Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life

Good news! The book has found a new home. It is on its way to Jane at her work address.

I recently finished reading a book called Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. A friend, Sam, and co-worker of Les sent me a galley of it because she liked it and thought I would like it, too. Her instincts were correct. This is one of my favorites books of the year.

The book is a collection of random paragraphs on various topics, organized alphabetically. Sometimes, the entries are one sentence (SHAMEFUL: My mind has drifted onto self-involved matters at more than one funeral.). Sometimes the entries are quite long (CHILDHOOD takes up 17 pages). There were many entries that made me laugh out loud, and one that made me tear up a little (so tender). The thing that surprised me most of all, however, was that I felt that the author and I looked at everything the same way. Sometimes I would stop and say, "This book could have been written about me by someone who knows me better than I know myself! It's amazing!" She documents things that I didn't even realize I felt or thought, but I do. I am sure you want an example, so here's one:

CONNECTED (VERSUS REMOVED): When I read a magazine, I feel connected to the world, in on everything. When I read a book, I feel removed from the world, isolated, as if I've slipped off into a soundproof both.

For me, that is so true, but I never realized it until I read it in the book.

I read this book before I started The Talking Toaster, around the same time as I started reading my friend Mike's blog. Blogs have never really appealed to me because the very few blogs I had read previously fell into two camps: (1) way too personal ("Today I feel so depressed. Again. What's the point of going on?!!!") or (2) too impersonal so that there was nothing to relate to (posts about business tactics and personal development; a self-help book written by an unqualified stranger). I just couldn't see the purpose of a blog or understand why anyone would bother. When I read Mike's blog, I felt like he walked a line between being goofy or funny and also showing people a personal side by writing about things that he was passionate about. And he didn't seem afraid to give his opinion on potentially touchy subjects. I thought, "Mike is doing this correctly! I can see value in this, if only for your own personal documentation. And it's interesting to me." Then I read Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life and thought, "If this book is so fascinating to me, maybe writing things down myself will be interesting to others." That is honestly the best-case scenario of my blog.

But the gist of this post is that I would like to send this book to someone who thinks they will enjoy reading it. I also want another person to tell me if they totally related to everything Amy writes about or if they were thinking, "This girl is SO not like me!" I am looking to get a sense of the universality of what she writes (and maybe the originality of myself).

If you're interested in me mailing you this galley of the book, let me know in the comment section or email me. If I don't have your address, we'll figure out a way to exchange it without posting it online.