Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life
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List Price: $13.00
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Manufacturer: Three Rivers Press
Written By: Amy Krouse Rosenthal
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.9310207
EAN: 9781400080465
ISBN: 1400080460
Label: Three Rivers Press
Manufacturer: Three Rivers Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 240
Publication Date: 2005-12-06
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Release Date: 2005-12-06
Studio: Three Rivers Press
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Editorial Reviews for Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life
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If you're looking for quotes from newspapers and magazines, NPR, book reviews, endorsements from thousands of readers and bloggers, google Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life and just see for yourself how people everywhere are responding to this book.
In Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life, Amy Krouse Rosenthal has ingeniously adapted the centuries-old format of the encyclopedia to convey the accumulated knowledge of her lifetime in a poignant, wise, often funny, fully realized memoir. Using mostly short entries organized from A to Z, many of which are cross-referenced, Rosenthal captures in wonderful and episodic detail the moments, observations, and emotions that comprise a contemporary life. Start anywhere—preferably at the beginning—and see how one young woman’s alphabetized existence can open up and define the world in new and unexpected ways.
An ordinary life, perhaps, but an extraordinary book.
Cross-section of ordinary life at this exact moment
A security guard is loosening his belt.
A couple is at a sushi restaurant with some old friends. They are reminiscing. In the back of their minds, they are thinking of being home.
A woman is trying to suck on a cherry Lifesaver but will end up biting it in six seconds.
A little boy is riding the train home with his dad after spending the day together at his office.
A man is running back into a grocery store to look for a scarf he dropped. He will leave with the phone number of a woman who will become his wife.
Words the author meant to use
Flair, Luxurious, Panoply, Churlish, Dainty, Folly
Wines that go nicely with this book
reds: Marcel Lapierre Morgon (France), Alario Dolcetto d’Alba Costa Fiore (Italy)
whites: King Estate Pinot Gris (Oregon), Landmark Chardonnay Overlook (California)
Book, standing in the bookstore holding a
If I am standing there with the book in my hand, one of three things has already happened: Friend recommended it. Read a good review. Cover caught my eye.
I can appreciate a cool cover. But it’s like the extra credit part of a test—it only enhances an already solid grade. Getting it right won’t help if most everything else is wrong. And getting it wrong won’t hurt if most everything else is right. (There are countless books I cherish whose covers I don’t like too much, or cannot even now recall.) The interior of the book—the terrain of its pages, where all those words took me, the tiny but very real spot it ultimately occupies in my mind—that becomes the book.
Next I go to the flaps. The front flap needs to intrigue/not bore me, and the bio needs to tell me just enough about the author. I’ll do my best to extract the author’s entire existence from their 2-X-2 inch photo.
Off to the back cover. I’ll be momentarily impressed when I see a blurb by a hot writer like ____, but I know that it is just as likely that I’ll like the book as hate it regardless of these quotes. I look at them in a more voyeuristic way, like a literary gaper’s delay: Wow, the author knows So and So. Bet they send each other clever text messages. Really the only thing I can gauge from the blurbs is my own pathetic jealousy level.
To get a true sense of the book, I have to spend a minute inside. I’ll glance at the first couple pages, then flip to the middle, see if the language matches me somehow. It’s like dating, only with sentences. Some sentences, no matter how well-dressed or nice, just don’t do it for me. Others I click with instantly. It could be something as simple yet weirdly potent as a single word choice (tangerine). We’re meant to be, that sentence and me. And when it happens, you just know.
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Consumer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Great! Funny!
Comment: This was a great book - it is an alphabetized list of insights and observations of everyday life - I laughed out loud several times and highly recommend this book
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great LIGHT reading
Comment: i loved this book. it's just fun, light reading. it's not profound. it's witty and silly and a good summer read. i could relate to some of the details of her "ordinary" life. my husband and i took turns reading some of her topics aloud to one another and got a good laugh out of it. i recommend this book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: laughed alot
Comment: I've had this book in my possession for 6 months and wish I had read it when I first got it. I had serious laughter tears.
Thanks.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: a real disappointment
Comment: Disappointment of the year. I was quite excited about Krouse Rosenthal's book, but perhaps ordinariness is indeed simply too dull to write about (Tolstoy nailed that one at the beginning of Anna Karenia). Her style is choppy and disconnected, which, she mentions, has never endeared her to editors. It never endeared her to this reader, either. Short as the book was, I was unable to finish it--a rare problem for me.
Customer Rating:
Summary: a wonderful read
Comment: Buy this book and lift your spirits, it is delightful in every way. I wish the author was my best friend.
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More Information on Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life
Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life
Joanna: Yesterday, a small purple flower popped up in my favorite ... Sebastian: I am reading on the couch, waiting for the raspberry ... Alicia Taylor:
Powell's Books - Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse ...
Proving that sometimes it's not the story that matters nearly so much as how you tell it, Rosenthal has organized one of the most entertaining, compulsively readable memoirs in ...
CNN.com - An 'Ordinary Life' not so ordinary - Mar 3, 2005
Her new book, "Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life" (Crown), is just that: an arrangement of her musings on moments in everyday life, in no particular order of significance.
Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life: Excerpts
Joanna: Yesterday, a small purple flower popped up in my favorite ... Sebastian: I am reading on the couch, waiting for the raspberry ... Alicia Taylor:
Powell's Books - Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krous ...
Proving that sometimes it's not the story that matters nearly so much as how you tell it, Rosenthal has organized one of the most entertaining, compulsively readable memoirs in ...
Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life, Vol. 1, Amy Krouse Rosenthal, Book ...
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If you're looking for quotes from newspapers and magazines, NPR, book reviews, endorsements from thousands of readers and bloggers, google "Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life" and ...
Gothamist: Encyclopedia Of An Ordinary Life To Hit New York
Amy Krouse Rosenthal's book, Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life, should make everyone realize that their so-called boring lives are pretty interesting (the book is made up of entries ...
Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life
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Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal - eBook ...
Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life Written by Amy Krouse Rosenthal Format: eBook ISBN: 9780307420657 Our Price: $13.00