Another look at little contentments

Yesterday’s note about little contentments reminded me of a couple of books.

The most recent is the poet Ross Gay’s collection The Book of Delights. He wrote short essays about things that delighted him. He wrote one a day for a year and chose 102 for his book.

J.B. Priestley did the same a couple of generations ago. His Delight is my favorite book of this kind. The preference is a matter of voice, I suppose. Priestley was a grumbler who found myriad things to complain about. The fact that there are delights amid all the muck surprised him — and the pleasant surprise was itself a kind of delight.

This is the kind of book or essay that almost all of us should write for friends and children. People get a sense of who you are by what you love.

• Sources and notes: Ross Gay, The Book of Delights, Chapel Hill, N.C.: Algonquin Books, 2019.

J.B. Priestley, Delight; New York: Harper & Row, 1949. For another note on it, see “One-night reads: Recommendations, 1,” Oct. 29, 2021.