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158 N. Linwood Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21224

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Join us to discuss the One Maryland One Book selection, The Book of Delights by Ross Gay, and create your own journal to record the delights of daily life. 

The Book of Delights by Ross Gay is the 2021 choice for One Maryland One Book. One Maryland One Book is a program of Maryland Humanities.

What if everyone read one book at the same time? People in communities across Maryland are reading and discussing The Book of Delights. Check it out, read it, and join in a discussion.

In The Book of Delights, one of today’s most original literary voices offers up a genre-defying volume of lyric essays written over one tumultuous year. The first nonfiction book from award-winning poet Ross Gay is a record of the small joys we often overlook in our busy lives. Among Gay’s funny, poetic, philosophical delights: a friend’s unabashed use of air quotes, cradling a tomato seedling aboard an airplane, the silent nod of acknowledgment between the only two black people in a room. But Gay never dismisses the complexities, even the terrors, of living in America as a black man or the ecological and psychic violence of our consumer culture or the loss of those he loves. More than anything else, though, Gay celebrates the beauty of the natural world—his garden, the flowers peeking out of the sidewalk, the hypnotic movements of a praying mantis. 

The Book of Delights is about our shared bonds, and the rewards that come from a life closely observed. These remarkable pieces serve as a powerful and necessary reminder that we can, and should, stake out a space in our lives for delight. 

Check out the print, audio, or digital book from the library catalog.

More information on the Maryland Humanities website.

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