Celebrating The Book of Awesome (& Giveaway!)

Neil Pasricha describes himself as a “boring guy with a nine-to-five job,” but let me tell you – he is much, much more. Neil is humble and incredibly kind, and despite being “just a normal guy” he landed himself a book deal after his blog, 1,000 Awesome Things, quickly caught fire after starting in June of 2008.

I am so thrilled to celebrate the launch of Neil’s book this week – and happy to announce that Neil will send one lucky commenter an autographed copy! Just share an awesome thing with us in the comments and we’ll pick a winner at random. **Update: this contest is now over – congrats to Eve from South Korea who won!**

About The Book of Awesome:

In Neil’s own words, “Over the past year the website grew into a warm place where people around the world came to curl up under a blanket and think about the small joys we often overlook. With so much sad news and bad news pouring down upon us, it’s fun to stop for a minute and share a universal high five with humanity.” Don’t you just want to find Neil and hug him?! I do.  That endearing spirit, mixed with his great sense of humor and appreciation for the small things in life, makes Neil an absolutely AWESOME guy, and the same holds true for this book.

Some of my favorite “Awesome Things” from the book:
Each one has a page of heartfelt, funny, well-written description and commentary

And finally, I’d like to add one of my own:

  • Seeing an AWESOME guy with a 9-5 job get a book deal from a blog that brings smiles to so many people’s faces every day. Congrats Neil!

How to Win a Copy of 1,000 Awesome Things:

Please join me and Neil in adding to the awesome! To enter to win an autographed copy of the book, leave a comment with one of your own awesome things by the end of the day on Sunday. I’ll pick a winner via Random.org early next week, then Neil will send you a signed copy of his book. **Update: this contest is now over – congrats to Eve from South Korea who won!**

You can also purchase The Book of Awesome on Amazon (a great gift, and it’s currently 50% off!) and follow Neil on Twitter.

Click here (or press play below) to watch the book trailer – I loved this!

75 comments

Categories: BooksFun

  • http://positivelypresent.com positivelypresent

    Great post about The Book of Awesome! I also wrote about it on my site, which you can check out here: http://www.positivelypresent.com/2010/04/the-bo…

  • http://www.lifewithoutpants.com Matt Cheuvront

    LOVE this blog and have been following it for a while now – I'm sure the book is just as great.

    One of my awesome things comes c/o last weekend – Was at my future in-laws house and the future brother and law and I stumbled across his old Sega – we then proceeded to play 5 games of NBA Jam, to which I of course dominated. BOOMSHAKALAKA!

  • http://www.JenRem.com Jenni

    This is awesome! I love his blog and have been following forever.
    Something that is awesome is getting jean Friday's every once in awhile. It costs the company nothing yet makes the employees bonkers happy.

  • http://www.kristenbyers.net/ Kristen

    The middle portion of a cinnamon roll! It's the best part :)

  • Floriane

    Definitely one of the books to read to “feel” life in every moment! :-)

    A 2 year-old little boy looking into your eyes and saying I love you, just like that, for no special reason, just because he feels like saying it in the middle of his LEGO construction!! AWESOME!! :D

  • andrea_banks

    I have two awesome things. The first, Jenny just reminded me of in her cupcake entry. Savouring the top of the perfect cupcake…mmmmm…

    The second is the feeling you get when you're climbing 15 flights of stairs and your on the 14th flight and can just FEEL the accomplishment. Yes!

  • MarcTheEngineer

    I find life's most awesome moments come when I'm doing something for the first time and not sure if I can do it and when I'm done everything worked out.

    Example – Starter went kaput on my Jeep. I decided to pull it off myself, drive down to the Jeep Doctor (local repair shop) get a new one, installed it and it worked perfectly… the first time… no instructions.

  • Rachel

    Something awesome that I love is stumbling upon a GREAT book by pure chance that ends up impacting your life. (For me this was Susan Page's “If I'm So Wonderful, Why Am I Still Single?”)

  • http://www.smallhandsbigideas.blogspot.com Grace Boyle

    Aw, I LOVE this blog and I'm so happy there's a book. It makes me smile, like perpetually :)

    Awesome:

    -When you make eye contact with a stranger and there's an ineffable smile followed after
    -When you've been thinking about a boy all day and without effort, you have a text from him, “Thinking about you.”
    -The sound of a champagne cork popping, the fizz after and cheering too :)

  • Sarah

    Something awesome: Coming home or waking up and seeing just how excited my cat is to see me finally come back to him (whether I've been gone an hour or weeks) or finally be awake to pet him.

  • Kelly

    I've got two awesome things:

    1.On a rainy day, you find out you're finally getting the house to yourself and then a marathon of your favorite T.V. show comes on.
    2.When your niece tells you that you're her favorite auntie! :)

  • jeremyorr

    a grammatically correct tweet, no abbreviations, with zero remaining characters- on the first try. Awesome.

    When the pitcher pours perfectly into four pints. Awesome.

    putting on warm pants out of the dryer. Awesome

  • torikgilbert

    I'm really excited about this book!

    Awesomeness:
    Warm, fresh laundry.
    Seeing my soldier/husband after a long separation.
    Getting nuzzled by a cat. Cat love!
    Husband surprising me by taking me out for the evening.
    A nice relaxing shower after a sweaty workout.

  • Catherine

    Having a comment I made mentioned in a follow up blog post. Re: Your last book (Visual Miscellaneum) giveaway.

    Oh and seeing a photo I took as someone's new profile picture on facebook.

    This is a good exercise in positive thinking!

  • RebeccaRapple

    So, so much awesomeness in life. Can't wait for this book & adding Neil to my RSS feed!

    Watching little kids on playgrounds — so free, effortless and honest.
    Finding all the ingredients for dinner at home – no trip to the grocery store required!
    The pride on a farmer's face when you ask about the type of potato he grew
    Goosebumps for things aside from cold.

  • http://megancassidy.wordpress.com/ Megan Cassidy

    The way the dog reacts when I get home from work. He is beside himself every time.

  • CassyL

    I think I am going to start my day thinking of something awesome from now on. :p

    My awesome thing is going out to the nearby horse barn to visit my soon-to-be-horse (!), and just by the sound of my voice, she perks her head up and comes running over to me. None of the other horses do so it makes me feel super special that only me and her share this bond. (And even if she doesn't come because she has found that perfect patch of grass and I go out to her just to give her a hug, she'll follow me all the way back to the gate without a lead).

  • http://www.positivewavesbaby.com Greg Blencoe

    Dear Cupcake Queen (or The Top Part of the Cupcake Queen),

    This really is a great trailer! And my favorite awesome thing from your list was:

    Fixing electronics by smacking them (though “Laughing so hard you start crying…or make no sound at all” and “Squeezing through a door as it's shutting without touching it” were a close second/third)

    I don't know if it's been mentioned, but here is my awesome thing that comes to mind:

    Making it back from whatever (bathroom, refrigerator, etc.) right when the TV show comes back from the commercials

    And another…

    Starting your car and one of your favorite songs comes on right at that moment

  • http://www.opheliaswebb.com Elisa Doucette

    My favorite awesome thing…you found a favorite awesome thing for me! I mean seriously, though…how great would life be if we just solved our problems by rock, paper, scissors?! No hurt feelings, no projections of personal interests or objectives, pure decision making with no bias. It could catch on…I'm telling you…

    And thanks for this review and the reference to the site. I know I've seen it floating around the internet before, but never checked it out before. It is, of course, Google Readered now. :)

  • Eve

    That book sounds AWESOME!

    Awesome=when someone brings you coffee or chocolate unexpectedly.
    …the first night of being able to hear the frogs and crickets in spring.

  • ShannonVW

    Absolutely LOVE the trailer, and the story behind it (watch the entire video for the whole idea, especially the song). One awesome thing for me? When the perfect songs come on the radio when driving, and you can sing every word with your friends.

  • findingflowersinthefall

    oh my gosh this is a whole lot of awesome to me. i had a crazy day and can't even believe the events, and how much they sound like specific examples of this blog!

    my day:
    looked for my bus pass for 35 minutes in my house. then found it a block outside my house, laying face up on the sidewalk.
    returned a shirt at the mall, expecting 10 dollars back, and instead got 20.
    found the exact shirt i was looking for, in my size, in a second hand thrift store.
    found my missing bracelet in my laundry basket.
    saw people i know on the bus- happened twice to me today.
    took a walk in a new neighborhood, just as the sun was fading through the trees.
    came home to find all of my roommates together, just starting to watch one of my favorite movies.

  • http://www.chelshank.blogspot.com Chelsea

    The Book of Awesome is awesome, winning it would definitely be awesome … but more awesome things = the first bite of pizza … riding on your dad's shoulders when you're a little kid … running out of gas right in front of the gas station … when you get a text, and it's actually from the person you're hoping it's from … finding jewelry (or anything) you thought you lost … when someone tells you that what you said still means so much to them but you don't remember saying it …

  • http://www.bflofutsal.com/ryanknapp/ Ryan Knapp

    He's on fire…

  • http://ItStartsWith.Us Nate St. Pierre

    Jenny and Neil together at last = AWESOME.

    Jenny, invite him to the next brainstorming lunch at the Google!

  • http://www.bflofutsal.com/ryanknapp/ Ryan Knapp

    What's awesome is the feeling I'm going to have when my Garmin hits 70.2 on August 22, .1 miles before I finish my first Half Ironman and I can say to myself.

    “You did it”

  • http://twitter.com/mkhbuckeye Megan Holcomb

    Something awesome: Putting a neatly placed staple in the upper left hand corner of a stack of freshly printed pages… (A timely comment because I just finished my 25 page undergrad thesis proposal woohoo!)

  • http://twitter.com/MarcosSalazar Marcos Salazar

    Thanks so much for posting this Jenny! I hadn't ever heard of the blog before and now I am psyched that I have found it. And you are 5 kinds of awesome for lending me your Nexus One! =)

  • Pamtastic

    Enjoying a cup of coffee at JUST the right temperature!

  • NicoleGenaw

    It's so great to remind people of all the awesome things in life. It's so easy to get side swept away due to work or other obligations that we get angry and forget to notice the little things.

    With that, my awesome thing for today was biting into an older cookie (still safe to eat) and realizing that is still very soft a gooey.

  • http://doniree.com/ doniree

    Awesome is… meeting a blogger at SxSWi you've been DYING TO MEET and then missing her ever since? :) Ok, the meeting part, not the missing! And I can't resist a book giveaway, sooooo yeah.

  • http://doniree.com/ doniree

    I totally agree with that champagne cork popping thing!

  • charlesmccool

    Awesome is stumbling into unexpected great things on road trips. Things can include eating places, scenic views, memorable people, or ideas. Thank you.

  • Scott

    The sound and smell of a river as I start a day of fly fishing. Hmmmm……

  • CassyL

    I LOVE that sound….

  • shadow0fth3night

    An awesome thing I realized is to me love is more than just the physical manifestations. It is metaphysical. It is the matter that holds two people together in whatever relationship they may be in together. It is a sensation that no matter how far one could be from each other or for how long, it is still felt with intensity.

  • http://www.blissdietbook.com/blog Jim Blake

    I'm tasting that waffle square with the butter and maple syrup – yummm.

  • asundayinjune

    This post was so full of awesomeness!! Celebrating awesome – which really in my eyes is all about celebrating simple, ordinary, everyday events that are in all reality MIRACLES – is an AWESOME way to live one's life! Thank goodness for people who see life this way AND WRITE ABOUT IT! I can't wait to get my hands on this book and would LOVE to win it…that would be AWESOME :)

  • mindy

    a cuddle from a warm pup when you are feeling down

  • Mary Ellen

    Hi Jenny,

    I was reminded of an awesome thing last night. When you go to a house party in college expecting only pizza and beer and when you get there they have a deliciously themed 5 layer cake with fondant and everything. AWESOME!

  • maryward

    One of my most awesome moments is climbing into a bed with nice clean sheets. There's nothing like that first feeling when you tuck your legs in.

  • http://www.lifeaftercollege.org jennyblake

    Thanks Dani! I think you were the one who introduced Neil to me (which was cool because I was already subscribed to his blog) – I really appreciate it!

  • http://www.lifeaftercollege.org jennyblake

    NICE! Sonic the hedgehog brings back SUCH fond memories – I just remember thinking that game was the coolest thing ever. The sound that it made when you'd capture a gold ring? AWESOME!

  • http://www.lifeaftercollege.org jennyblake

    Thanks Jenni! Oooh – I love casual Fridays :D Even though Google *could* be casual every day, I try to look nice during the week but always reward myself with jeans on Friday. Awesome!

  • http://www.lifeaftercollege.org jennyblake

    Kristen – YUM!!! That just made my mouth start watering. And licking the extra gooey frosting off your fingers when you're done? AWESOME.

  • http://www.lifeaftercollege.org jennyblake

    Floriane – totally – I was surprised at how moved I was by the actual book. It was such an uplifting, funny, endearing, wonderful experience.

    Your awesome thing gave me the hugest smile – what an absolutely precious moment. You must have totally melted!

  • http://www.lifeaftercollege.org jennyblake

    Andrea – YES! Savoring the top of the perfect cupcake *IS* awesome. Nothing beats it! And I love your second one too – that is a lot of flights of stairs, girl! I'm impressed. Making it to 14 and feeling that accomplishment definitely sounds awesome :D

  • http://www.lifeaftercollege.org jennyblake

    Marc – that Jeep starter story is amazing – are you serious?! I'm so impressed! I also love that feeling of accomplishment – especially after doing something complicated without having to look at an instruction manual. Totally awesome!

  • http://www.lifeaftercollege.org jennyblake

    Rachel – me too!! I love finding books and it's always the most incredible thing when they really make a difference. I think that's partly why I'm addicted to self-help books – they are like my own category of best friend :) I'll have to check out Susan Page's book – thanks for the rec! Friends ask me all the time why I'm still single and my answer is always the same: “It's the great mystery of the universe” :) Have a great weekend!

  • http://www.lifeaftercollege.org jennyblake

    Grace! I loooove the awesome things you mentioned. That excited “omg I'm totally in like” feeling and having it be reciprocated is awesome. So are the butterflies of knowing someone is thinking about you :) And yes! The sound of a champagne cork popping – love it!

  • http://www.lifeaftercollege.org jennyblake

    Sarah – that's so cute! I think the purring sound cats make, and when they just close their eyes and let you pet them, is pretty awesome too :)

  • http://www.lifeaftercollege.org jennyblake

    Kelly – so fun! I love staying home guilt-free and just deciding to park in front of the TV for a day. I don't do it very often, but when it happens? Totally awesome. Especially if the marathon that comes on is Sex and the City :)

  • http://www.lifeaftercollege.org jennyblake

    JO! Yes – the gramatically correct tweet with zero remaining characters on the first try? Totally awesome.

    I also LOVE the feeling of putting on clothes after they've been in the dryer. Even better? Having someone dump the entire pile of laundry on you and laying under it for 10 minutes.

    You know what else? BANANA CHOCOLATE CHIP FROSTED MUFFCAKES!

  • http://www.lifeaftercollege.org jennyblake

    Thanks Tori! I can confirm – the book is fantastic.

    Your awesome things sound so energizing and relaxing. Seeing your husband (a solider) after a long separation – I can't even imagine how incredible that must feel. And warm, fresh laundry is the best! Especially the clean smell of putting on something that's just been washed. Relaxing shower after a sweaty workout is also the best – love them all!

  • http://www.lifeaftercollege.org jennyblake

    Catherine – thanks for your comment! Seeing a photo you took make it to someone's Facebook profile is such a good one – I love it! And yes, this entire comment thread is putting a huge smile on my face. We should all come up with awesome things every day! Have a fantastic weekend :D

  • http://www.lifeaftercollege.org jennyblake

    Pamtastic – yes, I love that feeling! I also love the feeling of cupping a HUGE, warm latte in my hands on a Saturday morning. Awesome!

  • http://www.lifeaftercollege.org jennyblake

    Nicole – thanks so much for stopping by! Nothing better than the first bite into a delicious cookie :D

  • http://diamondkt.blogspot.com David

    Booting up a brand new computer for the very first time.

    Going to bed with freshly washed bed sheets on my skin and waking up to a new toothbrush across my gums.

    After spending the afternoon waxing my car, driving with the windows down and the sunroof open on a warm night, letting the new wax scent blow in.

    Cuddling my Bulldog Diesel’s “scuba skin” as I call it – wrinkly fur that’s just so thick and squishy that it’s irresistible to the touch. Then kissing him on the forehead and hearing him leave out a long, relaxed breath/sigh.

    The sound of Jenny Blake’s giggle and actually being able to HEAR her smile when she talks.

    Sorry, I got carried away. You said one thing and I gave you 5. I just love the idea of the 1,000 Awesome Things! I could easily make a 1,000 awesome things list myself because it feels so good writing down all the things that make me smile. Thank you for bringing Neil’s blog to my attention and needless to say, I’ll be buying his book. In fact, I think I’ll do that today! So no need to include my name in the giveaway drawing. The whole idea of bringing awareness to things that make us happy was a gift in itself.

    (Ok, now I am sounding cheesy. I’ll stop now. Wow, I'm a comment whore.)

  • christina_brown

    Two Awesome Things:

    1. Knowing that with hard work and confidence, you can nail down a job interview to the T.
    2. When it is raining hard outside and that the cold air helps you sleep like a baby. :)

  • http://wordsofloveinmymemory.blogspot.com/ Kay

    Awesomeness:

    -Soaking in a hot bubble bath after a long day of work. Feeling the sensation of the warm water & soap tingling at your skin.
    -Flowers for no special reasons.
    -During a run, crossing that finish line you didn't think you could & finishing it with a SMILE :)

  • WhatsWithDiane

    Sounds coming in from outside when taking a late afternoon nap in the spring time with the window open.

  • http://twitter.com/Toreano Toreano

    A family BBQ!
    Putting the boat in the water for the 1rst time each year!
    Being on time when you're running late!

  • caroldz

    cdziuba@aol.com Looking out your window every day, and one day seeing a form of wildlife or bird you've never seen.

  • Rachel R.

    I have such a self-help book addiction, too! After graduating in a couple weeks I'll have plenty of time to read for leisure, so I've added a bunch of the books you've commented about and rated on your book list page. I'm really looking forward to finally having the time to read! :)

  • cstironkat

    Snagging a 100% on a college final.
    The first cannon ball of the summer off the high dive
    The first winter snow fall.

  • http://katingiro.tumblr.com/ Kat

    When you're walking down the street and you see someone coming towards you who breaks into a random private smile, over something they're remembering or a song they're listening to or something.
    That always turns my mood around no matter what else is going on :) I guess it reminds me of all those little things that I have, too, to smile to myself about.

  • TAllegra

    Waking up thinking you need to go to work and realizing its the weekend! :)

  • Mia J.

    Having a snuggle with my daughter before starting the day is the best thing ever.

  • http://doniree.com/ doniree

    August, love!

  • christina_brown

    Np! :)

  • http://www.richarddedor.com/blog Richard

    My Awesome: Love can be found anyway and at any time. I found my boyfriend through AIM while chatting with an old tennis teammate. I found a great friend in someone who outted me in high school. I found love behind the closed-mindedness of my parents. Love is all around – and it's awesome!

  • jakenicholson

    When you wake up and just know its going to be a great day.

  • RebeccaRapple

    Your response takes the cake. Amazing women are beyond the best. (And, Chris is pretty sweet too! haha)

  • brianpeck

    All I have to say is this is totally awesome. I think it is really cool especially where it came from a blog. I really think he should come out with some audio books and get it out there i love it

  • AgreeToDisagree

    I know this probably is not appropriate for this site, but it is AWESOME nonetheless:
    ** Being able to go to the bathroom after holding it in to the point where it is actually painful**

    A-W-E-S-O-M-E-!

    Sorry, had to say it.

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