I seem to be a verb

As the sayer of smart things and the founder of McSweeney's/Believer/Wholphin and the 826Valencia charity, Dave might be one of the people in the world whose output I most admire, so it was high time that I read some of his work.

A surfing trip to Costa Rica for predictable casual sex with "the only attractive old friend she'd never slept with". A demanding hike up Kilimanjaro to prove an ability to follow through that would have been necessary in a totally different context earlier. A trip to Scotland to finally get closer to the object of ones desire: Travel is a common theme that ties many of these short stories together. Several deal with Americans eager to find meaning and authenticity in physical thrills abroad, but frustratingly realizing that they can't escape disaffection, boredom, anxiety and other emotional problems that easily, and that new political and moral issues arise instead.
Hungry they may be, but when it comes to living a fulfilling life, the dog from whose point of view the final story is told ("my claws grabbing at the earth like I’m the one making it turn") is far more successful than any human protagonist.

The writing style feels driven and urgent, if a little scatterbrained. It's realistic but also has a certain measure of ironic detachment, shying away from really going anywhere or making any particular statement. Eggers likes to employ experimental gimmicks like imagined conversations between inanimate objects or mid-story author statements about what it is or isn't about. One story is presented as rough unfinished sketch of itself ("The man is in his seventies. Possible names: Anson. Or Basil. Greg", and so on), and we even get a few blank pages titled "There Are Some Things He Should Keep to Himself."

While the theme of travel to exotic places by disaffected late-20-somethings is something I could only vaguely relate to, I did enjoy the tone and style of this collection and am glad I read it.