The Days of You
The front cover of The Days of Sarah: a disc of coloured dots, one for every day lived, ringed by the chapter titles, above the title in large serif capitals.

The ultimate personalised gift

A book about your one special person, from the day they were born to today.

A book like no other, written for them, about them.

From how the sun rose the morning they first arrived, the moon on their first night, the count of everything their body has done since that morning. To how food, culture, transport, sport, the earth and space have changed over their lifetime. To a personalised glimpse of their years to come.

Unlike other personalised gifts, The Days of You is based on the world's most authoritative sources, tailored to the exact day, and location, of their birth. Around 300 facts unique to them. A truly original book created for one original person.

56 pages. 21 by 28 centimetres. £49 with delivery, in the United Kingdom and the United States.

Show me Sarah’s book Order the book

From the creator of the BBC’s Your Life on Earth, and a winner of two Webby Awards.

Their day, drawn now

See the morning Sarah arrived.

Give us the date and the town, and in a second you will see the minute Sarah’s sun rose and set, how long her first day held, how tall her shadow stood at noon, and which sign the sun was really in.

Date of birth
Born in

The opening spread: The Day You Were Born, with the sun's path drawn across a night-coloured sky above the times it rose and set.
This is how the book begins: the opening spread, as it prints, 42 centimetres across. Fifty-six pages follow, every one about the person it is for.

Inside

Twenty-five chapters, every one of them Sarah’s.

The book speaks to Sarah. It says your sun, your first morning, your heart, because it is Sarah’s to keep. The first three below are drawn for the person named above; the rest are example pages from a printed copy.

Your First Morning: first light at 7:41 am, the temperature falling to 2.4 degrees and rising to 5.3, the sky light for one hour twenty-six minutes longer than the sun was up.
Sarah’s first morning. The minute first light came, the coldest and the warmest it got that day, and how long the sky stayed light after the sun went down, all read at the weather station nearest the town Sarah was born in.
Your Body, on a brick-red ground: at 50 your heart will have beaten 1,999,101,600 times.
Sarah’s body. The number of times Sarah’s heart has beaten, the steps she has taken, the nights she’s slept counted to her upcoming birthday, with her breaths, blinks and litres of blood that went with it, and how her body has grown.
Your First Night: every night of the lunar month as a row of moons with the birth night circled, and the moon's own figures that night.
Sarah’s first night. The moon shining down on the town of her birth, the night she was born: how much of it was lit, how many days old it was, when it rose and set, the constellation behind it and the planets that were up, every one placed by the ephemeris.
The Price of Life: price tags for the average home, a first-class stamp, an ounce of gold and what one pound bought, in 1976 and today.
The price of life. The cost of an average home, a first-class stamp, an ounce of gold and a pound coin, on the day Sarah was born and priced again today, showing how the price of life has changed, to the penny, since her birth.
The National Plate: two dinner plates, 1976 and now, with the weekly household shopping per person weighed out in grams.
The national plate. How the food Sarah eats has changed over her lifetime, from what a household brought home for each person in a week in Sarah’s birth year, and what it brings home now, down to the gram of butter.
Every Full Moon of Your Life: a dark field of hundreds of small moons in rows, one for every full moon since the birth day, beside the arcs they drew across the sky.
Every full moon of Sarah’s life. Share with Sarah every full moon since the night she was born, including those that fell on her birthday, the blue moons and the closest moon of all, and where each stood in the sky at midnight.
Your Life Upon a Rising Sea: a dark sea rising across the spread beneath a sky of red dots, with sea creatures named in their lifetime listed.
Sarah’s life upon a rising sea. How the oceans and air have changed since Sarah’s birth and the sea creatures we’ve discovered during her life.
Since the Day You Were Born: 1,577,836,822 seconds lived, the stars whose light has arrived in that time, and the rain that fell on Oldham.
Since the day Sarah was born. The poetry of Sarah’s own universe, from the seconds Sarah has lived, how far the galaxy has carried Sarah, the stars whose light has reached Earth in Sarah’s lifetime, and the rain that has fallen on Sarah’s own town.
The Great Exhibition of Your Lifetime: six stands with bunting, counting dinosaurs named, elements found, Nobel prizes and patents since the birth day.
The great exhibition of Sarah’s lifetime. What the world has found since Sarah’s day: the dinosaurs named, the elements discovered, the Nobel prizes awarded and the scientific papers published.

The chapters

  1. The day you were born
  2. Your first morning
  3. What the Earth was doing
  4. Your first night
  5. Your first year
  6. Your body
  7. The years you are given
  8. Your generation
  9. The price of life
  10. The price of things
  11. The national plate
  12. The way we travel
  13. How the world learned to talk
  14. The great exhibition of your lifetime
  15. Faster, higher, stronger
  16. The culture you were born into
  17. The world you were born into
  18. What powered Britain
  19. The weather of your lifetime
  20. Your life upon a rising sea
  21. Times around the sun
  22. Every full moon of your life
  23. Your place in generational time
  24. Since the day you were born
  25. The days to come

The book

Made once, for one person, and checked before it is printed.

The beautiful book
A hardback of 56 pages, 21 by 28 centimetres, the cover printed round the boards and matt laminated, the pages 170 gsm silk. The front cover is Sarah’s alone: a disc of dots, one for every day Sarah has lived, with the name beneath it. No two discs are alike, so no two covers are. It is her one unique copy, and a wonderful thing to be given.
Who it is for
The unique Days of You book is suitable for anyone born on or after 1 January 1940, and who is three or older on the birthday the book is for. A baby and toddler edition is coming, please get in touch if that interests you.
Two editions
One for people born in the United Kingdom and one for people born in the United States, each built from that country's own records. Each is printed in its own country and posted from there.
The price
£49, with delivery. One price, one book, nothing added at the till. The birth-year poster goes in a drawer. This stays on the shelf and gets picked up again, because around 300 facts about one person take more than one evening to read.
When it arrives
Printed within six working days of your order and sent by tracked post, so a book ordered on a Monday is normally in your hands within a fortnight. We email you the tracking the moment it leaves.
Who makes it
Fact and Story, the studio of the creator of the BBC’s Your Life on Earth, which told millions of people the story of their own lifetime from the day they were born, and of BBC Earth work that won two Webby Awards, one of them the People’s Voice award for the best science website on the internet, and a BAFTA nomination. The Days of You is that idea made into a book, for one person at a time.
Where the numbers come from
The last page of every book names each and every authoritative source whose facts and figures appear in it: the Met Office and its American counterpart, the Office for National Statistics and the Census Bureau, NASA’s planetary ephemerides, the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve, and many, many more. Every fact is rigorously sourced and verified.
If a birthday isn’t possible
Every figure is checked before the book goes to print. If the book cannot be made for a specific person and date, it is not printed and your payment is returned in full.

Order

Four things, then the book is Sarah’s.

Please enter the book recipient’s name, date of birth, and the country and town or city of their birth. Please ensure these are correct. The name and the day they were born go on the cover, and their date and place of birth are used to tell their unique story. You pay by card on the next page and give the delivery address there.

Watch Sarah turn to the first page and find the sky over the town she was born in, on the morning she arrived.

Their name, as it goes on the cover.

Date of birth
Born in

Full name please: Newcastle upon Tyne, not Newcastle, so we put them in the right place. The sky, the weather and the first year are all built from it.

They are (if you would like to say)

The book uses this for the life tables and the names of their year. Without it, it uses the figures for everyone.

Printed in your own words on the page facing the title, under For Sarah, born Friday 24 December 1976. Up to 240 letters; the book’s italic cannot print # $ £ or €.

The bookThe Days of …

£49with delivery

Please check the name, the date and the town above: once paid, the book goes to press exactly as entered. Card payment is on the next page, handled by Stripe; nothing is charged on this one.