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Joanna: Yesterday, a small purple flower popped up in my favorite ...
Sebastian: I am reading on the couch, waiting for the raspberry ...
Alicia Taylor: The Kenwood House Gardens: London, England
London's light breeze
floats through still ...
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Tasha: I usually drove up the mountain on my way back ...
katie scott: the most looked at thing in history....
jessica m. hunt: Sometimes the moon looks like it is hanging so dangerously ...
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If it weren't for Charise Mericle Harper, this book would not exist, or if it did exist, it would be a very different book, or if the book did exist as the same book, it for sure would have been set in a different typeface. We have spent 10 years worth of Thursdays together, writing (me) and drawing (her) in coffeehouses. So many important decisions and ideas have come out of those Thursdays. Charise is like a muse and collaborator and cheerleader and friend all rolled up in one tall blond person. I've lost track of how many children's books she's has written at this point; her first, When I Grow Up, is revered in our house, and just wait til you see her young adult novel that's coming out.
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Amy Rennert is my agent. Though I easily could, I am not going to go on and on about her here because I fear that the minute I do so, I will sound like any other writer gushing about their agent in the acknowledgment section of their book. She knows how I feel. So. If you're a writer looking for a rare kind of agent--or you're just someone who happens to be very fond of emailing strangers--this is the hyperlink for you.
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Annik La Farge is the editor of this book The first time we spoke on the phone, it became strangely clear to me that Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life needed not an editor like her, it needed her. She officially became my editor on October 2, 2003. That was a really great day.
This book was dizzingly labor intensive, more work than anyone at Crown could have ever imagined, but Annik somehow managed to hold it all - and all of us involved - together. From the get go, she maintained a vision of the big picture but never dismissed the (hundreds of) tiny details along the way as irrelevant or a waste of her time. She trusted the process even when we were up against--or past--a critical deadline and I was off la-la-la taking something in a new direction. She was always (brutally) honest about passages that weren't quite working yet, when I needed to go deeper, but I will tell you this: when I did finally get a yes! you nailed it! reaction out of her, it was unbelievably rewarding and totally golden. It is not a stretch to say that Annik influenced and bettered every single page of this book.
Annik has this really endearing habit of saying hi, it's Annik La Farge, when she leaves me messages, including her last name as if I didn't already recognize her voice, including her last name as if I have an abundance of Anniks in my life. There is only one Annik.
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Two summers ago, I read an article in The New York Times Magazine about the fellow who had just completed the illustrations for the latest edition of the Webster's dictionary. I loved his drawing style, tore the article out, and thought, if I am able to sell Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life to a publisher, this is exactly who I want to do the illustrations. A few months later, when the subject of illustrators came up with Annik, I presented her with the Jeffrey Middleton article. We never considered anyone else.
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One of my favorite poems appears in the book on page 144. It is called So You Want A Social Life With Friends, and it is by Kenneth Koch. In the fall of 2000, I had the privilege of recording Mr. Koch reading this poem in his Upper East Side apartment for an audio magazine project I was working on. I used a tiny Radio Shack tape recorder, and take full responsibility for the lack of high sound quality. (But I do admit I like the crackling and soundproof-lessness.) He was an impeccable, flawless reader--we were finished in two or three takes. Though he had been reluctant to agree to our session, once underway, he was a gracious, charismatic host. He had set up a nice tray with glasses of grapefruit juice. Fitting, because the whole thing was bittersweet. Mr. Koch died a year later. I believe this is one of his last recordings.
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Tony Rogers wrote the Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life theme song. Before that, he wrote and starred in the long-running one-man musical Pop Psychology (a show which I saw four times) (and a show which Tony told me he had a dream about, where he was trying to get ready to perform and I was in his way--this dream is referenced on page 92 of the book) (and a show which was hailed by Chicago's WXRT as "Extraordinary") Before that, he wrote a beautiful tender song for my daughter's birthday. Before that, he was in the critically acclaimed band The Good. Before that I didn't know him.
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Thank you to the following humans for their invaluable feedback on the manuscript: Amy Rennert, Ann Krouse, Beth Kaufmann, Charise Mericle Harper, Cynthia Kaplan, Dena Fischer, Jason Rosenthal, John Green, Katie Froelich, Paul Krouse, Tony Rogers.
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Thank you to Emily Eilertson for a million and one things associated with this book.
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Thank you to Dana Balick, Susie Rabyne Borovsky, Marc Richman, Alysa Rose, Rosalie Press Taper and Jennifer Wasserman for the childhood and college "testimonies."
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This website exists thanks to web designer Matt Maldre. The "Lost and Found Project" video exists thanks to filmmaker Steve Delahoyde.
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I owe everything - and I mean everything - to my agent Amy Rennert, and to the folks at Crown Publishing: Laura Baratto, Marcia Baumann, Eileen Becker, Brian Belfiglio, Amy Boorstein, Amy Brown, Tina Constable, Tina DeGraff, Joan Demayo, Lauren Dong, Meg Drislane, Theresa Evangelista, Jill Flaxman, Alison Forner, Nina Frieman, Jenny Frost, John Hastie, Karen Hayes, Doug Jones, Linda Kaplan, Michael Kindness, Kristin Kiser, Ron Koltnow, Annik La Farge, Jacqui Lebow, Alex Lencicki, Madeline McIntosh, Amy Nover, Philip Patrick, Bridget Piekarz, Dan Rembert, Jen Roensch, Mario Rojas, Steve Ross, Karin Schulze, Kim Shannon, Penny Simon, Barbara Sturman, David Underwood, Elizabeth Van Itallie, Richard Vallejo, and Liz Willner.
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The Chicago, Boston and San Francisco installments of the Lost and Found Project are now complete. 150 books were "intentionally left" around each city by a team of 20 friends/Book Hiding Specialists. They left them in places like the freezer at grocery store, shelf at Blockbuster, in the arms of a statue. Quite a few people wrote in to share their (often serendipitous) story of where & when they found the book. Filmmaker Steve Delahoyde documented the hiding of the first batch of Chicago books in this two-minute short film.
Did you find this book?
Notes from those who found a book
Watch the Lost and Found video
Watch the video clip
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All illustrations by Jeffrey Middleton