It all started about five years ago when I was working as a bartender in a casual dining establishment. A thirty-something yr old man sat at my bar and ordered a glass of wine and took out a book to read (one of my favourite pastimes, I might add...) and, by way of making light conversation, I asked him what book he was reading. He answered with zeal, and was all too happy to recommend it highly, even taking a moment to read me a few notable sentences. He succeeded in selling me on the book, which was soon to become one of my favourites, and also exposing me to what would become my fixation on the brain of one, Dave Eggers, author (among many things) of "A Heartbreaking Work of a Staggering Genius," the book in question.
Okay, so he wrote this really fantastic book that I couldn't put down...and a whole bunch of others that I cherished for their raw, candid and un-selfconscious descriptions of the inner workings of his brilliant mind, as well as their startling witticisms, but it doesn't end there, folks. Good ol' Dave started a little publishing house (McSweeney's) that included a slough of young, innovative individuals who were as equally brilliant and quirky in their writing styles as he was. As if that wasn't enough, he really won my heart when he was 2008's TED Prize winner for his amazing talk on his amazing accomplishments with 826 Valencia, his publishing house-turned-after school tutoring centre and pirate supply store. Watch the TED talk and you'll see what I mean...
Brain-crush worthy? Heck yes...
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