Andy Selsberg

Clearing out my to be read pile!

This book is clever. All it is is one giant checklist of secret skills and abilities. This is the kind of book you take to lunch with a friend to look over together or give as a gift at a party.

Here are a few of my own secret skills listed in the book:

-Waking up without an alarm
-Liking a one-hit wonder band's other songs
-Citing old Far Side cartoons
-Philosophizing
-Being embarrassed on the behalf of others
-Reshelving books correctly
-Finding scraps of paper to wrap to gum in
-Keeping the line moving
-Succumbing joyfully to the hype
-Checking for swollen lymph nodes
-Feeling vaguely bad because you're not into Anime
-Guessing which pieces of an art exhibition will be available as postcards at the gift shop

… (mer)

When Andy Selsberg got married, he reflected on commitment and old loves. He felt the need to reconcile past relationships, the joys and lessons of some and the pain or errors of others. He turned to the Internet and started this project as a website. It would be a place to leave messages to old or lost loves.

Being able to do so anonymously made it easy to say what may have otherwise been difficult or perhaps impossible. To be able to take a love story and condense it into one line is undeniably an art. This only adds to the importance and beauty of the message and of this book. There is quite a variety of messages and thoughts here. The final section of the book is a "fill-in" section, where you can actually create your own "Dear Old Love..." messages.

Quite often, it is the small book that has so much to say. This book is an excellent example as is says a lot very succinctly. Dear Old Love is for the ones who got away and the ones that were held onto, if only in our hearts. It honours them all by addressing them, "Dear Old Love".… (mer)