I couldn't finish this one. Everyone was raving about it, so I gave it a try, but...not my cup of tea. Needs a good home/reader.

Sent to fellow Bookcrosser katalirob.

Thanks so much for the trade (and the pretty bookmark)! I'm looking forward to reading this.

Blech. You are so right Chellis. This may be the most disappointing book I've ever attempted to read. The only interesting thing about it is, I had it with me at a restaurant near my house, and the waiter looked at it and told me that his friend in Illinois wrote the book. It seemed extremely weird at the time, just running into a friend of the author. Unless he was just deranged, and actually didn't know Dave Eggers and made up the whole story he told me.

This book is now a bookray! When you receive the book, please check this list to see who is next in line, and PM the person for his or her address. This bookray is still open, so PM me if you want to participate.
Members:
lunabjp-US
teenage-faerie-US
jlynnt-US
streetmouse-US
agschoolgrad-US
boomda181-Canada
paixful-Canada
Klute-Germany
Concertina8-Austria
Wilmar-Netherlands
LondonEye-UK
davitraka-US

will read and pass on to the next in line

This book is hilarious. This narcissistic writer/character opens his mind like a melon and allows us to peer inside. It's frightful, but wouldn't anyone's open melon? I just can't trust this guy- like I sometimes can't trust myself. "But then I see her face on the box. My sick head makes me see the face on the box. My sick head wants to make this worse. My head wants this to be scary and unbearable. ...I want to put the box somewhere else- in the trunk maybe- but I know that I can't put the box in the trunk. The box which is not my mother cannot go in the trunk because she would be livid if I put her in the trunk. She would fucking kill me."
and the blurb about blurbs on the back is great. I recommend this book. If you get bored with something skip it!

looking forward to reading this...

sorry i took forever with this book. i had too many rings arrive at once. thanks for sharing! :)

i dont know what to say about this book. i really enjoyed it,i read it in just a few days. dave eggers is awesome. i havent read anything like it. i mean,it takes guts to write a memoir like this. it was like an honest,hilarious,narcissistic peek into the head of a twenty-something guy. he turns the simplest little events and conversations and rants into 30 page narratives.

i definately reccomend this book. off to jlynnt asap!

Released on Monday, December 20, 2004 at about 3:00:00 PM BX time (GMT-06:00) Central Time (US & Canada) at Bookring in Bookring, A Bookring Controlled Releases.

RELEASE NOTES:

sent off to the next on list today!

I got this in the mail today! I'll get right to it after the holiday madness. Thanks!

I finally finished this last night. It was definitely different. It was both funny and sad at times. I especially enjoyed the descriptions of the author and his brother throwing a frisbee around. hehe! It took me a while to get through the book, though. Some of the narratives were extremely long and boring (ie: the interview with MTV.) And the end was just plain strange. Overall, I could have lived the rest of my life without reading it and I'm slightly peeved that I spent so much time reading it when I could have been reading other things. Oh well.

I mailed this off today!

Got in the mail today! Will read and send along to the next person as soon as I can!

I can't help it. I really liked the book. I almost feel like I shouldn't have, because I know I wouldn't have liked the guy if I'd met him in real life. I would have told him to grow up and move on and stop being so self-absorbed and try to think about someone besides himself for once, but then I realized that we're all so much alike. We all have these internal monologues that are so important and earth-shattering to us and then when we try to explain them to other people, they just sound stupid.

Honest this book was not. Sure, maybe it was "based on a true story," but the whole thing was purposefully formulated to be what he wanted it to be, so if you want an inspiring true story, this is not for you.

It will be a classic though. This is one they will be teaching in high school years from now, like Catcher in the Rye. My advice if you're about to tackle it: Don't read it as a memoir. Read it as a statement. And read the whole thing. The "boring parts" were the parts that I thought were most revealing to the overall message. I don't feel uplifted now, but I do feel enriched, and that's more important, I think.

Sending along to the next person in the bookray.

Received in the mail today. Thanks!

I have read about 3/4 of this book, and know that I have read enough. The underlying theme was dealing with the grief that comes when parents die and the children must fend for themselves. But the sentence structure and overall flow of the book was hard to follow.

Thanks katalirob for hosting this bookray! I will send the book on to the next person once I get an address.

The book arrived in the mail today. I will be reading it next and will journal more soon. Thanks!
********************************************
I trudged through this book. I confess, I did not like the book that much. At times, it frightened me and at other times it dragged me into the story. In someways I was frightened by the madness. Will be sending this one on.

Just arrived today, thanks for this ring! Will start it shortly.

This not a book I really want to dedicate more time to, so I´m already sending it on, 3/4 through. It starts off good enough, is touching and funny, albeit somewhat lacking depth to really be good literature. Halfway through though, it just starts meandering all over the place. If you´re not going to follow a traditional story line, you have to be an exceptionally good writer or you have to have something extremely new and insightful to say. Eggers lacks both of these criteria. I really don´t know what gave him the idea, that anyone would be interested in the banality of the events that he describes (I´m talking about from the moment on they move to San Francisco) and his rambling thoughts go nowhere, draw no real conclusions, have nothing to communicate. This book does nothing but circle around the author´s own belly button and he´s not even funny or interesting enough to merit that attention.

I think Egger is a very typical example of the 90ies generation of upper middle class suburban youth, who have no artistic talent, but believe they should be artists because it´s cool. They have no interesting thoughts to communicate, nothing original to say about the world, they are shallow and empty and even though they realize this (as Egger points out various times) that doesn´t make them any more interesting. Thank God this pop culture trend seems to be coming to an end.

That was me, really annoyed. Book goes on to the next on the list.

Oh, and also (Date: 10/05/05), just for the sake of pouring some more oil into the fire, here´s a quote on Dave Eggers I very much agree with (it´s from Ian Spiegelman - I have no idea who he is, some author, I just stumbled across it on the web)

"I hate what he's come to stand for, which, to my mind, is behaving with a rabidly superior attitude merely because you have a knack for being clever. Cleverness was celebrated in Victorian parlors and we had pretty well done away with it as a virtue until his posse filled a void in which the children of the ruling class decided for themselves that nothing was "happening" in the world. Plenty was happening, just nothing that they could see or speak of. In any case, men are far too concerned with the dimensions of their genitalia. Eggers might very well have a larger package than I but he'd probably riff in a woman's ear about Duran Duran while he was mildly pumping away, and if that's your thing we shouldn't be together anyway. Wait, that's not right. He wouldn't utter a sound in bed, not one word. It would be cold clinical silence -- you could hear molecules colliding, icecaps melting. He'd hold his breath."

Hehe. Looking forward to some more fiery discussions...;-)

book is with me and i already started reading it yesterday.

ok, so this seems to be a love it/hate it book. you can put me down for LOVE IT! absolutely and unconditionally.

this book has been all over the forum where it was torn to shreds more often then not. i don't really think that there is anything left to be said about it...

would i recommend it? from some of the commentary i have encountered? probably not?

what i will say: don't let anyone discourage you if you are interested in a book. make up your own mind. you might be missing a true work of beauty, sadness, and (staggering) genius.

RELEASE NOTES:

off to the Netherlands

Caught! Thank you concertina8.
I took a quick peak at all your journal entries, and my, is this book controversial or what!
I have to finish one other BC book and then I will start this one. Curious if I will manage to finish it...

You will hear from me!

Update:

I'm sorry for keeping the book so long.

I've almost finished it (50 pages left or so), but the last two weeks I've not really been in the mood for reading (my grandmother passed away).

Hopefully I will refind my reading mood within a week or so. I have LondonEye's address, so mailing out will not take too long.

Again: I'm sorry for the delay.

A note to Wilmar, from Chellis:

I am the person who originally released this book. I want to offer you my sincere and heartfelt condolences on the loss of your grandmother. My father passed away two months ago, so I understand how it feels to not be in the mood to read, to be unable to concentrate on words. I went through it. And I'm sure that everyone else, yet to read this book, will understand, too.

Be well,
Chellis

Update

I just wanted to let you know that my interest in reading has returned.
I will probably finish the book within a few days, and than send it on to LondonEye.

Chellis, thank you for your message. I really appreciated it.

Well, I finshed the book a few days ago. I've been reading your journal entries and trying to think of how to put what I'm thinking. I still don't know. But might as well start writing.

To start with: I think this book shows that a good gripping title sells. And maybe this statement illustrates my over all feeling about the book: I am not really that enthusiastic.

Some readers before me commented that Eggers did not have anything to say and therefor shouldn't have written this book. I don't agree completely. I think books can pretty good illustrate the uselessness (hope this word exists and hope this is somewhere near the correct spelling...) of someones life. Or what people are thinking about themself. For me, this book fits into that category.
But actually I do not really like that sort of books...

I think the way Eggers describes his mothers illness and the way he takes care of his brother, is very original and gripping. The rest of his life (and so the rest of the story) did not interest me for one bit.
I did like the unconventional way he handles the idea 'book' though. With all the instructions and jokes and so.

I'm glad I've finally come round to reading this book, but do have a slight feeling that it has been a little bit of a waste of my time (but otherwise I would still be thinking: this a.h.w.o.s.g.; I should really read that book someday ;-))
Thanks everyone, for your comments and for giving me the upportunity to read this one.

Here in The Netherlands it is now Dec. 31, 4.21 pm and my boyfriend and I will be spending NewYears eve over at some friends. In an hour or so we will be starting our party (so I might as well start ironing my party dress!).

I wish you all a very happy and healthy 2006, with lots of love and a lot of great, and also a few awful, books!

I will (finally!) mail the book out to LondonEye on January 2nd.

Received from Wilmar - many thanks!

RELEASE NOTES:

Just received this book from Amazon! Was expecting a new copy but this is much more exciting. No idea how this happened.

Just finished A Hologram for The King and reallly enjoyed it so keen to read more from the author.

I will get started after lighting the fire and let you know.

Many thanks

DB