Quotidiana

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Quotidiana

Essays

Patrick Madden

224 pages
17 photographs, 24 illustrations

Paperback

April 2014

978-0-8032-4924-0

$17.95 Add to Cart
eBook (PDF)
Ebook purchases delivered via Leaf e-Reader

March 2010

978-0-8032-3005-7

$17.95 Add to Cart

About the Book

In Quotidiana Patrick Madden illuminates common actions and seemingly commonplace moments, making connections that revise and reconfigure the overlooked and underappreciated. Madden muses on the origins of human language, the curative properties of laughter, and the joys and woes of fatherhood. Sparked by considerations of selling garlic, washing grapes, changing a diaper, or chipping a tooth, his essays are an antidote to the harried hullabaloo of talk-show and tabloid culture—and a reminder that we are surrounded by wonders that whisper to the curious and attentive.

Ingenuous and erudite, and with a beguiling wit, Madden examines the intricate tapestry of ordinary life in its extraordinary patterns. His book is a poetic and engaging exploration of the unexpectedly wide scope of our everyday existence.

 

Author Bio

Patrick Madden is an assistant professor of English at Brigham Young University. His essays have appeared in the Iowa Review, Portland Magazine, Fourth Genre, Hotel Amerika, and other journals, as well as in the The Best Creative Nonfiction and The Best American Spiritual Writing anthologies. Visit his Web site www.quotidiana.org.

Praise

"Words form constellations; they glitter on the pages. . . . There is a religiosity here, though not the usual kind. It's a glow on the horizon, a low light, something to think our way toward."—Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

The Infinite Suggestiveness of Common Things

Laughter

Remember Death

Garlic

Ego Vici Mundum

Gravity and Distance

Panis Angelicus

Asymptosy

Singing

Hepatitis

Finity

Awards

2011 Foreword Magazine Book of the Year Award, Bronze, Essays 
2011 Association for Mormon Letters Award
2011 Independent Publisher Book of the Year Award
2011 PEN Center USA Literary Award Finalist 

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