The Real Meaning of Life wasn’t written by an expert. It isn’t the culmination of painstaking self-study or a sudden breakthrough. Instead, this fascinating book collects the insights of everyday people who responded to NYU freshman David Seaman’s simple query, “What is the meaning of life?”To his surprise, he received a flood of responses. Some suggested things like “bikinis and beer,” but Seaman found that most were much more thoughtful — so much so that he created a website and now this book to collect the best of them. From thousands of respondents — including Buddhists, born-again Christians, atheists, waitresses, students, and recovering heart attack patients — come incredibly diverse nuggets of wisdom that can be aphoristic (“Be grease, not glue”), philosophical (“There is no point to life, and that is exactly what makes it so special”), or whimsical (“Me, I'm going snowboarding”).