it had never struck anyone before, at least no one outside of Canada, where the diseases are all very deadly, thank God.

Dave Eggers / Woman waiting to take a photo

Photo by Juan Yanes

Short short stories

Woman waiting to take a photo

• 
  Dave Eggers
  THE GUARDIAN
  Saturday 22 May 2004

The woman is a young woman. She wants to make a living as a photographer, but at the moment she is temping at a company that publishes books about wetlands preservation. On her days off she takes pictures, and today she is sitting in her car, across the street from a small grocery store called The Go-Getters Market. The store is located in a very poor neighbourhood: the windows are barred and at night a roll-down steel door covers the storefront. The woman thus finds the name Go-Getters an interesting one, because it is clear that the customers of the market are anything but. They are drunkards and prostitutes and transients, and the young photographer thinks that if she can get the right picture of some of these people entering the store, she will make a picture that would be considered trenchant, or even poignant - either way the product of a sharp and observant eye. So she sits in her Toyota Camry, which her parents gave her because it was four years old and they wanted something new, and she waits for the right poor person to enter or leave the store. She has her window closed, but will open it when the right person appears, and then shoot that person under the sign that says Go-Getters. This, for the viewer of her photograph when it is displayed - first in a gallery, then in the hallway of a collector, and later in a museum when she has her retrospective - will prove that she, the photographer, has a good eye for the inequities and injustices of life, for hypocrisy and the exploitation of the underclass.

THE GUARDIAN

Dave Eggers turns his hand to illustration for new book

Dave Eggers turns his hand to illustration for new book

Ungrateful mammals

Before becoming one of the most notable authors of his generation, Dave Eggers was a professional painter and artist. In his latest book, Ungrateful Mammals, he returns to his roots – drawing wry, eccentric portraits of animals and their inner thoughts.

Posted Monday 22nd April, 2013

“So what are these artworks? I’ll explain as much as I know.

I was trained in the classical way of drawing – to be able to capture a likeness or shape in a realistic way. I wanted to draw and paint like Manet and Caillebotte, so for years I rendered people and things in a representational way, usually in some slightly surreal or (I hoped) thought-provoking setting or situation. Then I stopped painting in earnest for the better part of fifteen years.

Legends of the fall / The 50 biggest books of autumn 2021

Legends of the fall: the 50 biggest books of autumn 2021

From new novels by Sally Rooney and Colson Whitehead to Michel Barnier’s take on Brexit, Bernardine Evaristo’s manifesto and diaries from David Sedaris – all the releases to look out for

by Justine Jordan and Katy Guest

4 September 2021

FICTION

September

Snow Country by Sebastian Faulks
Set in Vienna between the first and second world wars, this companion novel to 2005’s Human Traces uncovers individual stories of love and yearning at a time of historical upheaval.

The Dark Remains by William McIlvanney and Ian Rankin
With his books about DC Laidlaw, the scourge of 70s gangland Glasgow, McIlvanney was a huge influence on Scottish crime fiction. When he died in 2015, he left a handwritten manuscript setting out Laidlaw’s first case – and Scotland’s leading contemporary crime novelist has finished it.

Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney
A successful young writer is repulsed by the literary world and the workings of fame in Rooney’s much-anticipated third novel. Alice and Eileen are best friends approaching 30, negotiating love, sex, status and purpose as the realities of the adult world bite.

Historical upheaval … Sebastian Faulks’s novel is set in Vienna between the wars. Photograph: Print Collector/Getty Images

Harlem Shuffle by ​Colson Whitehead
After tackling the horrors of slavery and racist reform schools in The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys, the Pulitzer winner has fun with a heist novel set in a lovingly recreated 60s Harlem, against the backdrop of the civil rights movement.

Palmares by Gayl Jones
The first novel in more than two decades by the US author first published by Toni Morrison is a myth-tinged saga set in 17th-century Brazil, where a young girl hears rumours of “Palmares” – a haven for fugitive slaves.

The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman
The Pointless presenter’s crime debut broke publishing records, and this sequel sees his group of elderly friends look into a murder-heist connected to Elizabeth’s secret service career. Osman tempers the whimsy with hard-won warmth and real darkness.

The Making of Incarnation by Tom McCarthy
A scientist’s secret archive, the birth of big data, military research and SF movies … a typically ambitious millefueille of modernity, symbolism and myth from the Booker-shortlisted author of C and Satin Island.

‘A heartfelt cry for climate awareness.’ Richard Powers. Photograph: David Levenson/Getty Images

Bewilderment by Richard Powers

Following his eco-epic The Overstory, Powers focuses on the story of a father and his troubled son, in mourning for his dead mother and our dying world. It’s a heartfelt cry for climate awareness, with fantastical digressions to other planets and a rueful celebration of our own.

The Magician by Colm Tóibín

His 2004 novel The Master explored the mind of Henry James; now Tóibín turns to Thomas Mann, tracing the German Nobel laureate’s life and work against the rise of nazism and turbulence of two world wars.

The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki
Booker-shortlisted for A Tale for the Time Being in 2013, Ozeki brings a similar metafictional playfulness to this story of a 13-year-old who has lost his father but gains the ability to hear what objects are saying.

Matrix by Lauren Groff
A departure for the author of contemporary marriage story Fates and Furies: this is a tale of 12th-century nuns, inspired by the poet Marie de France, who as an awkward teenager unwillingly becomes prioress in a rundown English abbey. It’s a gorgeously written celebration of female desire and creativity, with a formidable heroine.

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
The follow-up to All the Light We Cannot See ingeniously connects the 15th-century fall of Constantinople, 21st-century environmental breakdown and a future spaceship, where humanity’s history and knowledge is accessed virtually. This is a dazzling epic of love, war and the joy of books – one for David Mitchell fans.

Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth by Wole Soyinka
The Nobel laureate’s first novel in nearly 50 years is a blackly comic indictment of political corruption and exploitation set in a version of Nigeria.

The Morning Star by Karl Ove Knausgård, translated by Martin Aitken
Knausgård follows his epic autobiographical series My Struggle with a hefty new novel: a story of ordinary life and unknown forces, told through a group of Norwegians who are brought together by the appearance of a new and foreboding star.

‘A moorland walk goes horribly wrong’ in The Fell by Sarah Moss. Photograph: David Madison/Getty Images

October

Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen
The first volume in a planned trilogy about American life focuses on a midwestern family in the early 1970s, as the parents’ unhappy marriage and the kids’ adolescent transformations are set against the troubled national zeitgeist.

Burntcoat by Sarah Hall
A stunning novel from the author best known for her short stories, which considers what it means to be a female artist. At the end of her life, a sculptor of monumental works remembers how at the moment of national lockdown she opened herself to a new relationship.

Life Without Children by Roddy Doyle
A son is barred from his mother’s funeral, a nurse loses a beloved patient … Written over the past year, these are 10 short stories about the isolation and connections of life during pandemic from the Irish author.

State of Terror by Hillary Rodham Clinton and Louise Penny
Following husband Bill’s collaboration with James Patterson, Hillary promises to bring similar insider knowledge to her thriller debut. Written with a Canadian crime novelist friend, it explores her “worst nightmare” as secretary of state – a series of terrorist attacks undermining the global order.

Riccardino by Andrea Camilleri, translated by Stephen Sartarelli
The 28th instalment in the much-loved Sicilian detective series, first drafted in 2005 and delivered to Camilleri’s publishers to be held under lock and key until the author’s death, is the final outing for Inspector Montalbano.

Silverview by John le Carré
Le Carré left a complete manuscript when he died in 2020, now published as his 26th novel. The story of a man running a bookshop by the English seaside, a mysterious visitor, and an espionage leak, it dramatises the clash between public duty and private life at a time of moral crisis for Britain.

Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout
The Pulitzer winner returns to the heroine of My Name Is Lucy Barton, as the widowed Lucy gets back in touch with her first husband, William. She muses on their long, complicated partnership in this wise and witty portrait of childrearing, ageing and the eternal surprise of other people.

The importance of saying no … Michaela Coel. Photograph: David Fisher/Rex/Shutterstock for BAFTA

November

Harsh Times by Mario Vargas Llosa, translated by Adrian Nathan West

The Nobel laureate weaves fiction and real events, as he explores the conspiracies and propaganda that drove the 1954 CIA-backed military coup in Guatemala.

The Fell by Sarah Moss
In Ghost Wall and Summerwater, Moss excelled at mapping personal desires and responsibilities against the national mood. In this lockdown novel, it’s November 2020, and though Kate is in the middle of a two-week quarantine, she can’t stand the confinement, slipping out for a moorland walk that goes horribly wrong.

The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Jennifer Croft
The long awaited appearance in English of the Nobel laureate’s masterwork. Set against the transformations of thought in enlightenment Europe, it is the epic story of the charismatic Jacob Frank, who arrives in a Polish village as a young Jew, and goes on to reinvent himself across countries and religions.

The Every by Dave Eggers
Following his 2013 tech satire The Circle, Eggers imagines a terrifying future: the world under one digital monopoly, controlling e-commerce, social media and search – and the woman hoping to bring the company down from within. Justine Jordan

NONFICTION

September

Greek Myths: A New Retelling by Charlotte Higgins
A gritty and exhilarating new retelling of the ancient stories in which the female characters take centre stage.

Misfits: A Personal Manifesto by Michaela Coel
The award-winning screenwriter and actor writes about the value of misfits, the power of theatre and storytelling and the importance of saying no.

On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint by Maggie Nelson
With insight and intellectual rigour, Nelson wrestles the concept of “freedom” away from its contemporary political misuses and explores what it means in the context of art, sex, drugs and climate.

‘What really went on in the corridors of power’ … Gavin Barwell, right, with Theresa May in 2017. Photograph: Steve Parsons

Chief of Staff: Notes from Downing Street by Gavin Barwell
The former aide to Theresa May promises to reveal “what really went on in the corridors of power”, from Brexit to Trump and the ways that government operates “in a time of crisis”.

The End of Bias: How We Change Our Minds by Jessica Nordell
A groundbreaking analysis of bias and how to fix it, by a journalist who one day sent pitches from a male name and found that they started to land.

Harlots, Whores & Hackabouts: A History of Sex for Sale by Kate Lister
A brand new account of the oldest profession, by the creator of research project Whores of Yore.

Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters by Steven Pinker
The cognitive scientist rejects the popular view that the human brain is a “basket of delusions” and spells out the urgent need and potential for more rational behaviour and debate.

October

A 1,600 day Brexit diary … Michel Barnier, EC chief negotiator. Photograph: Getty Images

Secret Brexit Diary: A Glorious Illusion by Michel Barnier
The diary Barnier kept during the 1,600 days of Brexit negotiations promises to lift the lid on that fraught period. A clue may be in its subtitle.

Manifesto by Bernardine Evaristo
Described as a “no-holds-barred” story about being true to yourself, this memoir charts Evaristo’s journey from broke young poet to Booker prize-winning novelist.

A Carnival of Snackery: Diaries 2003–2020: Volume Two by David Sedaris
The second book in a collection of diaries whose first, Theft by Finding, was described by this paper as “beautiful in its piquancy and minimalism”.

Life, love and music … Bruce Springsteen, left, and Barack Obama record their podcast. Photograph: Rob DeMartin/AP

Renegades: Born in the USA: Dreams by Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen
Obama and Springsteen discuss life, love and music, with full-colour photos and archive material.

Keisha the Sket by Jade LB
The noughties online sensation about a young south London girl is back for the first time in official print, with additional essays from Candice Carty-Williams, Caleb Femi, Aniefiok Ekpoudom and Enny.

1,000 Years of Joys and Sorrows: A Memoir by Ai Weiwei
Chinese history told through the lives of artist Ai Weiwei and his poet father, Ai Qing.

The Power of Women: A Doctor’s Journey of Hope and Healing by Dr Denis Mukwege
story of courage and integrity, both of its doctor author and the female survivors of sexual violence whose strength he celebrates. A powerful call to arms.

Black Paper: Writing in a Dark Time by Teju Cole
In a collection of essays the celebrated author of Open City explores the ways we retain our humanity and different ways of thinking about the colour black.

‘If war has an opposite, gardens might sometimes be it’: Rebecca Solnit. Photograph: Gary Mayes

Orwell’s Roses by Rebecca Solnit
An intellectually eclectic collection of essays “in dialogue” with Orwell takes in Stalin’s lemons, Colombia’s rose industry and the pleasing thought: “If war has an opposite, gardens might sometimes be it.”

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow
Written over a decade, a work that promises to overturn our view of human history and make us rethink the way we live.

The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for an Endangered Planet by Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams
A lifetime of experience and wisdom combines with much-needed optimism in this guide to the climate crisis and what we can do about it.

November

These Precious Days by Ann Patchett
A heartfelt and witty collection of essays on everything from marriage and knitting to the inevitability of death, by the Women’s prize-winning novelist.

Patient 1 by Charlotte Raven and Dr Edward Wild
A powerful account of living with Huntington’s disease.

A new collection full of hope and healing … Amanda Gorman. Photograph: NBC/NBCU Photo Bank/Getty Images

Both/And: A Life in Many Worlds by Huma Abedin
Hillary Clinton’s aide and adviser writes a personal and revealing account of her relationship with Clinton, her marriage to Anthony Weiner and her own action-packed life and history.

Diaries and Notebooks by Patricia Highsmith
Distilled from the 8,000 pages discovered in her linen closet, this is the definitive edition of the diaries of “one of our greatest modernist writers” (Gore Vidal). Katy Guest

POETRY

September

All the Names Given by Raymond Antrobus
A eagerly awaited collection from the Folio prize-winner explores language, deafness, conflicting identities and the weight of history.

October

Winter Recipes from the Collective by Louise Glück
Glück’s first collection since winning the Nobel prize last year is an intimate and haunting work full of “recipes for winter, when life is hard. In spring / anyone can make a fine meal”.

December

Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman
A new collection full of hope and healing from the young American poet who electrified the world when she read “The Hill We Climb” at President Biden’s inauguration. JJ

THE GUARDIAN