Spotlight: The Book of Delights & The Archer

Hi Friends! Today, I’ll be spotlighting two new paperback releases — Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights, and Shruti Swamy’s The Archer. The Book of Delights is a collection of essays, whereas The Archer is literary fiction — both are genres I want to read more of. When Algonquin reached out to see if I was interested in a blog tour for both, I jumped at the opportunity! 

Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights is a genre-defying book of essays—some as short as a paragraph; some as long as five pages—that record the small joys that occurred in one year, from birthday to birthday, and that we often overlook in our busy lives. His is a meditation on delight that takes a clear-eyed view of the complexities, even the terrors, in his life, including living in America as a black man; the ecological and psychic violence of our consumer culture; the loss of those he loves. Among Gay’s funny, poetic, philosophical delights: the way Botan Rice Candy wrappers melt in your mouth, the volunteer crossing guard with a pronounced tremor whom he imagines as a kind of boat-woman escorting pedestrians across the River Styx, a friend’s unabashed use of air quotes, pickup basketball games, the silent nod of acknowledgment between black people. And more than any other subject, Gay celebrates the beauty of the natural world—his garden, the flowers in the sidewalk, the birds, the bees, the mushrooms, the trees.

A collection of essays, Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights is exactly what it promises: a book of delights. Gay set out on a project to record a series of ‘delights’ every day (or most days) for a year, starting and ending on his birthday. The delights range from big to small — savouring a cup of coffee, moments of serendipity, saying hello to a stranger. As someone who tends to read through books quickly, I soon realized that The Book of Delights is a book to read slowly; to meander your way through it, pause and reflect. It was then that I really appreciated The Book of Delights, and started reflecting on the things in my life that also bring me delight. 

I’ll leave you here with my favorite excerpt: 

I have no illusions, by which I mean to tell you it is a fact, that one of the objectives of popular culture, popular media, is to make blackness appear to be inextricable from suffering, and suffering from blackness. …Clever as hell if your goal is to make appear natural what is, in fact, by design.

And the delight? You have been reading a book of delights written by a black person. A book of black delight.

Daily as air.

Links for The Book of Delights: Goodreads | TheStorygraph | Bookshop | IndieBound

On the other hand, Shruti Swamy’s The Archer is a coming of age story set in the 60s and 70s, and a love letter to dance. The Archer explores the power of love, and dance, while touching on themes of identity, gender roles, sexuality, duty, feminism, colorism, and mental health.  

As a child, Vidya exists to serve her family, watch over her younger brother, and make sense of a motherless world. One day she catches sight of a class where the students are learning Kathak, a precise, dazzling form of dance that requires the utmost discipline and focus. Kathak quickly becomes the organizing principle of Vidya’s life, even as she leaves home for college, falls in love with her best friend, and battles demands on her time, her future, and her body. Can Vidya give herself over to her art and also be a wife in Bombay’s carefully delineated society? Can she shed the legacy of her own imperfect, unknowable mother? Must she, herself, also become a mother?

Links for The Archer: Goodreads | TheStorygraph | Bookshop | IndieBound