Book Review: How Did You End Up Here?

What do the questions we ask others, even complete strangers, reveal about ourselves? Can the answers we seek shape our own lives and dreams?

In TED Books How Did I End Up Here? The Surprising Ways Our Questions Connect Us, Davy Rothbart shares more than 100 of his all-time favorite questions to ask someone you’ve just met, gathered from people around North America.

Rothbart is known for his curiosity about other people’s lives. Through his brainchild Found, an annual magazine that publishes crowdsourced personal notes and letters, Rothbart has honed a unique talent for compassionately probing into the lives of strangers and drawing out surprisingly revealing stories of beauty, heartbreak, and humor.

In this ebook, Rothbart takes crowdsourced questions from his magazine tour to eighty cities around the US. He has a volunteer come up on stage each night, to whom he asked some of the questions. Rothbart tells us about those experiences using the questions, and about other conversations with strangers.

Many of the questions are displayed in picture form, showing the original slips of paper they were written on. While not always the easiest to follow (Rothbart answers 10+ questions in succession, and you’re flipping back and forth to see the original questions), it adds to the authenticity of the format.

It’s an interesting read that gives you some unique insight into yourself as well as others, and it’s short enough to keep your attention the whole way through. I read this on a recent flight, and finished it up in about an hour. For $2.99, it’s definitely worth checking out.

Order How Did You End Up Here: http://www.amazon.com/How-Did-You-End-Up-Here