Found: The Best Lost, Tossed and Forgotten Items from Around the World by Davy Rothbart

From the Publisher

Discarded valentines. Ransom notes. To-do lists. Diaries. Homework assignments. A break-up letter written on the back of an airsickness bag. Whether they are found on buses, at stores, in restaurants, waiting rooms, parking lots, or even prison yards, these items give readers an uncensored, poignant, and often hilarious peek into other people's lives. By collecting them in his hit magazine, Found (and its companion website, www.foundmagazine.com), Davy Rothbart has bewitched the nation with a surprising window into its heart and soul and turned his many readers into an army of sharp-eyed finders.

Found is chock-full of the latest and greatest of these finds, arranged in the style of the magazine, laying bare the tantalizing tales to be discovered in the trash we toss. By turns heartbreaking and hysterically funny, Found is a mesmerizing tribute to everyday life and our eternal curiosity about our fellow human beings.

Peter Cadron - Washington Post

A treasury of trash, a wonderfully weird collection...a facinating glimpse into the wackier depths of America's collective subconscious.

Los Angeles Times

A wonderfully moving collage of human emotion.

Spin

Davy Rothbart probably never listened to his mother when she told him not to pick up trash. Which is good; otherwise, he might have never started Found magazine.

The Washington Post

A fascinating glimpse into the wackier depths of America's collective subconscious.

Publishers Weekly

In the tradition of NPR's National Story Project comes this funky collection of letters, flyers and other miscellany from the pages of Found magazine. Rothbart, the magazine's editor and founder, has pulled together the funniest, weirdest and most moving items found by himself and his readers over the years. Fairly typical is the note left on a car's windshield, intended for a wayward boyfriend named Mario: "You said you had to work then whys your car here at HER place?.... I hate you..." piling invective upon invective until concluding: "p.s. Page me later." Rothbart and company find stuff just about everywhere: on buses, taped to trees, underneath Coke machines, in the recycling bin at Kinko's. Some items are heartbreaking (a missing person poster found in Manhattan after September 11), some hilarious (an algebra test, flunked with creativity and panache) and some just plain odd (a note directing residents to lock a door in order to "prevent unauthorized people from entering the building and defecating in the washing machine"). There are some explanations, but mostly, the trash speaks for itself, reproduced with Rothbart's particular punk-collagist aesthetic. At times, reading the notes and letters feels uncomfortably voyeuristic, and inevitably, readers are left wanting more, wishing for details about these lives beyond what the sketchy fragments provide (did that scoundrel Mario ever change his wanton ways?). A provocative and original book, Rothbart's collection manages to pull laughter and drama from the flotsam and jetsam of society. (May 4) Forecast: Found! could eventually dethrone The Onion's Our Dumb Century as many homes' bathroom reading of choice. The magazine has been praised by publications as diverse as Spin, GQ, the New Yorker, the Los Angeles Times and U.S. News & World Report. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Los Angeles Times

"Found's contents are sometimes bizarre, sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes downright hilarious, and other times a combination of all three."

St. Paul Pioneer Press

"Davy Rothbart's brilliant idea was to create a forum for folks to submit the revealing detritus of life...The notes are sometimes funny, sometimes mundane, sometimes horrifying and always a beautiful peek into the fascinating private lives of others."

The Washington Post

"A treasury of trash, a wonderfully weird collection...a fascinating glimpse into the wackier depths of America's collective subconscious."

School Library Journal

Adult/High School-Since elementary school, Rothbart has been collecting things he finds-in the trash, on the bus, on the ground. When he decided that others might be interested in them, he cut and pasted the best ones into a fanzine called Found. Other people quickly began sending him items, and the magazine grew into this "best of" collection. It contains predominantly handwritten notes, but there are also photos, drawings, e-mails, grocery lists, and even a picture of a kitten that was found in a library book drop. Many of the finds are compelling on their own, but what really entertains is the imagined possible backgrounds. One must wonder about the story behind the note, "Don't take matress. Leanne died on it. Shame on you. Apt. 306." There is also an interview with cartoonist Lynda Barry, and a poignant one with a man who found a message in a bottle 19 years after it was sent to sea. Though many of the items will bring laughs, there are also sad ones-lots of breakup notes and those written by children to their estranged parents, and some moving flyers from the World Trade Center collapse. Some of the pieces were obviously written by high-school students and passed in class. Reluctant readers will enjoy browsing through the silly, the sexy, and the scatological, but this book will appeal to anyone's inner eavesdropper and packrat instincts.-Jamie Watson, Harford County Public Library, MD Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

What People Are Saying

Dave Eggers
The extreme pleasure this magazine brings is really hard to explain, and the more we try to analyze it, the more troubling our enjoyment might become. (author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius )

David Sedaris
A facinating collection. It will break your heart.

Drew Barrymore
I Love Found.

Sarah Vowell
Writers resent Found. How would you feel if you spent months and years slaving over stories when these talented rubberneckers can't seem to walk their dogs without tripping over one teensy epic after another? No fair!

Ira Glass
The lost scraps of writing in this book are perfect short stories.

David Sedaris
A fascinating and compelling collection that will break your heart.

Drew Barrymore
I love Found!

Sarah Vowell
Writers resent Found. How would you feel if you spent months and years slaving over stories when these talented rubberneckers can't seem to walk their dogs without tripping over one teensy epic after another? No fair! (author of "Take the Cannoli" and "The Partly Cloudy Patriot")

Ira Glass
The last time we took our radio show on the road, I watched Davy read some of these notes and bring down the house every place we went. Men and women, young and old, two thousand people at a time, everyone went nuts. The lost scraps of writing in this book are perfect short stories. (host of This American Life)

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