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Essays
by Ross Gay
The New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Delights and Inciting Joy shares this 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.
For Gay, what delights us is what connects us, what gives us meaning, from the joy of hearing a nostalgic song blasting from a passing car to the pleasure of refusing the "ubiquitous, nefarious" scannable QR code menus, from the tiny dog he fell hard for to his mother baking a dozen kinds of cookies for her grandchildren.
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 have enjoyed the works of Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Zadie Smith, and Rebecca Solnit, Gay once again offers us "literature that feels as fluent and familiar as a chat with a close friend" (the New York Review of Books). The Book of (More) Delights is a collection to savor and share.
"Keenly observed and delivered with deftness, these essays are a testament to the artfulness of attention and everyday joy." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Another startling, sensuous collection of miniature essays... again and again, joy wins out over despair as Gay pays tribute to a world of people 'bumbling, flailing, hurting, failing, changing.'" —Booklist
"Gay's work never sugar coats the difficulties or fragility of life, but it is still so hopeful." —USA Today
"Enormously delightful. Gay is a master at amplifying the delights all around us." —Literary Hub
"Ross Gay is back, better than ever ... This time he swings his basket higher, slower, for a whole new bevy of brainy and witty noticings, not just from his garden but from paper menus and pawpaws to the unexpected adoration of a small dog." ―Garden & Gun
This information about The Book of (More) Delights was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Ross Gay is the New York Times bestselling author of the essay collections The Book of Delights and Inciting Joy and four books of poetry. His Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, was a finalist for the National Book Award, and in 2022 was named an NEA Big Read title; and Be Holding won the 2021 PEN America Jean Stein Book Award. Gay is a founding board member of the Bloomington Community Orchard, a non-profit, free-fruit-for-all food justice and joy project and has received fellowships from Cave Canem, the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference, and the Guggenheim Foundation. He teaches at Indiana University.
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