This is a perfect book for very short reads (in my case, when my wife would have to run into a store and I'd stay in the car with our sleeping kids).

The stories mostly run a couple of pages. Plenty of well-known contributors who you typically wouldn't see in this format - from actors, musicians, directors and more.

The stories are a little uneven, with some of them really being a stretch to fit in with the premise of writing about "found" items. That's why I didn't four-star it. Some stories were great, others not so much. It's a mixed bag, but so short, you'll soon get to a good one.

Funny sidenote, toward the end of the book, I stumbled across an uncommon name, which is the name of someone who use to work for me. I texted him some questions about his childhood (that I found out about in the story) and he comes back with, "wait, did you read something from X?" He hadn't heard of this book and wasn't aware he was mentioned. I'm mailing it off to him now that I've finished. ( )

One of my favorite book series is The Best American Non-Required Reading, a compilation of short stories, essays, lists, emails, and other pieces from the year. I’m currently reading the 2013 edition and will post a review when I’m finished.

One of the stories in that edition was “Human Snowball,” by Davy Rothbart. It quickly became one of my favorite pieces, so of course I went looking to find more work by him. And that’s how I found Requiem for a Paper Bag: Celebrities and Civilians Tell Stories of the Best Lost, Tossed, and Found Items from Around the World.

The title describes what you are about to get, but it’s the unexpected variety of the pieces that is so engaging. There’s a mixture of nonfiction and fiction, a few poems, and a few illustrated pieces. Most are very short, only a few pages.

I guess I never thought much about the peculiar things that are lost and found: a frog, a lobster, a bloody jockstrap, a Bob Dylan letter, a bag of bottles to be recycled. Scraps of paper with lists or notes or cryptic sentences. A falling bullet.

Many of the writers talk about the universal qualities of lost and/or found items, their significance, their mystery. Others describe their personal connection to the items. It’s quirky, unexpected, and fascinating.

The book encourages a sense of wonder about the world. Maybe instead of stopping to smell the roses, I should pay attention to the stuff lying in the gutter.

I’m glad I found this book.
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Really funny, insightful book about found items. Really enjoyed reading this, very entertaining! This was given to me as a gift, and in fact we read it together as soon as I opened it! Great book to share. ( )

I have been an avid fan of Davy Rothbart’s Found Magazine since reading his first Found book and have frequented the Found website, picked up back issues of the magazine, and searched for my own finds ever since. Found remains one of my favorite books, and I too have been captivated and intrigued by the intimate (voyeuristic?) look into the lives of other people through the finding and collecting of lost items, of all types. Apparently, I am far from alone. In this work, Rothbart collects short essays and stories (generally no more than a page or two) by a wide variety of prominent and semi-prominent creative types (artists, musicians, writers, etc) responding to the mysteries, joys, sadnesses, triumphs, and failures of human life through the theme of “finding” things. The pieces are extremely diverse in their subject matters, ranging from comics to poetry, with some writing fictional accounts of the imagined back stories to such finds, and still others expressing favorite personal finds that changed their lives in various ways, others responding and reflecting on some of Found magazine’s more interesting discoveries. Though a few might have drifted a bit from the theme of reflecting on the lost detritus of human culture to reflect on ones own life in relation to others, I enjoyed the latter essays the most. Kimya Dawson, in particular, expressed the feelings behind the special way of getting a inside view of what it is like to be another, anonymous person by finding a lost piece of the detritus of life. On the other hand, descriptions of and fictional stories based on find items lacks a bit of the mystery and self-reflection of simply displaying the finds themselves. I did enjoy this anthology, and it is a great celebration of Found by fellow devotees for fellow devotees, but it just doesn’t have some of the pure joy, randomness, and mystery of other Found magazine publications. It is well worth a read from Found fans but others should definitely read Found magazine first. ( )