The Book of Delights --by Ross Gay

 Publisher: Algonquin Books; First Edition (February 12, 2019)

Language: English

Hardcover: 288 pages

ISBN-13: 978-1616207922

Essays (mini), Memoir

5 Stars

 

A friend informed me I really needed to read this book. Since I’d read a couple of Gay’s poems, and as I walked through the bookstore, and this book just happened to fall off a shelf into my hands, I figured it was a sign. I bought the book.

 

There are 102 essayettes, as Gay calls them, in the book. I call them mini essays—some are as short as one paragraph, taking less than half a page, a few are longer, but most are three pages or less. The book is 5” x 7.5” and easy to read. 

 

Gay spent a year writing about things that brought him delight—everything from the taste and texture of a food to sunlight falling through leaves; flowers in a statue’s hand (one of Hoagy Carmichael) to meeting people. This book is a total delight to read. I originally thought I’d read just one or two a night. I finished it in a week. I do most of my reading at night, after I go to bed, and I read this book after I’d read other books, because I knew I’d drift off to sleep with something fun and, well, delightful, to be contemplating as I fell asleep.

 

This a book you will not only enjoy reading, you will enjoy buying copies to give away to friends, or even a stranger you recognize on your commute.