Recently a favourite cousin of mine came for a visit armed with a book written by a young colleague from her office. Tucked into the book was a most charming note.

Three sentences in I was hooked. I finished the note and dove into the book.

From the moment I started reading The Book of Awesome I knew that author Neil Pasricha was extraordinary. His observations on life's little joys are at once simple and deep. He brings to these observations the keen eye of a writer, the wit of a humorist, and the openness of an eternal optimist. This is just an unbeatable combination.

It is impossible to read The Book of Awesome without being inspired to feel better about life. Sharing it with a friend or loved one will, in some small but wonderful way, change you both.

In the spirit of sharing, here is Neil's note:

Dear Heather,

My name is Neil Pasricha and I'm a no-name 30-year-old guy who lives in downtown Toronto.

My mom is from Nairobi, and my dad is from New Delhi and they came to Canada in the 60's.

My sister and I were born and raised here and we had pretty quiet childhoods.

All that quiet changed for me in 2008.

On one hand it was my toughest year ever with my closest friend taking his life and my wife choosing to live hers apart from me.

In these ashes I started a website - 1000awesomethings - to celebrate all the tiny joys in life that we get up for every day… like the cold side of the pillow, and snow days!

To date I have had almost 12 million hits, won 2 webby awards, been on CNN, BBC and the front page of The Toronto Star.

10 literary agents came out of the woodwork, 5 publishers expressed real interest and ultimately Penguin Publishing won the rights to publish my book.

Heather, I wanted you to have a copy and of course I would love to meet or chat. Thank you for reading this long note…

Neil Pasricha

I really, really liked this book. So many times I would read a chapter and say, 'YES!! That IS awesome!' Such a fun, light-hearted book written by Neil Pasricha, The Book of Awesome is a book I will definitely want to share with everyone who's looking for a pick-me-up.

My personal favourites: The smell of gasoline (weirdly enough), the smell of rain on hot pavement, the smell of bakeries (I'm noticing a trend here), the other side of the pillow, and so much more.

The great thing is that this book teaches you how to appreciate the little things in life and also to appreciate your own life and how great it is that we're able to be here on this Earth - it's just, well, awesome!

A great, great read!

This book really is awesome. I laugh out loud but can't explain the stories to my friends as well as Neil does, so i am just going to have to buy a few copies to share.

This book is just a little bit of fun fluff. A book that will just get you in a good mood thinking of all the good things in life rather than the downside of life that we are bombarded with everyday.

Some of the awesome points in life that that author picked I agreed with and others I did not. I found that the book did stay with me as I tried to find little moments of awesome all day long, and when you think about life on the positive…..there is quite a lot to be thankful for.

If you think that this book is going to be in-depth or really deep, it's not, just some fun.