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Having a bad day? Dave Eggers can help.

Having a bad day? Dave Eggers can help.

FromThe Gray Area with Sean Illing


Having a bad day? Dave Eggers can help.

FromThe Gray Area with Sean Illing

ratings:
Length:
86 minutes
Released:
Nov 18, 2019
Format:
Podcast episode

Description

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
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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
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Released:
Nov 18, 2019
Format:
Podcast episode

Titles in the series (100)

Winner of the 2020 Webby and People's Voice awards for best interview podcast. Ezra Klein brings you far-reaching conversations about hard problems, big ideas, illuminating theories, and cutting-edge research. Want to know how Stacey Abrams feels about identity politics? How Hasan Minhaj is reinventing political comedy? The plans behind Elizabeth Warren’s plans? How Michael Lewis reads minds? This is the podcast for you. Produced by Vox and the Vox Media Podcast Network.