In these humorous, self-deprecating, yet deceptively wise stories, the author struts across the stage of an ordinary life, filled with trip-ups, slip-ups, and clumsy do-overs.

These travels in a three-pound universe (the average weight of a human brain) begin innocently enough, with a three-year-old walking beside his mother and discovering—he’s separate! From there, your guide, now seven, practices the gentle art of Running Away. In the blink of an eye, you’re with him, hitchhiking 300 miles to join 600,000 other young people at an outdoor concert. In another blink, he’s holding a knife at a man’s throat.

Brace yourself—there’s more. You could get whiplash riding shotgun as the author floors it through his life journey, from misadventures in a poverty-bombed NYC hood, to doing his blended family’s laundry in a suburban basement, to eavesdropping inside a coastal California café on the morning after a man is killed by a great white shark.

Along the way, things true and useful may be revealed. You’ll laugh out loud, or smile out loud, or ask out loud, “WTF?!”

Even if your life story isn’t, like the author’s, built on blunders and close shaves, this book—this memoir in essays, This Three Pound Universe—will ring your bell.