Those new discoveries begin with two hopeful books: Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights and Sophie Blackall’s Things to Look Forward To: 52 Large and Small Joys for Today and Every Day. Both feel like companion pieces in difficult times.
Best known as a poet, Gay turned to what he calls “essayettes,” most of them two or three short pages. Gay challenged himself to spend a year writing one delight a day, by hand; 102 of them make up this collection, published in 2019. I found them soothing to read before sleep. The titles range from “Kombucha in a Mid-century Glass” to “Babies. Seriously.” The writing reveals a sensitive man (he’s English faculty at Indiana U.) who is paying attention to life around him. He is also commenting as a black man on social injustice. The good news is he has another essay collection coming in October 2022, Inciting Joy. If you’d like to hear him read poetry with music accompaniment, he has several options on Youtube. More recently, Sophie Blackall has cataloged things to anticipate, happily. She wrote and illustrated this book during the pandemic; in her introduction she claims to always see the silver lining around dark clouds, but describes 2020 as “a son of a cumulonimbus.” Blackall is best known as an award-winning illustrator of children’s books, so this one includes a full-page illustration for each brief item. Some are done in grayscale; most are full color. Her chosen topics are both familiar (Rainbows) and quirky (Moving the Furniture Around). I noticed in particular her love of detail in illustrations. The one on Voting, for example, features a VOTE button pinned on a tweed sweater, with a zillion small vs on the fabric to indicate that it’s not a plain sweater. And the wearer has a striped scarf around her neck. The very next page, Growing Your Own Food, is illustrated with a bowl full of peas—but not so full that we can’t see the intricate pattern on the inside of the bowl.
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What I’m ReadingI began working in libraries as a seventh grader, courtesy of scoliosis. My orthopedic surgeon wrote me a pass to miss gym class, so I began working in the school library to feed my love of reading. Even after my surgery to correct the curvature, I kept getting out of gym to work in my high school library and then in my college library (for pay, at last!).
So began my eventual career as a college reference librarian—after a detour into teaching high school English. Later I worked for an educational publisher before going back to libraries.
I have a reading and writing life now. I devour both fiction and nonfiction, and will tell you about some of my favorite reads, both old friends and new discoveries.
Here's some library-themed music to get you in the mood.
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