It seems that there are two kinds of readers right now: people who think McSweeney's writers are gods, and people who wish everyone who ever contributed to anything even remotely connected to Dave Eggers' publishing company would drop dead and be sent to some kind of hell for writers.

The McSweeney's attitude is a little self-congratulatory: "We are not taking writing seriously, and if you don't like it, I guess it's just too over your head." Dave Eggers, who started McSweeney's, is this attitude brought to life. With a book deal.

Dave probably wrote A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius with a smug smile on his face, patting himself on the back with whichever hand wasn't holding the pen. If you can get through it, you can get through any of Eggers' work, but a lot of people I know give up once they get to the MTV interview.

The first Hemingway I read was The Old Man and the Sea, and I didn't touch another book of his until it was required for a class. Because it was a poetry class, we read A Moveable Feast, which recounts his time spent writing in Paris with Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein, among others. Because I really respect the other writers he hung out with, this kind of gave Hemingway instant credibility and inspired me to give him another chance.

Hemingway is incredibly dry, which bothers a lot of people. It bothered me, too, until I read his theories about writing, particularly this quote: "All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know." It's interesting to read his memoir, because you get a better understanding of what he was trying to do, why he was trying to do it, and the sacrifices he had to make (at least in the beginning) to get it done.