been reading: Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

This book was recommended to me, indirectly, by Anna. See, Anna has got me hooked on LibraryThing which is an online book catalog and community. Think flickr except with book titles instead of photos. After setting up my personal catalog (kalki) on the site, I began browsing Anna's. She had tagged this book as a favorite and it sounded like something I would love. And I did.

It's not a novel. It's a memoir in the style of an encyclopedia - an alphabetized collection of little blurbs that Amy (who was, back in the day, a contributor to Might magazine with editor Dave Eggers) has written - they range from lists of wordplays and interesting words (this is so me!) to childhood memories to random observations. It's a bit like reading a person's blog. Actually, what it's really like is reading the archives of a blog you just discovered - all in one sitting - and becoming completely enchanted with the person and feeling as if you know her really really well. What Amy (do you see how I'm referring to her by her first name as if we really are friends?) wanted to do with this book was document an ordinary life (specifically, hers) in the 21st century. The desire to chronicle the ordinary (but still extraordinary) moments of life is exactly why I started blogging, so the concept really resonated with me.

As did the entries. I was like, "Nuh-UH! I have thought that same exact thing but always assumed I was the only one because hello? ODD." The entries I liked the best were the ones about meaningful coincidences (or instances that reveal a bit of magic in the universe, depending on how you see it). Yesterday, the day I finished the book, I had three such moments of my own:

• Upon arriving at the doctor's office that morning, I discovered my wallet wasn't in my purse and realized I'd left it at home. I called Rob to ask him to bring it to me at the same exact moment that he was calling to tell me I'd forgotten my wallet - we both got busy signals because we were simultaneously calling each other, but we finally connected and he agreed to bring it by. I sat down in the waiting room, opened my book, and began reading the next entry, which was entitled "Wallet, Forgotten".




• After work I stopped by the library. I hadn't planned to do this, but I was meeting a friend later and had a little time to kill so figured I'd just read in the library. I found my place in the book - I had finished "Wallet, Forgotten" in the waiting room and now started in on the next entry which began, "I was at the local library..."




• Driving home, I was thinking about the word linen and how although I usually don't encounter it often, it has been all over the place the past few days. It began when I added linen in the comments of my rhyming syllables word list, and then on my next post the first word of the first comment, left by Tanya, was linen. I thought about how surely I'm just noticing the word more often now because I'm aware of it, and how, in fact, Amy discusses that very experience in the book. And then I remembered that just the evening before, I was making hotel reservations and the man on the phone commented that my last name was unusual and so I explained to him that it is German and actually comes from linen weaver. I was thinking about all of this, as I pulled up to a stoplight, about how I really like the word linen and that, given the whole last name thing, linen should perhaps become my word, one I fully appreciate and use whenever possible. And right then a big orange van drove through the intersection and the side of the van said Virginia LINEN Service, with the LINEN part really big.

Also - and this is random - after I finished the book, I realized that the whole thing had reminded me of my blogger friend Amy and that at times I'd even, subconsciously, attributed the book to her. Amy and AKR have the same aura, a similar sense of humor, and they share the ability to so simply yet profoundly portray the everyday. And then it occurred to me that - whoa! - both of their names are Amy and does that have anything to do with the association and, also, do all Amys just happen to be fundamentally fabulous?

In conclusion. I liked the book very much. It is whimsical and delightful and quite likely will inspire my blogging more than anything else I've read. And also it is very convenient to have when out and about town because most entries are short and thus easily read within the duration of a stoplight.