Dave Eggers - By the Book - NYTimes.com I'm reading a short story collection by Tom Barbash called "Stay Up With Me." It's not out yet, and probably won't be for a year or so, but it's so good. I'm in a weird position with that question, given we publish books at McSweeney's, and every one of them has to pass that "You must read this book!" test before we decide to publish it. I hope I can mention one recent book we put out called "Inside This Place, Not of It," edited by Ayelet Waldman and Robin Levi. It's a book of oral histories from incarcerated women in the U.S., and every story is shocking - women shackled to beds during childbirth, women given hysterectomies against their will and the omnipresent sexual abuse at the hands of guards. Massive reform is needed immediately. Lately I've been reading ghost stories, and have been having a blast. At a yard sale, I found a collection Hitchcock edited called "Stories Not for the Nervous;" it's solid all the way through. Take a moment to champion unheralded writers. Who do you think is egregiously overlooked or underrated? I don't know if he's unheralded, but there's a writer named J. Malcolm Garcia who continually astounds me with his energy and empathy. He writes powerful and lyrical nonfiction from Afghanistan, from Buenos Aires, from Mississippi, all of it urgent and provocative. I've been following him wherever he goes. What were your most cherished books as a child? Do you have a favorite character or hero from children's literature? When I was a kid, I drew a lot, so I gravitated to oversized books with a lot of artwork - books about giants, gnomes, Norse myths and space travel. There was one called "21st Century Foss," full of incredible imaginings of spaceships and future cities, all with radical and organic shapes. I hadn't seen it in 30 years and recently bought it on eBay. Looking at those pictures again was like reliving dreams I had when I was 8 years old. You co-founded 826 National, an organization dedicated to motivating young people to write. Was there a particular book that motivated you? A book that you find often motivates the children you work with? The greatest motivator for a kid to write, I think, is having an encouraging and open-minded reader. At 826, we train our tutors to be encouraging of young writers, no matter how unusual the subject matter or where their writing skills are. The two things that stunt kids more than anything else are 1) the fear that whatever they want to write about won't be acceptable, or 2) that their first drafts have to be perfect. Kids have to know, without a doubt, that writing about anything, even flatulent hamsters, is O.K., and that writing can and should be fun at that age. But when you say, your paper has to be five paragraphs long, this many sen-tences per paragraph, and about "appropriate" subject matter, then you're guaranteeing paralysis from young writers. You've got to remove the tethers to get them started. Then you can get at the grammar on the back end. Is there one book you wish all kids would read? For 10 years I've been teaching a high school class that puts together the anthology, "The Best American Nonrequired Reading," and from these students I've learned that there's no one book or kind of writing that works for everyone. I'm always surprised at the range of reactions to just about anything. But for reluctant readers, the rule of thumb is that you have to meet them where they live. You probably shouldn't give a reluctant reader "The Scarlet Letter" or "Middlemarch." You can work their way up to the canon, but start with something more immediately relevant to their lives. Any bad book habits? Do you tend not to finish books? Skim? Scribble in margins? Fall asleep while reading? All of the above. I put books down all the time. I mark them up, fold page-corners. And I fall asleep, sure. Most of my books have gotten wet because I read in the tub. Of the books you've written, which is your favorite? I usually feel too close to whatever book I last wrote, but in this case I have to say that I like "A Hologram for the King" best. It's different than the book I thought I was writing, so I can look at it with some distance. What's the one book you wish someone else would write? I have to go back to the issue of women in American prisons. I really wish Michelle Alexander, who wrote "The New Jim Crow," about African-American men in prisons, would write a sequel, focusing on the plight of women. I'm being greedy here, given she wrote the intro to "Inside This Place." There are tens of thousands of women doing decades for nonviolent offenses, and the abuse they suffer behind bars is virtually a given. Given Alexander's skills and audience, an exposé on the subject would have a critical impact. If you could meet any writer, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you want to know? George Orwell. I would start by asking about the mustache. And among authors you've met already, who most impressed you? Christopher Hitchens was the most erudite and eloquent human I've ever met. He could speak on any topic, any hour of the day or night, at length, and captivate anyone in the room. I didn't agree with all of his politics, but he was always an extremely warm and generous man. Is there a writer you consider to be a mentor or model in some way? William T. Vollmann's range inspires me - and his empathy and curiosity. He gives absolutely everyone the benefit of the doubt, and I try to follow his lead on that. Where do you get your books? Are you a downloader, online shopper, borrower, used-bookstore browser? I'm a paper-only reader, and I get most of my books at the independent bookstores in the Bay Area. I like used books, too, so I raid the big used-book sales the libraries around here put on. That's where you can fill any holes in your collection for, say, a buck a book. Once I got a full Balzac set for $20. Not bad. What do you plan to read next? A few years ago a poet named Arif Gamal gave me his book, "Morning in Serra Mattu: A Nubian Ode," and after reading and loving the first few pages, I lost it. I found it the other day while cleaning my office, and now am about halfway through it. It's an epic poem about growing up in northern Sudan, and it's really beautiful, unlike anything I can remember. I'm so glad I found it again. Feels like some kind of reunion.