or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
or
Amazon Prime Free Trial required. Sign up when you check out. Learn More
Sell Back Your Copy
For a $0.63 Gift Card
Trade in
More Buying Choices
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
Everyday Matters
 
 
Tell the Publisher!
I'd like to read this book on Kindle

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

Everyday Matters [Paperback]

Danny Gregory (Author)
4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (54 customer reviews)

List Price: $14.99
Price: $9.98 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
You Save: $5.01 (33%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
Want it delivered Tuesday, January 31? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details

Formats

Amazon Price New from Used from
Hardcover --  
Paperback $9.98  

Book Description

January 9, 2007
In the tradition of Persepolis, In the Shadow of No Towers, and Our Cancer Year, an illustrated memoir of remarkable depth, power, and beauty

Danny Gregory and his wife, Patti, hadn’t been married long. Their baby, Jack, was ten months old; life was pretty swell. And then Patti fell under a subway train and was paralyzed from the waist down.

In a world where nothing seemed to have much meaning, Danny decided to teach himself to draw, and what he learned stunned him. Suddenly things had color again, and value. The result is Everyday Matters, his journal of discovery, recovery, and daily life in New York City. It is as funny, insightful, and surprising as life itself.


Frequently Bought Together

Everyday Matters + The Creative License: Giving Yourself Permission to Be The Artist You Truly Are + An Illustrated Life: Drawing Inspiration from the Private Sketchbooks of Artists, Illustrators and Designers
Price For All Three: $35.12

Show availability and shipping details

Buy the selected items together


Editorial Reviews

Review

""Gregory's lively sketches and witty meditations on big-city life are anything but mundane." -- [Score: A-] Entertainment Weekly

"At times heartbreaking, but more often uplifting . . . a must for anyone searching to reconnect with a lost inner artist." -- Creative Loafing

About the Author

Danny Gregory is the author of The Creative License, Hello World, and Change Your Underwear Twice a Week. His web site, DannyGregory.com, receives thousands of visitors each day. A contributing illustrator to The Morning News web site, he lives in Greenwich Village, New York, with his wife and son.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 120 pages
  • Publisher: Hyperion (January 9, 2007)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1401307957
  • ISBN-13: 978-1401307950
  • Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.9 x 0.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (54 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #21,686 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I spent most of my life not believing I had the right to consider myself an artist in any way. But then I started drawing about eight years ago and it changed my life. It led me to travel, to meet people, to get books published, but most of all it transformed the way I see the world around me and how I experience every day.

I believe that everyone has the same opportunity. Not to become a Professional Artist but to make art into a regular part of your everyday life. It doesn't matter what your elementary school art teacher said, or your parents, or your boss. You have it in you to draw, to play an instrument, to write poetry, whatever you choose. You can and should express your self. Regardless of what you fear anyone else may thinks of the results, you can become a creative person and achieve a new view of the life you lead.

I often wonder what the world would be like if every adult was as creative and free as we all were as kids. I think it would be calmer, lovelier, more peaceful place. And I'd like to do something about it.

Three years ago, I started writing about my experience of creativity and sharing it on my website, dannygregory.com. Within a few months, the Everyday Matters group was formed and now over a thousand people get together regularly to encourage each other in drawing and painting and making beautiful things. They chat on the Internet and they get together in cities and towns around the world to collaborate and share.

My new book, The Creative License, was written to help the sorts of people I met in our group. Some are students, some were artists and designers. But most were just people like me who had suddenly decided, when they were well into adulthood, that they wanted to return to making creativity a regular part of their lives. Most of them don't want to make a living painting or have their drawings hung in galleries and museums. They just want to have the pleasure and satisfaction of creating things.

If you would like to incorporate more creativity into your life, check out my new book, visit my site and drop me a line. I'd love to be inspired by you.


Meanwhile, here's some more of my story:


I was born in London, which we left when I was three or four. We moved briefly to Pittsburgh, Pa. then to Canberra, Australia. When I was nine, I went to live with my grandparents in Lahore, Pakistan. Next we went to a kibbutz in Israel then moved to a small town called Kfar Saba. As the Yom Kippur War broke out, we relocated to Brooklyn where I went to a Quaker high school. I was editor of the school paper and organized a Marxist study circle. I graduated from Princeton University, summa cum laude, with a degree in Politics. It was my 21st school.

When I was eleven, I began my first job - assisting the vet at the local slaughterhouse. I've worked in a record store, in one of New York's finest restaurants, and my congressman's office. I was a White House intern (Jimmy Carter lusted for me only in his heart) and a McDonalds' fry cook. I have also worked in a half dozen advertising agencies, and illustrated books, newspapers, and magazines. I am currently Executive Creative Director of a NY ad agency and Contributing Illustrator to The Morning News.

I live in Greenwich Village with my lovely wife, Patti Lynn, my son, Jack Tea, and our miniature longhaired dachshund, Joe. If you are in the area, come draw with me and my group.

 

Customer Reviews

54 Reviews
5 star:
 (44)
4 star:
 (6)
3 star:
 (3)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.7 out of 5 stars (54 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 55 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars real life journal, January 1, 2005
This review is from: Everyday Matters (Hardcover)
I loved this book. I collect books on how to keep an art journal and this is the first one that unleashed my drawing and writing about everyday life. The other books are so polished and beautiful it made me feel like my drawings and writing weren't quite good enough. I love how he includes partial drawings because my sketchbook is full of partial drawings, they caught a glimpse of something so they are worthy of keeping. I also love how his writing can be a simple or funny thought that occurred to him during a drawing, rather than always something deep and profound. A beautiful book that will go on my very special favorites shelf to be read again and again.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


52 of 53 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A winner from so many perspectives, March 29, 2004
By 
Dana Jenkins (Buffalo, New York United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Everyday Matters (Hardcover)
If you want to be inspired to draw, or to write, or to live more fully, or best of all to do all three simultaneously, (and if you only have 60 minutes to move closer to your goals)- Everyday Matters is a must read. It's real, charming, witty, whimsical, and teaches art and life lessons that can be applied BY ANYONE. For all those who say "but I can't draw" and even more for those who say "but what shall I draw" this has some answers to the first question and many to the second. It's hard for me to say whether Danny is a better artist, writer, or philosopher. Fortunately we get all three in this slim volume. I can't wait for his next book.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Special, Intimate, Lovely, March 28, 2004
This review is from: Everyday Matters (Hardcover)
Everyday Matters is such a special, intimate, lovely book, it's hard to know where to begin singing its praises. To open the book is to steal a look inside the sketchbook (a.k.a. the heart and mind) of a man who has just realized that drawing might help him see everything more clearly -- including seeing his way into a whole new life, one in which his wife is in a wheelchair. And that man happens to live in and draw pictures of New York City, which he adores.

Besides the delights of Gregory's words and images -- which are sometimes funny, and other times poignant -- the book also serves as a nearly overwhelming incentive to pick up a pen and draw. And by drawing, to see objects again for the first time. If by publishing the book Gregory wished to remind people to look at the world around them with fresh, hungry, sensitive hearts and eyes, he has succeeded with this reader.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews











Only search this product's reviews



Inside This Book (learn more)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
First Sentence:
I only started drawing fairly recently, But I've found it has a power to change my life and the world around me so profoundly and I'd like to share it with you. Read the first page
New!
Concordance | Text Stats
Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Search Inside This Book:



Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
 
(1)

Your tags: Add your first tag
 

Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store

If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store. Learn more

Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
Search all Amazon discussions
   
Related forums





Look for Similar Items by Category


Look for Similar Items by Subject