Wiktionary
a. (context idiomatic English) unusual or exceptional, especially for the better (often used in the negative).
Wikipedia
Out of the Ordinary: True Tales of Everyday Craziness is British journalist Jon Ronson's fourth book. Ronson is known for his bestseller The Men Who Stare at Goats, which inspired the 2009 Hollywood film starring George Clooney and Jeff Bridges.
The essays in Out of the Ordinary were first published in The Guardian. A departure from the U.S. military bases and jihad training camps of The Men Who Stare at Goats, the pieces in Out of the Ordinary are mostly about Ronson's domestic life.
The book is divided into three parts. In part one, Ronson describes his parents commissioning an artist to paint a family portrait, a trip to meet Santa with his son Joel, almost finding God, and a diary-style recasting of Ronson's "Out of the Ordinary" Guardian column. Part two consists of a pair of essays about the court system—the "Who Wants to Be A Millionaire" trial surrounding a sound expert's allegations that 36 coughs were made by one person during an episode of the show supposedly won by cheats and the case of Jonathan King, who responded to charges that he sexually molesting underage boys by comparing himself to Oscar Wilde—and part three turns a gaze on celebrities.
A Times Literary Supplement brief of Out of the Ordinary summarized, "if there is a unifying theme to these pieces then it is that we are all capable of misplaced zeal and irrationality—and that the gaps between the socially awkward and the sociopath are not as wide as we might think."
Ronson's prose in Out of the Ordinary is characterized by self-mockery, what the Times calls his "charming buffoonery": he writes about having a panic attack when dressed up as Santa for his son. Parents, he says, "are like amateur bomb-disposal officers, forever cutting the wrong wires".
Ronson began his career as a columnist for Time Out. He also wrote the "Human Zoo" column for The Guardian and produced the BBC Radio 4 documentary Hotel Auschwitz. In an interview with Ronson by radio host Alex Jones broadcast in November 2009, Jones said to Ronson, "everything you do hits the zeitgeist".
A companion volume to Out of the Ordinary, called What I Do: More Tales of Everyday Craziness, was published in November 2007.
Usage examples of "out of the ordinary".
Esterases in the body break the drug down rapidly into acetylcholine, so it is also likely to be undetectable, unless the target happens to croak right outside a primo medical center with a very sharp pathologist who is looking for something out of the ordinary.
You have wonderful poise, and a faculty which, when tested, will prove itself capable of dealing with matters that fall far out of the ordinary rule.
And for that, I doubt the fifth part of the city knows anything's out of the ordinary, even here.
Unless you're packing something very much out of the ordinary, you'll hurt your books and furniture much more than me.
The Aes Sedai gave no sign that she had said anything out of the ordinary.
Without it, the imperials will see you're something out of the ordinary and take special care against you.
Kren had noticed a few killings, but hadn't thought it anything out of the ordinary.
Only the odd movement of something under the right side of his rain cape indicated anything out of the ordinary, but the object-whatever it was- was too well concealed to be identified.
It'll have to stay top secret until we find out whether an ordinary mind can be developed into one like yours, or whether her brain, like yours, is something out of the ordinary.
When Kandron called his minion in that small and nameless base to learn whether or not he had succeeded in trapping the Palainian Lensman, Nadreck's relay station functioned so perfectly, and Nadreck was so completely in charge of his captive's mind, that the caller could feel nothing out of the ordinary.