Wigfield gives good opening.

And the best opening line of a book ever goes to...

"Words cannot describe all the things that I have left to write."
-Russell Hokes
(fictionalized author of Wigfield)
(actually written by Amy Sedaris, Paul Dinello, and Stephen Colbert)

Worthy Reads: We Feel Fine

'I feel like taking a run outside to burn off the peanut butter I consumed an hour ago in the cafeteria.'

And think you should care because this is the world wide web gosh darnit. And we all want to share our feelings.

We Feel Fine.org authors, Sep Kamvar and Jonathan Harris, have compiled thousands of these emotive declarations--the 'feelings' and the 'thoughts' and the crap we feel the need to tell the world--off the web. And now they've put them in a book for your consumption.

And I think it's genius.

Buy the book.

[via Flavorwire]

Worthy Reads: The Short and Incredibly Happy Life of Riley.

Tonight, my out-of-town mother and I wandered into Echo Park's incredible independent bookstore, Stories [which incidentally turned 1 today--congrats Stories!] and I picked up a picture book I hadn't read before.

The story goes like this...

Riley, a rat, is content with life's simplest pleasures (food, family, his one and only love), whereas humans never cease to aspire to achieve more (better food, a larger home, better and more beautiful mates, and so on).

And the take-away message is summed up over the book's last few pages...

This is why it's never a good idea for people to compare their lives to animals. You will only end up feeling depressed...

because realizing that rats have a better life than you do, is really, really sad.

And the answer is very simple really--you just have to be happy with a lot less.

Release your inner Riley

The Short and Incredibly Happy Life of Riley is so poignant, so truthful, that it seems almost unfit for children. But, I remember, children are much more accepting of truth than us adults. And some messages are best learned at Reading Level-Ages 4 through 8.

Buy the book on Amazon.