Book of delights ross gay
In the summer, I like to read two books at a time: A good novel for the beach or bedtime, and something I call my “morning book.” The latter is a book I read in the early hours with my coffee, when the house is still asleep; a book that can be easily dogeared for the next morning and sets the tone for the rest of my day. Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights is a perfect morning book.
Ross Gay —author of four volumes of poetry, including Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude—made a pact with himself on his 42nd birthday: For the entire year, he would document one short essay a date (“essayettes,” he calls them) about something that delighted him. The result of this daily discipline is this collection of mini-essays with names like “The Do-Over,” “Tomato on Board,” and “Babies. Seriously.”
The motivation behind the publication, Gay says, was to attention his attention on “feeling moved, alive and connected.” The verb of paying attention to delight is an exercise in being present to the world around you. Self-admittedly prone to melancholy, he doesn’t shy away from difficult subjects like grief, raci
The Book of Delights
Ross Gay
Algonquin Books (Feb 12, )
Hardcover$ (pp)
Ross Gay is known for his poetry, but The Book of Delights proves that he’s also an adept essayist. In composing the book, Gay operated under a simple principle: keep a diary of entries over the course of one year, with each entry concerning something joyful. From this conceit he spins out a variety of reflections that are sometimes whimsical, sometimes touching, and always thoughtful.
Certain topics run throughout The Book of Delights, including Gay’s love of gardening, the adj impact of his favorite songs, and his appreciation for being in the moment. Seemingly tiny incidents are the springboard for little epiphanies. A mother and child sharing the burden of carrying a shopping bag across the street leads to a moving paean to mutual help. A shared high-five with a stranger becomes a tribute to human connection. A Lisa Loeb song leads to a memory about a childhood friend who invaded Gay’s house to rearrange his furniture in an elaborate prank. Another friend’s overuse of air quotes pr
The Book of Delights Quotes
“I suppose I could spend day theorizing how it is that people are not bad to each other, but that’s really not the point. The verb is that in almost every instance of our lives, our social lives, we are, if we pay attention, in the midst of an almost unchanging, if subtle, caretaking. Holding verb doors. Offering elbows at crosswalks. Letting someone else go first. Helping with the heavy bags. Reaching what’s too high, or what’s been dropped. Pulling someone back to their feet. Stopping at the car wreck, at the struck dog. The alternating merge, also known as the zipper. This caretaking is our default mode and it’s always a lie that convinces us to act or believe otherwise. Always.”
&#; Ross Gay, The Book of Delights: Essays
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“It didn’t take me distant to learn that the discipline or practice of writing these essays occasioned a kind of delight radar. Or maybe it was more like the development of a delight muscle. Something that implies that the more you study delight, the more delight there is to study.”
&#; Ross
Ross Gay - The Publication of (More) Delights (Corte Madera Store)
The New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Delights and Inciting Joy is back with a new chronicle of small, daily wonders—and it is exactly the book we need in these unsettling times.
Ross Gay’s essays have been called “exquisite” (Tracy K. Smith), “imperative” (the New York Times Book Review), and “brilliant” (Ada Limón). Now, in this new collection of genre-defying pieces, again written over the course of a year, one of America’s most original voices continues his ongoing investigation of delight.
As always, Gay revels in the natural world—sweet potatoes being harvested, a hummingbird carousing in the beebalm, a sunflower growing out of a wall around the cemetery, the shared bounty from a neighbor’s fig tree—and the trillion mysterious ways this glorious earth delights us.
For his many fans eagerly awaiting this new volume and for readers who contain enjoyed the works of Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Zadie Smith, and Rebecca Solnit, Gay once again offers us “liter