Best Selling Books by Dave Eggers

"Exhilarating…Profoundly moving, occasionally angry, and often hilarious...A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is, finally, a finite book of jest, which is why it succeeds so brilliantly" (The New York Times Book Review). A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is the unique, moving memoir of a college senior who, in the space of five weeks, loses both of his parents to cancer and inherits his eight-year-old brother. In his distinctive style unlike any other memoir, Egger''s story is an exhilarating debut that manages to be simultaneously hilarious and wildly inventive, as well as a deeply heartfelt story of the love that holds a family together.

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • A bestselling dystopian novel that tackles surveillance, privacy and the frightening intrusions of technology in our lives—a “compulsively readable parable for the 21st century” (Vanity Fair). When Mae Holland is hired to work for the Circle, the world’s most powerful internet company, she feels she’s been given the opportunity of a lifetime. The Circle, run out of a sprawling California campus, links users’ personal emails, social media, banking, and purchasing with their universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of civility and transparency. As Mae tours the open-plan office spaces, the towering glass dining facilities, the cozy dorms for those who spend nights at work, she is thrilled with the company’s modernity and activity. There are parties that last through the night, there are famous musicians playing on the lawn, there are athletic activities and clubs and brunches, and even an aquarium of rare fish retrieved from the Marianas Trench by the CEO. Mae can’t believe her luck, her great fortune to work for the most influential company in the world—even as life beyond the campus grows distant, even as a strange encounter with a colleague leaves her shaken, even as her role at the Circle becomes increasingly public. What begins as the captivating story of one woman’s ambition and idealism soon becomes a heart-racing novel of suspense, raising questions about memory, history, privacy, democracy, and the limits of human knowledge.

What Is the What is the story of Valentino Achak Deng, a refugee in war-ravaged southern Sudan who flees from his village in the mid-1980s and becomes one of the so-called Lost Boys. Valentino’s travels bring him in contact with enemy soldiers, with liberation rebels, with hyenas and lions, with disease and starvation, and with deadly murahaleen (militias on horseback)–the same sort who currently terrorize Darfur. Eventually Deng is resettled in the United States with almost 4000 other young Sudanese men, and a very different struggle begins. Based closely on true experiences, What Is the What is heartbreaking and arresting, filled with adventure, suspense, tragedy, and, finally, triumph.

From the award-winning, bestselling author of The Circle comes an exciting new follow-up. When the world’s largest search engine/social media company, the Circle, merges with the planet’s dominant ecommerce site, it creates the richest and most dangerous—and, oddly enough, most beloved—monopoly ever known: the Every. Delaney Wells is an unlikely new hire at the Every. A former forest ranger and unwavering tech skeptic, she charms her way into an entry-level job with one goal in mind: to take down the company from within. With her compatriot, the not-at-all-ambitious Wes Makazian, they look for the Every''s weaknesses, hoping to free humanity from all-encompassing surveillance and the emoji-driven infantilization of the species. But does anyone want what Delaney is fighting to save? Does humanity truly want to be free? Studded with unforgettable characters, outrageous outfits, and lacerating set-pieces, this companion to The Circle blends absurdity and terror, satire and suspense, while keeping the reader in apprehensive excitement about the fate of the company—and the human animal.

How We Are Hungry is a gripping, lyrical and soulful collection of stories from the acclaimed author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Ranging from a doomed Irish setter’s tales of running and jumping (“After I Was Thrown in the River and Before I Drowned”) to a bitterly comic meditation on suicide and friendship (“Climbing to the Window, Pretending to Dance”), and from the Egyptian desert to the asphalt of Interstate 5, these stories are Eggers at his finest. By turns devastating, clear-eyed and funn – incredibly funny – this collection is a marvel.

NEWBERY MEDAL WINNER • #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER An enthralling novel for all ages by award-winning author Dave Eggers, told from the perspective of one uniquely endearing dog—featuring beautiful artwork from Caldecott honoree Shawn Harris. “Johannes is a highly engaging narrator whose exuberance and good nature run like a bright thread through the novel’s pages.” —The New York Times Johannes, a free dog, lives in an urban park by the sea. His job is to be the Eyes—to see everything that happens within the park and report back to the park’s elders, three ancient Bison. His friends—a seagull, a raccoon, a squirrel, and a pelican—work with him as the Assistant Eyes, observing the humans and other animals who share the park and making sure the Equilibrium is in balance. But changes are afoot. More humans arrive in the park. A new building, containing mysterious and hypnotic rectangles, goes up. And then there are the goats—an actual boatload of goats—who appear, along with a shocking revelation that changes Johannes’s view of the world. Lushly illustrated with old world paintings and new artwork from Caldecott honoree Shawn Harris, this story about friendship, beauty, liberation (and running very, very fast), will make readers of all ages see the world around them in a wholly new way.

An “entertaining and profoundly original” (San Francisco Chronicle) moving and hilarious tale of two friends who fly around the world trying to give away a lot of money and free themselves from a profound loss. • From the bestselling author of The Circle. “Nobody writes better than Dave Eggers about young men who aspire to be, at the same time, authentic and sincere.” —The New York Times Book Review "You Shall Know Our Velocity! is the work of a wildly talented writer.... Like Kerouac''s book, Eggers''s could inspire a generation as much as it documents it." —LA Weekly

Max is a rambunctious eight-year-old, living with his mother and his sister, terrorizing the neighborhood on his bicycle. But Max''s world is changing around him: His father is absent and his mother is increasingly distracted. Max''s teenage sister is outgrowing him, leaving him alone in favor of her friends. Sad and angry, Max dons his wolf suit and makes terrible, ruinous mischief. Setting off into the night, Max finds a boat and sails away to an island. Here he meets strange and giant creatures. Creatures that rage and break things. Creatures that trample and scream. These monsters do everything Max feels inside! And so, Max appoints himself their king. Here, on a magnificent adventure with the creatures, Max can be the wildest thing of all. In this visionary new novel, Eggers brings an imaginary world vividly to life, filling it with monsters, chaos, and one very real little boy. By turns beautiful and joyful, sorrowful and strange, The Wild Things is an astonishing literary triumph.

A captivating, often hilarious novel of family, loss, wilderness, and the curse of a violent America, Dave Eggers’s Heroes of the Frontier is a powerful examination of our contemporary life and a rousing story of adventure. Josie and her children’s father have split up, she’s been sued by a former patient and lost her dental practice, and she’s grieving the death of a young man senselessly killed. When her ex asks to take the children to meet his new fiancée’s family, Josie makes a run for it, figuring Alaska is about as far as she can get without a passport. Josie and her kids, Paul and Ana, rent a rattling old RV named the Chateau, and at first their trip feels like a vacation: They see bears and bison, they eat hot dogs cooked on a bonfire, and they spend nights parked along icy cold rivers in dark forests. But as they drive, pushed north by the ubiquitous wildfires, Josie is chased by enemies both real and imagined, past mistakes pursuing her tiny family, even to the very edge of civilization. A tremendous new novel from the bestselling author of The Circle, Heroes of the Frontier is the darkly comic story of a mother and her two young children on a journey through an Alaskan wilderness plagued by wildfires and a uniquely American madness.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the bestselling author of The Circle • The true story of one family, caught between America’s two biggest policy disasters: the war on terror and the response to Hurricane Katrina. "Eggers’ tone is pitch-perfect—suspense blended with just enough information to stoke reader outrage and what is likely to be a typical response: How could this happen in America? ... It’s the stuff of great narrative nonfiction.” —The New York Times Book Review Abdulrahman and Kathy Zeitoun run a house-painting business in New Orleans. In August of 2005, as Hurricane Katrina approaches, Kathy evacuates with their four young children, leaving Zeitoun to watch over the business. In the days following the storm he travels the city by canoe, feeding abandoned animals and helping elderly neighbors. Then, on September 6th, police officers armed with M-16s arrest Zeitoun in his home. Told with eloquence and compassion, Zeitoun is a riveting account of one family’s unthinkable struggle with forces beyond wind and water.

Abner and Ian are stuck sideways in this clever picture book created by a bestselling, acclaimed author and cartoonist--and perfect for fans of Elephant & Piggie and Press Here. Abner and Ian are stuck sideways on the pages of their debut picture book. They can''t start the story like this! Ian is trying to be brave, despite his dizziness and fear of heights. But don''t worry, because Abner has a plan: Readers will shake and turn the book until they get right side up! Sounds easy, right? Think again, because the real solution may be the opposite of what you''d expect. With the odd couple wit of Elephant & Piggie, the interactive appeal of Press Here, and a timeless charm all their own, Abner & Ian offer readers of all ages eighty pages of fast-paced fun with a surprising and rewarding twist.

Every night we say goodnight. But tonight we also ask, "What will tomorrow bring? An odd-sounding song? A worried-looking bug? A mysterious rock?" Most likely, all of the above. In a modern take on the classic goodnight book, rather than focusing on going to bed, this little boy contemplates the next day and all of the wonderful, dreamy, and silly things that are to come. Whimsical, poignant, and hopeful, this sweet book from bestselling author Dave Eggers and award-winning illustrator Lane Smith is a bedtime story for tomorrow ever after.

The bestselling author of The Circle delivers a tour de force of one man struggling to make sense of his country, seeking solutions the only way he knows how. A "story about someone who takes revenge against the world because he can''t fathom how he fits into it.... This is a one-sitting read" (USA Today). What do you do when you’re full of questions: what happened to missions to the moon? Why spend a trillion dollars on war? Where did America go wrong? If you’re Thomas, a young man nursing migraines and a lack of direction, this calls for drastic action. To find some answers, Thomas kidnaps a NASA astronaut and brings him to an abandoned military base on the edge of the California coast. Then the questioning begins. The answers must be honest. The back and forth might even hurt. It might get uncomfortable. But eventually the truth will emerge.

If you had to name a statue, any statue, odds are good you''d mention the Statue of Liberty. Have you seen her? She''s in New York. She''s holding a torch. And she''s taking one step forward. But why? In this fascinating, fun take on nonfiction, uniquely American in its frank tone and honest look at the literal foundation of our country, Dave Eggers and Shawn Harris investigate a seemingly small trait of America''s most emblematic statue. What they find is about more than history, more than art. What they find in the Statue of Liberty''s right foot is the powerful message of acceptance that is essential to an entire country''s creation. Can you believe that? Plus, this is the fixed format version, which looks almost identical to the print edition.

This collection of pithy, brilliantly acerbic pieces is a companion to Sixty Stories, Barthelme''s earlier retrospective volume. Barthelme spotlights the idiosyncratic, haughty, sometimes downright ludicrous behavior of human beings, but it is style rather than content which takes precedence.

The Golden Gate Bridge is the most famous bridge in the world. It is also, not entirely coincidentally, the world’s only bright-orange bridge. But it wasn’t supposed to be that way. In this book, fellow bridge-lovers Dave Eggers and Tucker Nichols tell the story of how it happened—how a bridge that some people wanted to be red and white, and some people wanted to be yellow and black, and most people wanted simply to be gray, instead became, thanks to the vision and stick-to-itiveness of a few peculiar architects, one of the most memorable man-made objects ever created. Told with playful paper cut-outs and irresistible prose, This Bridge Will Not Be Gray is a joyful history lesson in picture-book form—a gorgeously crafted story that teaches us how beauty and inspiration tend to come from the most unexpected places. Sometimes you have to fight for what you believe in, even if it’s just a color.

What if nothing was as it seemed? What if the ground beneath your feet had been hollowed into hundreds of tunnels and passageways? What if there were mysterious forces in these tunnels? What if it were up to twelve-year-old Gran Flowerpetal to stop these forces?

From the bestselling author of The Circle—a taut, richly layered, and elegiac novel that takes us around the world to show how one man fights to hold himself and his splintering family together in the face of the global economy’s gale-force winds. “An outstanding achievement in Eggers’s already impressive career, and an essential read.” —San Francisco Chronicle In a rising Saudi Arabian city, far from weary, recession-scarred America, a struggling businessman pursues a last-ditch attempt to stave off foreclosure, pay his daughter’s college tuition, and finally do something great. A novel that’s a powerful evocation of our contemporary moment—and a moving story of how we got here.

A savage satire of a United States in the throes of insanity, this hilarious novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Circle tells the story of a noble ship, the Glory, and the loud, clownish, and foul Captain who steers it to the brink of disaster. "A short parable for our times that is 30 percent Veep, 30 percent Voltaire, and the rest flavored by Margaret Atwood, Jonathan Swift, Percival Everett, and Salman Rushdie." —Los Angeles Review of Books When the decorated Captain of a great ship descends the gangplank for the final time, a new leader, a man with a yellow feather in his hair, vows to step forward. Though he has no experience, no knowledge of nautical navigation or maritime law, and though he has often remarked he doesn''t much like boats, he solemnly swears to shake things up. Together with his band of petty thieves and confidence men known as the Upskirt Boys, the Captain thrills his passengers, writing his dreams and notions on the cafeteria wipe-away board, boasting of his exemplary anatomy, devouring cheeseburgers, and tossing overboard anyone who displeases him. Until one day a famous pirate, long feared by passengers of the Glory but revered by the Captain for how phenomenally masculine he looked without a shirt while riding a horse, appears on the horizon. Absurd, hilarious, and all too recognizable, The Captain and the Glory is a wicked farce of contemporary America only Dave Eggers could dream up.

Author Dave Eggers and artist Júlia Sardà spin a quirky historical event into a whimsical and tall-ish true tale of American ingenuity. Make way for history as only Dave Eggers could stage it. It all started when John “Minnie” Moore built a mine in Idaho and sold it to Englishman Henry Miller. Then Henry married a local lass named Annie and built her a mansion, hence the “Millers’ Minnie Moore Mine Mansion.” After Henry died and Annie was hoodwinked—losing all but the mansion—she and her son took to raising pigs in the yard, as some are wont to do. But the town wanted those pigs out. Who could have guessed that Annie and her crew would remove the whole mansion instead—rolling it away slowly on logs—while she and her son were still living in it? Narrated with metafictional flair, this delightfully illustrated picture book is proof positive that nonfiction can be as lively and artful as any storybook.

McSweeney''s 27 comes to you as three separate books in a windowed slipcase, presenting six possible faces to the world in order to best match your home decor. Book One plunges into the greyish, faintly understood area of the art world, involving oddly drawn objects coupled with uncertainly-spelled text. Book Two is a never-before-seen seventy-two page sketchbook by the legendary Art Spiegelman. Book Three collects new stories by Stephen King, Jim Shepard and more.

From the bestselling author of The Circle comes a taut, suspenseful story of two foreigners'' role in a nation''s fragile peace. With echoes of J. M. Coetzee and Graham Greene, this "darkly funny" novel (The Los Angeles Times) questions whether we can ever understand another nation''s war, and what role we have in forging anyone''s peace. An unnamed country is leaving the darkness of a decade at war, and to commemorate the armistice the government commissions a new road connecting two halves of the state. Two men, foreign contractors from the same company, are sent to finish the highway. While one is flighty and adventurous, wanting to experience the nightlife and people, the other wants only to do the work and go home. But both men must eventually face the absurdities of their positions, and the dire consequences of their presence.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A gripping, triumphant adventure” (Los Angeles Times) from the bestselling author of The Circle—the incredible true story of a young Yemeni American man, raised in San Francisco, who dreams of resurrecting the ancient art of Yemeni coffee but finds himself trapped in Sana’a by civil war. Mokhtar Alkhanshali is twenty-four and working as a doorman when he discovers the astonishing history of coffee and Yemen’s central place in it. He leaves San Francisco and travels deep into his ancestral homeland to tour terraced farms high in the country’s rugged mountains and meet beleaguered but determined farmers. But when war engulfs the country and Saudi bombs rain down, Mokhtar has to find a way out of Yemen without sacrificing his dreams or abandoning his people.

Lucian enjoys searching the beach below his home for treasure, but after becoming attached to a mysterious cutlass he meets its owner, who offers something greater for its return.

For ten years, Voice of Witness has illuminated contemporary human rights crises through its remarkable oral history book series. Founded by Dave Eggers, Lola Vollen and Mimi Lok, Voice of Witness has amplified the stories of hundreds of people impacted by some of the most crucial human rights crises of our time, including men and women living under oppressive regimes in Burma, Colombia, Sudan, and Zimbabwe; public housing residents and undocumented workers in the United States; and exploited workers around the globe. This selection of narratives from these remarkable men and women is many things: an astonishing record of human rights issues in the 21st century; a testament to the resilience and courage of the most marginalized among us; and an opportunity to better the understand the world we live in through human connection and a participatory vision of history.

Since its initial publication and multiple reprints in hardcover in 2005, Teachers Have It Easy has attracted the attention of teachers nationwide, appearing on the New York Times extended bestseller list, C-SPAN, and NPR''s Marketplace, in addition to receiving strong reviews nationwide. Now available for the first time in paperback, this groundbreaking book examines how bad policy makes teachers'' lives miserable. Many teachers today must work two or more jobs to survive; they cannot afford to buy homes or raise families. Interweaving teachers'' voices from across the country with hard-hitting facts and figures, this book is a clear-eyed view of the harsh realities of public school teaching, without chicken-soup-for-the-soul success stories. With a look at the problems of recruitment and retention, the myths of short workdays and endless summer vacations, the realities of the work week, and shocking examples of how society views America''s teachers, Teachers Have It Easy explores the best ways to improve public education and transform our schools.

When Grandma comes to visit, and his parents leave them alone, the boy''s grandmother encourages him to imitate a jaguar, until completely transformed they venture out into the night, exploring the world from a new perspective, and with a new freedom--until it is difficult to distinguish imagination from reality.