Bedside Table Books

There may be a law against posting twice in one day but I’m ignoring it at risk of overloading your in-box and your attention span. Just couldn’t wait to post this because I feel a huge raging success coming on and want you to be in on it early!  The book is called The Book of Awesome and is a product of the blog  www.1000awesomethings.com . Heather Reisman of Indigo/Chapters has recently declared it her latest “Heather’s Pick”.  (A quick aside: I generally find Heather’s picks to be great. Oprah’s picks?  Typically dreary in my opinion.)  Heather tells a sweet tale so I’ll leave it to her blog entry here:

Recently a favourite cousin of mine came for a visit armed with a book written by a young colleague from her office. Tucked into the book was a most charming note.

Three sentences in I was hooked. I finished the note and dove into the book.

From the moment I started reading The Book of Awesome I knew that author Neil Pasricha was extraordinary. His observations on life’s little joys are at once simple and deep. He brings to these observations the keen eye of a writer, the wit of a humorist, and the openness of an eternal optimist. This is just an unbeatable combination.

It is impossible to read The Book of Awesome without being inspired to feel better about life. Sharing it with a friend or loved one will, in some small but wonderful way, change you both.

In the spirit of sharing, here is Neil’s note:

Dear Heather,

My name is Neil Pasricha and I’m a no-name 30-year-old guy who lives in downtown Toronto.

My mom is from Nairobi, and my dad is from New Delhi and they came to Canada in the 60’s.

My sister and I were born and raised here and we had pretty quiet childhoods.

All that quiet changed for me in 2008.

On one hand it was my toughest year ever with my closest friend taking his life and my wife choosing to live hers apart from me.

In these ashes I started a website – 1000awesomethings – to celebrate all the tiny joys in life that we get up for every day… like the cold side of the pillow, and snow days!

To date I have had almost 12 million hits, won 2 webby awards, been on CNN, BBC and the front page of The Toronto Star.

10 literary agents came out of the woodwork, 5 publishers expressed real interest and ultimately Penguin Publishing won the rights to publish my book.

Heather, I wanted you to have a copy and of course I would love to meet or chat. Thank you for reading this long note…

Neil Pasricha

Here is a photo of one of my favourite awesome things – gives me a thrill every time I pour my morning coffee into it. My other one from today … the smell of lilacs in the rain!  I played this game with #1 son and he says one of his “awesomes” is being the first on the ice at early morning hockey practice. Well at least one of us is finding something positive about those 6 am practices all winter!