Hey, it's Empire's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. We all take things for granted.

Well, maybe I won't speak for you, but I know I'm guilty of complaining about how, I don't know,

the curly fries at the bar by me don't taste as good anymore when really the existence of curly fries

themselves is a thing of beauty on this earth.

James Parker is a staff writer at the Atlantic, and last year he came out with a book of poetry

filled with appreciation for the little things in life. It's titled, Get Me Through the

Next Five Minutes Oads to Being Alive. And when I first listened to the first half of his

interview with Here and Now's Anthony Brooks,

I thought, oh, that's a cute and funny concept, you know, writing odes to things that don't really

matter.

But then I realized, no, it's the little things in life that really do matter.

More after the break.

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Are you paying attention to the big things like history or America or Pablo Neruda or maybe quantum physics?

And what about the little things like balloons or the way a refrigerator hums or the way your dog farts.

These are all inspirations for odes by writer James Parker. He describes them as short exercises

in gratitude or an attention, which he says may in the end be the same thing. James Parker is an author

and staff writer at the Atlantic where his odes beautifully written, often witty and always smart, were published on the inside back page of the magazine.

His new book is a collection of many of them. It's called Get Me Through the Next Five Minutes Oads to Being Alive.

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