Dave Eggers' 6 favorite books

The author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius finds inspiration in Saul Bellow, Arthur Miller, Joseph Heller, and more

Dave Eggers

Dangling Man by Saul Bellow (Penguin, $14). Bellow explores the psyche of a young man waiting to hear if he's been drafted. I don't know if anyone's ever better represented the workings of the mind in crisis, or the mental state of a human whose life might change, permanently, based on forces far beyond his control.

The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles (Ecco, $15). Every time I read this book I love it more. Terrible things happen to its characters, three young Americans traveling through Morocco, but Bowles's writing is so hypnotic that the calamities are seen through a certain anodyne haze. And despite its darkness, it's the most humane of existential novels.

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