Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life

I'm still not finished with Outliers, but Barnes and Noble called and informed me that I book I ordered, Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life, was in. It's such a quick read, I'm already on page 92 and need to talk about it. Starting on page two, I haven't stopped laughing. The way this book begins is basically mocking the format of how books are published. Instead of being a memoir written like a narrative, it's a memoir written by meshing together a bunch of random stories and things that have happened in her life by putting them into a category and inserting this into an encylopedia like format. For instance, she'll state something like "Bowling" as her header and then give a short (paragraph or two) blurb or story about that header. (see example!)

 

Penny Kittle, author of Book Love, used this book as a model for a quick, beginning of class, prompt. I may use this in my classes to start class by having them use the header "LOCKERS" for example and have them write a short statement about what comes to mind when they think about lockers.