“I Thought My Father was God”, edited by Paul Aster, is an amazing book. It’s a compilation of 180 stories from folks who listen to “All Things Considered”, and sent their stories to the National Story Project.

Go out and pick up this book (which is dirt cheap at Amazon and was in the bargain bin and barnes & noble). The stories range in length from one paragraph to 2 pages, and in content from birth to death and all things between. Nearly every story made me thing or laugh, or both. Many of them gave me chills. Some of them made me close the book to just stop and absorb.

If you have an Amazon account, check out the story Revenge, courtesy of their insanely ambitous inside the book project.

It’s also interesting to think about what you would have contributed to the endeavor. If you had one story to share with a stranger, what would it be? Would it be your story, or your grandpa’s? About a great event in your life, or a minor one that made you smile and might make the stranger?