What do you think?
Rate this book
The Book of (More) Delights: Essays
From bestselling author of The Book of Delights and award-winning poet Ross Gay, a fresh new volume of lyrical mini-essays celebrating the everyday that will inspire readers to rediscover the joys in the world around us.
The author of the New York Times bestselling The Book of Delights is back with Volume II. In this spirited second collection of short, lyrical, genre-defying essays, again written daily over a year, one of America’s most original and observant voices celebrates the ordinary, helping us see our extraordinary world anew. Book II is a record of the small wonders we so often overlook in our busy lives. Among Gay’s funny, poetic, philosophical bonding with a pipsqueak of a puppy, observing how his mother bakes 18 kinds of cookies before her grandchildren arrive, the tenderness he feels when he sees an adult wearing braces, or even the acknowledgment that often for him the preamble is more delightful than the thing “putting on your socks and tying up your shoes, and, if you’re the type, filling up your water bottle and doing some light stretching, but skipping the walk entirely.”
In essays that can be at once intimate and political, Gay shows us why he has made the subject as Black joy his own. Even as he practices delight, he doesn’t shy away from complexities of racism in America or the ecological and psychic violence of our consumer culture or the loss of those he loves. More than anything else, though, Gay reveals the beauty of the natural world—the garden, the orchard, the flowers emerging from cracks in the sidewalk, the elegant movements of geese tending to their goslings, and the trillion mysteries of this glorious earth.
The author of the New York Times bestselling The Book of Delights is back with Volume II. In this spirited second collection of short, lyrical, genre-defying essays, again written daily over a year, one of America’s most original and observant voices celebrates the ordinary, helping us see our extraordinary world anew. Book II is a record of the small wonders we so often overlook in our busy lives. Among Gay’s funny, poetic, philosophical bonding with a pipsqueak of a puppy, observing how his mother bakes 18 kinds of cookies before her grandchildren arrive, the tenderness he feels when he sees an adult wearing braces, or even the acknowledgment that often for him the preamble is more delightful than the thing “putting on your socks and tying up your shoes, and, if you’re the type, filling up your water bottle and doing some light stretching, but skipping the walk entirely.”
In essays that can be at once intimate and political, Gay shows us why he has made the subject as Black joy his own. Even as he practices delight, he doesn’t shy away from complexities of racism in America or the ecological and psychic violence of our consumer culture or the loss of those he loves. More than anything else, though, Gay reveals the beauty of the natural world—the garden, the orchard, the flowers emerging from cracks in the sidewalk, the elegant movements of geese tending to their goslings, and the trillion mysteries of this glorious earth.
304 pages, Paperback
First published September 19, 2023
455 people are currently reading
12410 people want to read
About the author
Ross Gay
33 books1,492 followersRoss Gay is an American poet, essayist, and professor who won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award for his 2014 book Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, which was also a finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry.
His honors include being a Cave Canem Workshop fellow and a Bread Loaf Writers' Conference Tuition Scholar, and he received a grant from the Pennsylvania Council of the Arts.
He is an associate professor of poetry at Indiana University and teaches in Drew University’s low-residency MFA program in poetry. He also serves on the board of the Bloomington Community Orchard.
His honors include being a Cave Canem Workshop fellow and a Bread Loaf Writers' Conference Tuition Scholar, and he received a grant from the Pennsylvania Council of the Arts.
He is an associate professor of poetry at Indiana University and teaches in Drew University’s low-residency MFA program in poetry. He also serves on the board of the Bloomington Community Orchard.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 455 reviews
April 9, 2023
I cannot say this strongly enough: Ross Gay is a treasure that we do not deserve, and he should be protected at all costs.
The gift that he gives us, to allow us into his mind as he contemplates his own delight, joy, gratitude, tenderness, grief...ugh, it is priceless. If I were looking for secular scriptures (and in a way I think I always am) I could do far worse than to live with Ross Gay's words as my daily companion.
This book makes me grateful, and it makes me want to write my own Book of Delights, with an essay celebrating the source of inspiration.
The gift that he gives us, to allow us into his mind as he contemplates his own delight, joy, gratitude, tenderness, grief...ugh, it is priceless. If I were looking for secular scriptures (and in a way I think I always am) I could do far worse than to live with Ross Gay's words as my daily companion.
This book makes me grateful, and it makes me want to write my own Book of Delights, with an essay celebrating the source of inspiration.
September 12, 2023
Based on the stories I’ve heard, my husband’s grandmother was known for her consistently clean plate. Zelma would even lick her finger and collect crumbs from the latex-covered tablecloth around her. As I finished Ross Gay’s new book of essays, The Book of (More) Delights, I felt similarly – doing my best to savor every morsel of language in this catalog of daily joys, not wanting to leave a fragment behind.
Some of my favorite phrases from this volume include: “fluffle of bunnies,” “a bouquet of time,” “swarthy, Semitic Jesus,” and a description of garlic as “your tiny professor of faith, your pungent don of gratitude.” I could go on! The lyrical language of this book is a gift for word lovers.
Gay, an English professor at Indiana University Bloomington, is an award-winning poet. However, he is probably best known for his 2019 New York Times bestseller The Book of Delights, a collection of essays documenting a year where he spent 30 minutes a day writing about something that brought him joy. While the published form of his delights is revised, their initial capture was unplanned and instinctive, and they largely retain that spirit.
In his 2022 essays Inciting Joy, Gay further explores concepts like joy, gratitude and community, but his writing there is longer and more thematic — if you can call his writing thematic when he delights in interrupting himself with asides and tangents.
The Book of (More) Delights picks up the same practice and style as The Book of Delights. For a year, Gay commits to write each day about a joy. However, the world is different than it was in 2019, and Gay is too. For one, he has grown in popularity.
An element I find particularly interesting in The Book of (More) Delights is how Gay pushes against being seen as “some kind of sage of delight.” I’ve seen him read live twice in the past year, and both crowded rooms seemed ready to bestow this label on him. Yet, he refutes this title by sharing many things that make him mad — like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade’s “miserable advertisement for global corporate dominion,” like “being the descendant of people who were treated as property; having been driven from you land; having had your neighborhood razed for a highway or an industrial park; having had the top of the mountain where you live blow off; having been disbelieved, or brutalized, in a medical setting; being lied into wars; being lied to by politicians as a matter of course; how they’re kinda always lying…”.
The book contains many delightful, ordinary joys (Dandelions! Squirrels! Militant vegans!), but they are interwoven with expressions of frustration, disappointment, and, yes, anger — a critical rage that “helps us imagine abolishing the conditions by which the rage came to pass rather than take ownership of the conditions and inflicting them on someone else.”
Really, what Gay seems to be calling forward from himself and his readers is a choice to look at the whole picture. We live in a world where the prison-industrial complex and a guinea pig named Oreo Speedwagon exist at the same time, where it is expensive to be poor and a stranger will call you “baby” while telling you directions, where your neighbor will lobby to ban books from the local library and check on you after a car accident. Gay sums up all of this nuance by advocating for a t-shirt that reads: “Let’s Complicate Our Shit!”
We can all be unkind, stupid, violent or wrong at times, Gay writes. And yet, we all deserved to be loved. We can offer that gift to one another by choosing to regard one another “complicatedly.”
Often, Gay notes, it is artists who break us out of the ingrained groves of dualistic thinking, “who are more committed maybe to the good than to being ‘good.’” I wonder what it would look like if the church embraced this role — of stepping out of the well-worn grooves of thought, of trying to hold the big picture, of choosing to regard our neighbor rather than judge or venerate them.
Perhaps complicating our shit, perhaps holding onto the “despites” not only makes the world a better place now but also allows us a clear-headedness to create a better future.
(Review published on Presbyterian Outlook)
Some of my favorite phrases from this volume include: “fluffle of bunnies,” “a bouquet of time,” “swarthy, Semitic Jesus,” and a description of garlic as “your tiny professor of faith, your pungent don of gratitude.” I could go on! The lyrical language of this book is a gift for word lovers.
Gay, an English professor at Indiana University Bloomington, is an award-winning poet. However, he is probably best known for his 2019 New York Times bestseller The Book of Delights, a collection of essays documenting a year where he spent 30 minutes a day writing about something that brought him joy. While the published form of his delights is revised, their initial capture was unplanned and instinctive, and they largely retain that spirit.
In his 2022 essays Inciting Joy, Gay further explores concepts like joy, gratitude and community, but his writing there is longer and more thematic — if you can call his writing thematic when he delights in interrupting himself with asides and tangents.
The Book of (More) Delights picks up the same practice and style as The Book of Delights. For a year, Gay commits to write each day about a joy. However, the world is different than it was in 2019, and Gay is too. For one, he has grown in popularity.
An element I find particularly interesting in The Book of (More) Delights is how Gay pushes against being seen as “some kind of sage of delight.” I’ve seen him read live twice in the past year, and both crowded rooms seemed ready to bestow this label on him. Yet, he refutes this title by sharing many things that make him mad — like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade’s “miserable advertisement for global corporate dominion,” like “being the descendant of people who were treated as property; having been driven from you land; having had your neighborhood razed for a highway or an industrial park; having had the top of the mountain where you live blow off; having been disbelieved, or brutalized, in a medical setting; being lied into wars; being lied to by politicians as a matter of course; how they’re kinda always lying…”.
The book contains many delightful, ordinary joys (Dandelions! Squirrels! Militant vegans!), but they are interwoven with expressions of frustration, disappointment, and, yes, anger — a critical rage that “helps us imagine abolishing the conditions by which the rage came to pass rather than take ownership of the conditions and inflicting them on someone else.”
Really, what Gay seems to be calling forward from himself and his readers is a choice to look at the whole picture. We live in a world where the prison-industrial complex and a guinea pig named Oreo Speedwagon exist at the same time, where it is expensive to be poor and a stranger will call you “baby” while telling you directions, where your neighbor will lobby to ban books from the local library and check on you after a car accident. Gay sums up all of this nuance by advocating for a t-shirt that reads: “Let’s Complicate Our Shit!”
We can all be unkind, stupid, violent or wrong at times, Gay writes. And yet, we all deserved to be loved. We can offer that gift to one another by choosing to regard one another “complicatedly.”
Often, Gay notes, it is artists who break us out of the ingrained groves of dualistic thinking, “who are more committed maybe to the good than to being ‘good.’” I wonder what it would look like if the church embraced this role — of stepping out of the well-worn grooves of thought, of trying to hold the big picture, of choosing to regard our neighbor rather than judge or venerate them.
Perhaps complicating our shit, perhaps holding onto the “despites” not only makes the world a better place now but also allows us a clear-headedness to create a better future.
(Review published on Presbyterian Outlook)
May 4, 2023
Ross Gay's writing is lyrical and inspiring. He conveys such insight into ordinary moments. I enjoy reading his essays slowly in order to soak them in. His philosophical voice is best when savored in small portions, so much tenderness is difficult to take in all at once. Recommended for readers and writers. Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC. #TheBookofMoreDelights #NetGalley
December 30, 2023
If Ross gay kept writing a book of delights every year forever, I would read each and every one
October 6, 2023
Ross Gay said "Run it back! Same teams?"
October 18, 2023
Okay, some of his delights were delightful but the writing is so disjointed that I found that he usually lost me with all of the wordiness. A couple were so wonderful but the majority of the “stories “ were very confusing.
February 4, 2024
Honestly it wasn’t always delightful?
March 25, 2024
Emma read this one to me over the course of many nights, which was a delight of my own. This book will go down as one of my favorites of all time. Thank you Mr. Gay <3
August 3, 2025
Reading Ross Gay's delights is good for my soul. I feel better about this world, knowing he's out there marveling at the birds and the bees, the trees, the flowers and fruit and seeds, the smile of a stranger, the laughter of a child. The Garlic Sprouting and the Clothesline!
I read his first book of delights six years ago. Just as then, not every essay here was for me, and sometimes Ross is that friend that shares too much. But, oh! the contagious spirit, the zany gift for observation and expression.
I'll admit that at times his writing is an aerobic exercise for my brain to follow..
"I have veered, as per usual, from the observed delight.." "I am hyperbolic by nature and design.."
..but it's fun exercise full of rewards and prizes.
I love that Ross Gay calls his cellular phone "my stupid alienation machine."
I love that at the airport, he averts his eyes "from any television flickering news hell." I love that he does "quite a bit of rooting in the garden." Ross Gay, you are my tribe.
Favorites and absolute delights:
Helmets Free
Paper Menus (and Cash!)
An Appendix of Brief Delights
"Man, people do their best. And sometimes it's so good."
I read his first book of delights six years ago. Just as then, not every essay here was for me, and sometimes Ross is that friend that shares too much. But, oh! the contagious spirit, the zany gift for observation and expression.
I'll admit that at times his writing is an aerobic exercise for my brain to follow..
"I have veered, as per usual, from the observed delight.." "I am hyperbolic by nature and design.."
..but it's fun exercise full of rewards and prizes.
I love that Ross Gay calls his cellular phone "my stupid alienation machine."
I love that at the airport, he averts his eyes "from any television flickering news hell." I love that he does "quite a bit of rooting in the garden." Ross Gay, you are my tribe.
Favorites and absolute delights:
Helmets Free
Paper Menus (and Cash!)
An Appendix of Brief Delights
"Man, people do their best. And sometimes it's so good."
August 3, 2024
oh, to see the world through ross gay’s eyes! from one birthday to the next, he spends one whole year writing mini essays about the delights of his days. they are never overly optimistic, just honest, teaching us about the joys of the every-day.
August 13, 2024
DNF at 25%.
Reading this book felt like reading someone’s diary, but for someone you don’t know and whose day-to-day activities don’t interest you. Why do I care if you had chicken for dinner? Or took your dog on a walk? Or saw a smiling child at the park?
I appreciate that Gay was able to find delights in his daily life, but his delights don’t necessarily equate to my delights. And some of the things he deemed as delightful were downright uncomfortable and confusing to me. On top of that, I just didn’t jive with his writing style, which felt stilted and abrupt in a way I didn’t enjoy.
Ultimately I didn’t care for this book of essays, but on a positive note, my main takeaway is that we can choose to find happiness, even if small, every day that we are alive. And that happiness will look different for each and every person, so don’t let don’t let someone else determine what should or should not delight you.
Reading this book felt like reading someone’s diary, but for someone you don’t know and whose day-to-day activities don’t interest you. Why do I care if you had chicken for dinner? Or took your dog on a walk? Or saw a smiling child at the park?
I appreciate that Gay was able to find delights in his daily life, but his delights don’t necessarily equate to my delights. And some of the things he deemed as delightful were downright uncomfortable and confusing to me. On top of that, I just didn’t jive with his writing style, which felt stilted and abrupt in a way I didn’t enjoy.
Ultimately I didn’t care for this book of essays, but on a positive note, my main takeaway is that we can choose to find happiness, even if small, every day that we are alive. And that happiness will look different for each and every person, so don’t let don’t let someone else determine what should or should not delight you.
December 27, 2023
This book felt like a hug from a dear friend after a great conversation. It was truly a DELIGHT to read. I had so many laugh out loud moments. From QR codes to basketball to fruit trees to book stores to dandelions, the observational wit and storytelling ability that Ross has is truly a delightful thing to experience.
I also (embarrassingly) learned that one of my favorite songs is actually a Kate Bush cover (This Woman's Work)!
I also (embarrassingly) learned that one of my favorite songs is actually a Kate Bush cover (This Woman's Work)!
January 28, 2024
Aside from the unpleasant jolt of the one that began with a brief discussion of one of Junot Díaz's books I appreciated these short essays and was glad that alongside joy room was made for less than delightful feelings.
December 14, 2023
first half was good!
Well, I liked the first half- such lovely, thoughtful, heart-warming essays.
Then they started getting weirder. In one, he refuses to accept a compliment from a server because she compliments other people too (what?? Other people are allowed to do cool things too, bud) and and because she told the author *and someone else* they have good style- even though they “weren’t dressed in similar styles”. (Again—- what?? Good style is about confidence, not particular clothes.) that was weird, then he went off about how she’s a white woman, so she got the idea she should compliment everyone from TikTok (Again— what?!?) I’m all for hearing about race issues but this one was borderline insanity, let alone infantilizing and misogynistic.
I stuck with the book until he gloated about not using a QR code menu (which just makes people do more work because you’re being difficult, but whatever) and then COMPARED THIS ACTION TO PROTESTING WAR.
Needless to say, I DNF.
Well, I liked the first half- such lovely, thoughtful, heart-warming essays.
Then they started getting weirder. In one, he refuses to accept a compliment from a server because she compliments other people too (what?? Other people are allowed to do cool things too, bud) and and because she told the author *and someone else* they have good style- even though they “weren’t dressed in similar styles”. (Again—- what?? Good style is about confidence, not particular clothes.) that was weird, then he went off about how she’s a white woman, so she got the idea she should compliment everyone from TikTok (Again— what?!?) I’m all for hearing about race issues but this one was borderline insanity, let alone infantilizing and misogynistic.
I stuck with the book until he gloated about not using a QR code menu (which just makes people do more work because you’re being difficult, but whatever) and then COMPARED THIS ACTION TO PROTESTING WAR.
Needless to say, I DNF.
January 31, 2024
Yeah sorry this felt like reading someone’s diary entries but not in a fun way
January 15, 2024
Ross Gay's poetic, punctuation-heavy prose putting pleasantries to paper puts me ... OK, enough. His writing just places one in a decidedly good mood if they're open to such possibilities and not overly cynical. I could see someone south of realism struggling or fading quickly with this book.
Among the heralded and mundane things the Indiana University professor is grateful for, aka "delights," are paper menus, pudgy squirrels, all sorts of flora, observing adult braces, the music of Michael McDonald, a neighborhood lady in a tree/on a porch/etc., the literal meaning of the word "gucci," Snoopy, a medicine called Lyrica (or at least its name), a friend's cat named OREO Speedwagon (brilliant), various dogs, "negreetings," (nods and words of affirmation that Black folks give each other), the perfect notebook/spoon/cup/etc., and a range of things related to garlic.
Having read Gay's previous compendium of such diaristic essays, The Book of Delights, by halfway through this volume I was hoping it would turn into a series for him, with a new installment at least every decade. This would please me. This is how much I enjoyed these entries, candidly more than the first for whatever reason. I found they peaked in the back half, the writing as well as the topical items that resonated in me. Maybe it's my station in life, two weeks sober into a new year. Everything feels elevated and positive right now. (Will this hold? Time will tell.)
As a music maven, I especially relished the chapter, "DeBarge on Tiny Desk." Immediately am going to El DeBarge's episode in that NPR YouTube series, chasing it with the eps from Laufey and The Cranberries (delight like whoa!) that I saw when scanning the channel. (True story: I learned of El DeBarge thanks to RuPaul saying the Drag Race star Crystal Methyd reminded him of EDB. That there serves as another multifaceted delight.)
The real beauty for me in all this was that in said DeBarge chapter, Gay also addresses his loves of Maxwell's falsetto-soaked version of Kate Busy's "This Woman's Work" and Aretha's Amazing Grace live album. As it so happens, I saw Gay speak live at a library in my area in February 2023, and asked him at the signing portion of it what music he was listening to of late. He mentioned those two, and the entry is dated 10 days later in this book. Life's little nuggets are just flat-out fun, something I'll try to remember when next I'm all in my head and feels about something. (There will always come that day.)
Miscellaneous other favorite of Gay's delights here, as he framed them and in no order whatsover:
- Mistranscription
- Gnomes
- Imposter (Syndrome)
- Throwing Children
- Small Fluffy Things (in this case, a pet or two)
- The Minor Cordiality
- Eat Candy! Destroy the State!
- The Courtesy of Truckers
- Hickies, Ostentatiously Blandished
Among the heralded and mundane things the Indiana University professor is grateful for, aka "delights," are paper menus, pudgy squirrels, all sorts of flora, observing adult braces, the music of Michael McDonald, a neighborhood lady in a tree/on a porch/etc., the literal meaning of the word "gucci," Snoopy, a medicine called Lyrica (or at least its name), a friend's cat named OREO Speedwagon (brilliant), various dogs, "negreetings," (nods and words of affirmation that Black folks give each other), the perfect notebook/spoon/cup/etc., and a range of things related to garlic.
Having read Gay's previous compendium of such diaristic essays, The Book of Delights, by halfway through this volume I was hoping it would turn into a series for him, with a new installment at least every decade. This would please me. This is how much I enjoyed these entries, candidly more than the first for whatever reason. I found they peaked in the back half, the writing as well as the topical items that resonated in me. Maybe it's my station in life, two weeks sober into a new year. Everything feels elevated and positive right now. (Will this hold? Time will tell.)
As a music maven, I especially relished the chapter, "DeBarge on Tiny Desk." Immediately am going to El DeBarge's episode in that NPR YouTube series, chasing it with the eps from Laufey and The Cranberries (delight like whoa!) that I saw when scanning the channel. (True story: I learned of El DeBarge thanks to RuPaul saying the Drag Race star Crystal Methyd reminded him of EDB. That there serves as another multifaceted delight.)
The real beauty for me in all this was that in said DeBarge chapter, Gay also addresses his loves of Maxwell's falsetto-soaked version of Kate Busy's "This Woman's Work" and Aretha's Amazing Grace live album. As it so happens, I saw Gay speak live at a library in my area in February 2023, and asked him at the signing portion of it what music he was listening to of late. He mentioned those two, and the entry is dated 10 days later in this book. Life's little nuggets are just flat-out fun, something I'll try to remember when next I'm all in my head and feels about something. (There will always come that day.)
Miscellaneous other favorite of Gay's delights here, as he framed them and in no order whatsover:
- Mistranscription
- Gnomes
- Imposter (Syndrome)
- Throwing Children
- Small Fluffy Things (in this case, a pet or two)
- The Minor Cordiality
- Eat Candy! Destroy the State!
- The Courtesy of Truckers
- Hickies, Ostentatiously Blandished
January 31, 2024
The Book of More Delights is a charming collection of miniature essays as quirky, engaging, and wryly humorous as the author’s previous Book of Delights. His new collection, written over a year, has evolved. He continues to write about the things that give him joy, but as always, he shows readers that daily delights can be found in everyday wonders like hummingbirds, cookies being baked by his mother, and a nostalgic song from a passing car.
The author reflects on his daily life in his follow-up to The Book of Delights. The book's premise is that he decided to write an essay every day for a year about something that delighted him. He gave himself about thirty minutes each day to draft his daily essay. He writes about things that incite joy for him. He defines joy as something along the lines of the feeling that we enter when we help each other carry our sorrows. He explains that joy is not the opposite of grief or that it is without sorrow. Joy is very much made of sorrow. In the book, he talks about the joy of someone coming to visit when his father was ill. Ultimately, his message is that you miss the best parts of life without stopping to reflect on your everyday joys. The Book of More Delights is another collection to reflect on, cherish, and share.
To listen to my interview with the author, go to my podcast at: https://www.momsdonthavetimetoreadboo...
The author reflects on his daily life in his follow-up to The Book of Delights. The book's premise is that he decided to write an essay every day for a year about something that delighted him. He gave himself about thirty minutes each day to draft his daily essay. He writes about things that incite joy for him. He defines joy as something along the lines of the feeling that we enter when we help each other carry our sorrows. He explains that joy is not the opposite of grief or that it is without sorrow. Joy is very much made of sorrow. In the book, he talks about the joy of someone coming to visit when his father was ill. Ultimately, his message is that you miss the best parts of life without stopping to reflect on your everyday joys. The Book of More Delights is another collection to reflect on, cherish, and share.
To listen to my interview with the author, go to my podcast at: https://www.momsdonthavetimetoreadboo...
February 22, 2024
This series holds such a special place in my heart! I love Gay's prose and descriptions of the world around him. It is such an inspiring book. I cannot wait until 2026 for the next installment.
February 22, 2025
Reading these essays is self care, like a warm hug and a reminder of all the love around us all the time
May 25, 2024
I read this slowly over the past month, pacing my delights out, as I also participated in my own delight-journaling alongside my high school seniors. My efforts are nowhere near Gay’s, but that’s beside the point. When I met Gay at The Mercantile last year and told him we use his book as a mentor text, I like to think that provided him his own little delight.
Favorites here include “Alright Baby!”, “One Million Kisses,” “Lyrica,” “Paper Menus (and Cash),” and “Friends Let Us Do Our Best Not to Leave This Life Having Not Loved What We Love Enough.”
Favorites here include “Alright Baby!”, “One Million Kisses,” “Lyrica,” “Paper Menus (and Cash),” and “Friends Let Us Do Our Best Not to Leave This Life Having Not Loved What We Love Enough.”
May 28, 2024
The first Book of Delights was, well, delightful. This one suffered from wordiness. Many of the essays were bloated and overlong. I'm basically giving it 3 stars just because I like him; it probably should be 2.
October 11, 2024
I have never enjoyed, or related to, a style of writing more—long live the run on sentence, the asides, the longwinded roundabouts, the made up words! What an absolute gem of a book. I laughed often and heartily. I felt compelled to read many parts out loud to unsuspecting company/my uninterested spouse. I teared up occasionally. I felt my heart move in ways it hasn’t in a long time. This book is so much more than a delight— it’s a series of tiny awakenings. I suspect I will return back to it many times in this life.
September 25, 2023
4.5 - Any day I get to read Ross Gay is a good day.
September 12, 2023
Ross Gay is back with a second book of essays on finding delight in daily life.
After completing his Book of Delights, Gay realized that the practice of daily essays could be a lifelong habit and continued the project.
The essays are quickly written by hand and unedited so that their immediacy and casualness feels like a conversation, complete with interrupting asides and clarifications.
I enjoyed so many of these essays. But others I was unable to connect with, being too old, too ignorant of sports or music that brings him delight. I lived just north of his Pennsylvania hometown for a few years and got a kick out of knowing the references.
He delights in his childhood friend and in finding the perfect notebook or spoon or cup. He puzzles over cars parked in the middle of the street and thinks about how boys rarely smile, as if there was a prohibition.
“Delight compels us to share,” Gay asserts, reflecting on his “basket of delights,” the letters received from readers of his book, particularly the one signed off with “Love.”
There is an Appendix of Brief Delights, pages of run-on things that many of us also delight in: walking arm-in-arm, goldfinches nesting in a flower basket, the word belong, walking at night in the dark. Also there is For Further Reading, a sharing of the books Gay “was in conversation” with while writing, some of which he mentions in the essays.
I commend anyone who helps us to focus on the every day encounters that uplift us.
Thanks to the publisher for a free book.
After completing his Book of Delights, Gay realized that the practice of daily essays could be a lifelong habit and continued the project.
The essays are quickly written by hand and unedited so that their immediacy and casualness feels like a conversation, complete with interrupting asides and clarifications.
I enjoyed so many of these essays. But others I was unable to connect with, being too old, too ignorant of sports or music that brings him delight. I lived just north of his Pennsylvania hometown for a few years and got a kick out of knowing the references.
He delights in his childhood friend and in finding the perfect notebook or spoon or cup. He puzzles over cars parked in the middle of the street and thinks about how boys rarely smile, as if there was a prohibition.
“Delight compels us to share,” Gay asserts, reflecting on his “basket of delights,” the letters received from readers of his book, particularly the one signed off with “Love.”
There is an Appendix of Brief Delights, pages of run-on things that many of us also delight in: walking arm-in-arm, goldfinches nesting in a flower basket, the word belong, walking at night in the dark. Also there is For Further Reading, a sharing of the books Gay “was in conversation” with while writing, some of which he mentions in the essays.
I commend anyone who helps us to focus on the every day encounters that uplift us.
Thanks to the publisher for a free book.
December 28, 2023
I'm obsessed with Ross Gay. I love his work so much. (If you haven't read Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude or The Book of Delights: Essays, do so now; you will not be sorry.) This did not disappoint. He renders the essayette form as part prose poem, part thought experiment, documenting scenes and exchanges from his everyday life. In this collection, derived from a year in which he daily documented delights in this form, he includes reflections on imposter syndrome and the insufficiency of university spaces, stairwells as pocket parks, and a meditation on the mistranscription of routes as roots (which speaks to me as someone tracking the botanical imagination right now). He plays with the English language with the same gusto, enthusiasm, and irreverence as he plays (and writes about) basketball, and always over his shoulder is the spectre of death, just as it is for all of us,
November 11, 2024
"Maybe not finishing is a prayer for the tomorrow?" (5)
"Lord, I believe in almost nothing anymore, except these fleeting sweetnesses, these dime-a-dozen precious sweetnesses, these sweetnesses that seem to me the organizing fact of our lives, or maybe more accurately the reasons to stay alive, these people in trees and on porches and in laundromats taking my phone number for when my clothes came back." (60)
"He did it again!!!" (91)
"It happens like this again and again, this going and coming, I said, because he's a puppy, and doesn't know what the hell's going on." (95)
"Per that last sentence, that /should/: how lucky, even if it sometimes pricks you with shame (should is one of the cudgels of shame, especially should have), even if it had compelled you to pretend to the contrary, not yet to have read even near everything by your favorite authors. Thanks to your having been a shabby and half-assed student, there are so many books to look forward to." (148)
"If that's the summit, Lord that we might all be imposters." (173)
"—how often, perhaps most often, delight is shown to you by someone tugging your arm; how often, perhaps most often, delight makes you want to tug someone's arm." (228)
"Lord, I believe in almost nothing anymore, except these fleeting sweetnesses, these dime-a-dozen precious sweetnesses, these sweetnesses that seem to me the organizing fact of our lives, or maybe more accurately the reasons to stay alive, these people in trees and on porches and in laundromats taking my phone number for when my clothes came back." (60)
"He did it again!!!" (91)
"It happens like this again and again, this going and coming, I said, because he's a puppy, and doesn't know what the hell's going on." (95)
"Per that last sentence, that /should/: how lucky, even if it sometimes pricks you with shame (should is one of the cudgels of shame, especially should have), even if it had compelled you to pretend to the contrary, not yet to have read even near everything by your favorite authors. Thanks to your having been a shabby and half-assed student, there are so many books to look forward to." (148)
"If that's the summit, Lord that we might all be imposters." (173)
"—how often, perhaps most often, delight is shown to you by someone tugging your arm; how often, perhaps most often, delight makes you want to tug someone's arm." (228)
January 21, 2025
And a total delight it was. I accidentally picked this book up when I needed it most. Although, I should point out that I don’t really believe in this type of accident. More likely, this book found me cosmically in a time of blue uncertainty (hello Trump inauguration).
I knew I loved Ross Gay after his first collection of delights, which I read around this time last year, but this one struck me a bit deeper. In this collection, he didn’t pretend to write every day (as he did in the first year of this experiment), but instead wrote every few days and sometimes only once or twice a month. In doing this, I think he left himself space to seek, as if he was prodding in the dark with the pads of his fingers for jewels. That isn’t to say that he doesn’t believe that delights are a daily possibility. He already knows we know this.
This book feels like reaching the end of a disconcerting, dramatic, life-mimicking film that wraps you in a swirling hug by the end. It makes you want to check on your friends and take the long way to work and ask for a paper menu at the restaurant instead of scanning a QR code on our “alienation devices”. Yes, it is seeing the world through rose colored glasses, and what sweetness it is to know that (t)his version of reality is available/essential.
I plan to read and re read this book forever probably. And boy, do I need a little garden (or perhaps an entire farm?) to call my own one day.
Here’s one of many quotes that I wrote down from the book: “i do not think of this as looking on the bright side, i think of this as looking at everything” YEP! need this tatted.
I knew I loved Ross Gay after his first collection of delights, which I read around this time last year, but this one struck me a bit deeper. In this collection, he didn’t pretend to write every day (as he did in the first year of this experiment), but instead wrote every few days and sometimes only once or twice a month. In doing this, I think he left himself space to seek, as if he was prodding in the dark with the pads of his fingers for jewels. That isn’t to say that he doesn’t believe that delights are a daily possibility. He already knows we know this.
This book feels like reaching the end of a disconcerting, dramatic, life-mimicking film that wraps you in a swirling hug by the end. It makes you want to check on your friends and take the long way to work and ask for a paper menu at the restaurant instead of scanning a QR code on our “alienation devices”. Yes, it is seeing the world through rose colored glasses, and what sweetness it is to know that (t)his version of reality is available/essential.
I plan to read and re read this book forever probably. And boy, do I need a little garden (or perhaps an entire farm?) to call my own one day.
Here’s one of many quotes that I wrote down from the book: “i do not think of this as looking on the bright side, i think of this as looking at everything” YEP! need this tatted.
January 9, 2024
Oh man. I wrote a long review and Goodreads quit on me! Good to know that even though I didn’t read much in 2023 this app’s functionality is still garbage. But I love my goodreads friends too much to leave
February 12, 2025
Chosen by random # reading, #954. Some good insights in this, but his writing style was not my favorite. I probably enjoyed the very last chapter the most, honestly, because it was a list of delights that were short & to the point, a welcome change from the rest of the book.
March 8, 2025
3.5
Some delights were all over the place, hard to follow, and didn’t do much for me. But other delights gave me exactly what I hoped for: an appreciative, artistic recognition of the magic in the mundane moments of life.
Some delights were all over the place, hard to follow, and didn’t do much for me. But other delights gave me exactly what I hoped for: an appreciative, artistic recognition of the magic in the mundane moments of life.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 455 reviews