The Book of Awesome by Neil Pasricha

The Book of Awesome: Snow Days, Bakery Air, Finding Money in Your Pocket, and Other Simple, Brilliant Things by Neil Pasricha

Amy Einhorn Books, Putnam, April 2010

Summary from Goodreads:

Sometimes it's easy to forget the things that make us smile. With a 24/7 news cycle reporting that the polar ice caps are melting, hurricanes are swirling in the seas, wars are heating up around the world, and the job market is in a deep freeze, it's tempting to feel that the world is falling apart. But awesome things are all around us-sometimes we just need someone to point them out.

The Book of Awesome reminds us that the best things in life are free (yes, your grandma was right). With laugh-out-loud observations from award- winning comedy writer Neil Pasricha, The Book of Awesome is filled with smile-inducing moments on every page that make you feel like a kid looking at the world for the first time. Read it and you'll remember all the things there are to feel good about.

Neil Pasricha started a blog, http://1000awesomethings.com/ in 2008 simply to document all the awesomeness he encountered in his everyday life. The popularity of this website led to the publication of The Book of Awesome in 2010. Goodreads has samples of some of the awesome things discussed in the book, but I have some of my own favorites:

• When someone lands on the hotel you built built in Monopoly
• Peeling that thin plastic film off new electronics
• Licking the batter off the beaters of a cake mixer
• Salt
• The smell of books
• Getting into a bed with clean sheets after shaving your legs
• Getting the eyelash out of your eye

What's so awesome about this book is the realization that you don't have to try to find the awesomeness. You can't plan or anticipate something being truly awesome--it just is. So, seeing as it's a new year, I thought I'd make a resolution to find more awesome in my life. Like:

• Going to wake my daughter up and finding her already getting dressed
• The first cup of coffee from a  fresh pot
• That feeling of accomplishment when you've finished cleaning your house from top to bottom
• Putting all the clean dishes away before you go to bed so the dish drainer is empty when you get up in the morning
• Not having to set the alarm on a Saturday because you have nowhere to go
• When your blog gets a shout-out in someone else's blog

Obviously, I think this book is a 5 out of 5! What's awesome in your life?

Enjoy your reading!

Christi