What can you say about an ordinary life? Well, quite a lot actually. Most of us live them, complain about them, worry, laugh and cry about them. IN a world saturated with stories of the extraordinary lives we aren't living, Amy Krouse Rosenthal's Encyclopaedia of an Ordinary Life is a delightful celebration of the just plain ordinary, in all its glory.

ANXIOUS, THINGS THAT MAKE ME Tran Schedules (. . . even after I've confirmed there's an 8.06, I'll pull the crinkly little schedule out of my bag and check one more time. And then, as the final coup de grace, I'll turn to some guy waiting on the platform and ask, 'You're waiting for the 8.06, right?'). . .

BROTHER My brother, who grew up with three sisters, was I won't say how many years old when he finally realised that he did not have to wrap a towel around his chest when he came out of the shower.

OPINION, FRAGILE FOUNDATION OF STRONG The two people laughing and drinking and carrying on at the next table are annoying, stupid, childishly conspiring, and clearly beneath you, until they invite you over to join them.