Publication Date: November 29, 2024
This is a book about being alive. The stories are real and reflect moments when we feel fully alive—but perhaps are not aware of it, unable to take time to appreciate or recognize these unexpected gifts. I call them Damn Good Things, and they’re easy to see once you know how. When you do, you might just improve your day, learn something about yourself, and even change your life.
Everyone has moments in life where joy and happiness meet to create that incredible feeling of being alive. Maybe it’s that deep breath after a rainstorm or a shared moment of laughter.
Author Peter W. Andersen compiles these moments into his book titled Damn Good Things and reminds readers to acknowledge these moments or risk missing our own lives.
Divided into 30 chapters, each shared moment is easily relatable. Whether it is how not to fix a toilet or physical therapy for a pug, the author finds small moments that make a big difference.
His emphasis on cherishing these moments is an important reminder. As adults, we tend to get caught up in drama and rush through our days without appreciating being alive.
Damn Good Things serves as a reminder for readers to acknowledge those small moments in life and cherish them.
Peter Andersen has been writing since he was a kid. In his professional life he’s worked as a journalist, writing teacher, newspaper editor, manager, freelancer, and technical writer. He spent 30 years producing technical documentation at Microsoft and other software companies. These days, in addition to writing about Damn Good Things, he conducts life story interviews with the residents of a local retirement community.
The idea for Damn Good Things came about when he found an old diary entry about a rollercoaster ride he once took with his father. The entry described how fully alive they both felt in that moment, and ended with the words, “What a damn good thing for me and my dad to do!”
Inspired by that diary entry, he began to research and write about the moments when we feel completely alive. He soon realized that this is what he’d been writing about his whole life. This is truly the lens through which he sees the world. Whether it’s an aging, half-blind pug tearing across a wood floor to get to her dinner, the distant whistle of an approaching train in the night, or a memory-filled relic from a childhood home – he’ll show you how all of these are Damn Good Things.
