Top Ten Tuesday (most unique reads)

This week's topic: Top Ten Most Unique Books I’ve Read

1. Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life, Amy Krouse Rosenthal

A memoir in encyclopedia form. I love this book.

2. Cooking Comically, Tyler Capps

A cookbook in comic book form.

3. Self-Help, Lorrie Moore

Short stories in second person. I adore second person narrative.

4. The Love, Loss, and What I Wore, Ilene Beckerman

Memoir as told through clothing and simple sketches. I’ve always wanted to make a list of which outfits I’d choose to represent my life.

5. Hungry Ear: Poems of Food and Drink, Kevin Young (Ed)

Poetry about food with special thought to arrangement. It’s one long feast!

6. Furnishing Forward: A Practical Guide to Furnishing for a Lifetime, Sheila Bridges, Anna Williams (photos)

I really don’t remember what Bridges says, but I remember interior design really clicking for me when I read this book. I came away with a confidence in my own decorating style.

7. Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy

My textbook for life. This is how I heal everything from migraines to marital tiffs.

8. The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin

I love a good project book (A.J. Jacobs was my introduction to them), but this one is different in its earnestness. She does a great deal of research and plotting of happiness. And it works for her.  

9. Press Here, Hervé Tullet

This was the first children’s book I read that is interactive. There are more now—and perhaps this wasn’t the first—but this was the first I’d read, and I found it so ingenious and refreshing.

10. Underwater Dogs, Seth Casteel

I love photography, and I love dogs. But these aren’t your average dog portraits. Plunging a playful dog underwater makes for a sometimes grotesque, sometimes graceful picture. I’m fascinated at how people come up with these ideas and then follow them through to completion.