We love Dave Eggers here at YuppiePunk World HQ (just like Angelina does), and the San Francisco author/founder of McSweeneys and the non-profit 826  has recently made a couple of books available for pre-order. Out on October 1st is "The Wild Things," a sort-of hybrid adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s classic children’s book "Where the Wild Things Are" and the screenplay for the big-screen adaption of that film which Eggers co-wrote with its director Spike Jonze. The book is about a lonely boy named Max who likes to wear a wolf costume and who becomes king of the Wild Things after he runs away from home and sails to their island. Eggers talked to the Montreal Gazette about the book in late 2007:

Spike and Maurice and I always had the same goals for the movie, and the novelization, too, which was to sort of reinstitute the dangerous elements of that book. Because when it came out (in 1963), it was pretty controversial and some librarians didn’t like it, and child psychologists thought it was, you know, unhelpful. (laughs) And it was really morally ambiguous in a way. It showed a kid sort of disobeying his mother and acting crazy - which all kids do, but you still don’t see much of in children’s literature. It’s too often, I think, washed clean.

Spike and Maurice and I just decided we needed to make the book wild and dangerous again and really unexpected. So the movie is really unlike anything anyone will expect, I think. And the book is different from both of them, actually. It has Max and Max going to an island, but in the book I’m able to (develop) the storyline also - as a book can always do. You have a lot more room to play with. The (picture) book is 150 words, the movie is 90 minutes, the novel gets to be a whole different level.

Returning to non-fiction, Eggers will release "Zeitoun" via McSweeneys on July 15th. The book is the story of Abdulrahman Zeitouna, a 47-year old Syrian-American and father of four, who, after Hurrican Katrina, refused to leave his home, opting instead to protect his family and neighbors by canoeing through the flooded streets of New Orleans delivering food and goods to the less fortunate. He disappeared one week later and was never heard from again. The book is his story, from his Syrian roots to his marriage to Kathy, who eventually converted to Muslim. Eggers spoke to The Rumpus recently about working on "Zeitoun," a project which took several years of close involvement with the family to finish:

Their story intrigued me from the start, given that it’s at the intersection of so many issues in recent American life: the debacle of the government response to Katrina, the struggles facing even the most successful immigrants, a judicial system in need of repair, the problem of wrongful conviction, the paranoia wrought by the War on Terror, widespread Islamophobia.

They’re really a beautiful family, and we worked on the book together for a long time. With a book like this, I think you get the most accuracy when you involve your subjects as much as possible. I think I sent the manuscript to the Zeitouns for six or seven reads. They caught little inaccuracies each time. They have to live with the book, of course, as much as I do, so I needed their approval. With "What Is the What" and with this book, I consider the book as much theirs as mine. So they were intimately involved in every step, as were their extended families. We had many months to get everyone’s approval over everything, to make sure it was accurate.

And Eggers will be busy. Aside from this pair of book projects, he and his wife penned the screenplay to "Away We Go," directed by Sam Mendes and released later this month starring John Krasinski of "The Office."

RELATED: The Frustrating History of Dave Eggers’ Film Adaptations