Every time I meet a new person, part of me wants to say, “OK. First have you read these 50 books?”

I actually expressed a similar thought to a new acquaintance a couple of weeks ago. And he understood it straight off. Talking about books, especially with a person you’ve just met, creates a feeling of shared history. And for a very good reason … you do have shared history, shared experience, you just have to identify it.

Almost any art form will do.

With some people it’s music. I’ve listened to people discuss bands, concerts and new CDs by the hour. Or paintings, what artists they like and why, their descriptions of seeing the actual canvases in galleries or museums.

It comes down to my current favorite definition of art: “Shared reference, powerfully expressed.”



This week’s book



Power does not always imply beauty, at least not in the traditional sense, and the first book I’m going to be talking about is not “pretty” — but it’s one of the most powerful expressions of shared reference I’ve seen for awhile.

“My Secret” by Frank Warren is about the painful truths we all keep locked up inside. It’s a group of handmade postcards sent to him by college-age people all over the country. They are anonymous. They are funny, angry, brave.

And I should tell you they are not for the faint of heart. In his introduction, Warren remarks on the raw nature of some of the postcards: “ … the secrets that arrive from young people usually stand out; their passions run deeper, their loneliness feels more desolate, their joy is expansive.”

Each is a small work of art in itself.

You can’t really appreciate the cards without seeing the artwork or photography the senders included in their designs, without knowing whether they typed or wrote their words, but here are a few of the messages:

n “I wish I had not tried to grow up so fast. I feel like I missed some important parts of young adulthood. He left me anyway.”

n “I lick the inside of microwave popcorn bags.”

n “I watched my sister become a zombie on her meds. I’m bipolar too. But I’m not seeking treatment. I like the highs and lows … ”

n “I can’t wait till I prove them all wrong.”

n “I have never been anyone’s first choice.”

I’m 40-something, and I recognized my younger self in some of these postcards. And that’s the book’s message: We are less alone than we imagine.

“My Secret” was released in late October. It is one in a series of postcard collections compiled by Frank Warren and published by Regan Books. The first one was “PostSecret: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives.”

A third in the series, “The Secret Lives of Men and Women,” is due to be released in January.

Warren also has a Web site, called www.postsecret.com, where current cards are displayed. It started out as a small community art project, but has grown exponentially in just a couple of years.

According to Amazon.com, he receives thousands of anonymous postcards, and the Web site attracts more than 3 million visitors a month. New York magazine ranks it the third most popular blog on the Internet and Warren has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, National Public Radio, Fox News, you name it.

It’s a phenomenon.



Quick takes



n More hidden glimpses: Frank Warren’s book reminded me of another collaboration that involves “regular people” contributing to a published work.

Davy Rothbart created the “Found” project. Rothbart invites people to send him the strange pieces of paper that blow up against your legs in the wind, or show up under your windshield wiper blades, or fall out of the pages of a used book.

The “Found” books are collections of post-it notes, Dear John letters, lists, drawings, photographs, e-mails, etc. Rothbart calls them the “best lost, tossed and forgotten items from around the world.”

They don’t have the focus of the PostSecret books. If PostSecret is a rifle bullet, the Found books are more like buckshot. You have to wade through a lot of debris to find material with some emotional umph to it. But, they’re fascinating in their own way … another window opening up on the internal landscapes of strangers.

In addition to the Found books, Rothbart also publishes a magazine. And, like PostSecret, the Found project has a well-traveled Web site, www.foundmagazine.com.

• Lucky find: I ran across a gem grazing at Books-A-Million the other day, “A New World Trade Center.” Compiled shortly after 9-11, and before a new World Trade Center design was chosen, it’s a collection of proposals for the site from architects all over the world.

I picked it up in the discount rack because it included a proposal from Samuel Mockbee, who was born in Meridian and went on to become one of the country’s foremost architects.

Mockbee died in December 2001, and his design for “A New World Trade Center” was literally the last one he ever did. New York gallery owner Max Protech, who compiled the book, said Mockbee did the drawings from his hospital bed in the final hours of his life.

Last time I checked, Books-A-Million still had a couple of copies.

• Coming soon: Next week, I’ll probably take a look at Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anne Tyler and her latest book, “Digging to America.”



E-mail Suzanne Monk at smonk@themeridianstar.com.