Sometimes the mundane can be exciting, especially when it’s someone else’s everyday life you’re seeing.A couple of books have gotten a lot of attention, and they are composed entirely of submitted bits of average people’s lives. One author, Sasha Cagen, is soliciting information for her new book to be published in the fall of 2007 by Simon & Schuster: "Your To-Do Lists."It will include the bits that make up our daily lives. People scan in their handwritten lists and those images will essentially be the book. I saw a preview of the book and somehow I can’t turn away.It includes everything from garden-variety daily to-do lists to lifelong goals, pros and cons lists, wish lists, work lists, honeymoon ideas, clichés to avoid, boys/girls you have kissed, vocab lists and movies to see. Some people made menus, lists of what they’d lost, what they love about someone and lists of resolutions.I laughed yesterday when I saw how my own list for the day looked: make Glen’s shopping list, try zucchini cake recipe, get latest law enforcement report for story, Habitat house picture?, from home — write column, write business story, check name spellings, write law enforcement story. … Not so interesting. If your lists are worth other people seeing, send your real, handwritten lists to: TO-DO LIST BOOK P.O. Box 40128 San Francisco, CA, 94140. The deadline is Sept. 15, but sooner is better. You should include your name, mail address, e-mail address, phone number, and a few lines about what was going on in your life when you wrote your list. You can also scan the lists and e-mail them to todolistblog@gmail.com.Another interesting book that came out last year wasn’t really written by the author either.It was a compilation of what Frank Warren received in the mail when he invited strangers to anonymously write their secrets on postcards and mail them to his Maryland home. He’s received more than 10,000 secrets from around the world, some of which appear in "PostSecret: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives."Some examples: oI tell people I’m an atheist, but I believe I’m going to hell.oI’d rather get skin cancer than be pale.oI hate people with gross feet who wear open-toed shoes in public.oWhen I was a little boy I wanted to be Punky Brewster.Most of these postcards were hand-written or artistic to look at, good reading aside.I don’t know why these kinds of books are selling so well these days. Maybe it’s because they make for short, easy reads. Or maybe it’s because we like to peer into people’s lives and relate them to our own. Small things like lists and secrets can make us feel connected. These books remind me of how I may be driving or walking at night, and a home is lit up and the window shades aren’t closed. I can’t help but turn to see the décor, or who’s reading or watching TV or whether the man of the house is cooking or doing dishes. As ironic as it sounds, it’s the minutiae that can end up being meaningful and can make us all a little interesting.