Having a bad day? Dave Eggers can help.
Dave Eggers and I discuss satire, the Trump presidency and the importance of disconnecting.
November 18, 2019
1 hr 23 min
275
Full
275 of 775
Episode 275 · November 18, 2019
Having a bad day? Dave Eggers can help.
0:00 / 1:23:42
Excerpt playback isn’t available for this episode — use the full-episode link.
Search the Record
Moment search isn’t open for this episode yet
When it opens, you’ll be able to type any phrase and jump straight to the second it was said.
Gray Area Episodes Around November 18, 2019
Episode 275 of 775 — walk the feed in the order it was published.
How Whole Foods, yoga, and NPR became the hallmarks of the elite
Having a bad day? Dave Eggers can help.
Summary
I’ve wanted to have Dave Eggers on the show for a while now. Eggers has not only written a vast range of books (a deeply ironic personal memoir, a heartwarming novel about a Sudanese refugee, a futuristic story about a tech dystopia) but he's also founded the national tutoring nonprofit 826 Valencia, started the literary magazine McSweeney’s, co-authored the screenplay of Where the Wild Things Are, and much more. I’m fascinated by people who are able to do a variety of wildly different things, all successfully. Dave Eggers is one of those people.
So, we start this conversation by discussing Eggers’s life’s work, his recent book The Captain and the Glory, and Donald Trump. But then — somewhere around the halfway point — the conversation transforms into something I can only describe as, well, therapeutic. Eggers doesn’t own a smartphone or have wifi in his house, and hearing the way he talks about the internet, social media, and our relationship to them put me in a sort of quasi-meditation state that I can’t describe adequately with words.
This one is a little strange, but it may just make your day. It certainly made mine.
Book recommendations:
The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
If you enjoyed this episode, you may like:
You will love this conversation with Jaron Lanier, but I can’t describe it
Cal Newport on doing Deep Work and escaping social media
My book is available for pre-order! You can find it at www.EzraKlein.com.
Want to contact the show? Reach out at ezrakleinshow@vox.com
You can subscribe to Ezra's new podcast Impeachment, explained on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts, or your favorite podcast app.
Credits:
Producer and Editor - Jeff Geld
Researcher - Roge Karma
Engineer - Cynthia Gil
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Episode details and artwork are published by the show’s own feed. Sentinel plays short cited excerpts and links every episode back to its publisher.