BOOK: Endangered Pleasures
AUTHOR: Barbara Holland
YEAR OF PUBLICATION: 1995
REVIEW:
When I am feeling worried, or busy, or harried by modern life, my list of things to do is long, the time I have to do them is short, and my smartphone Will Not Stop telling me how many e-mails, texts, and Facebook notices I have yet to look at…the simplest remedy is to shut off all electronic devices, pour myself a large cup of tea with milk and lots of sugar, and find something to read to put me in a better state of mind. Not my unread e-mails. Not the daily newspaper. Not one of the classics of world literature. Something calming and soothing…a childhood favorite, a novel I’ve read twenty times before, a cozy paperback mystery if I can find one that’s not too twee. Or, perhaps best of all, Endangered Pleasures, written by Barbara Holland “in defense of naps, bacon, martinis, profanity, and other indulgences.”
***
This book will remind you, as it does me, of the good things in life, and how we ought to take the time to enjoy the simple pleasures. Now that sounds trite, but I can assure you, it’s not. Barbara Holland had a wicked sense of humor. The book is written as a series of sweet and only slightly subversive essays, encouraging us not just to stop and smell the flowers, but to bring some home, along with a bottle of wine, some good cheese, and chocolate for dessert…and then to take to your bed with someone you like rather a lot, sleep late, call in sick the next day, and meet a friend out for a leisurely lunch.
***
So, what other sorts of things should we appreciate? Breakfast. Bare feet. Naps. Our beds. Going out in cities: “San Francisco glitters; New Orleans pays jazz. Manhattan hums with a low, intense, steady thrumming sound, like high-tension wires, or as if giants were strumming their fingers on the bridge cables; it keeps out-of-towners awake in their hotel rooms.” Or staying in: “on a truly evil night in January when the highways are heaped with wreckage and the sleet hisses on the windowpanes, it’s a joy to call and cancel the plans and put on bedroom slippers.”
What else? The songs of our youth. Dogs. Cats. Fire. Boats. Travel. She finds something to enjoy and treasure in all four seasons, in buying things, in saving money, in working, in not working, and even in getting older. Growing up and finding that at long last we “can stay up all night and eat cold pizza for breakfast. We can get credit cards and buy our own toys. We can take up with unsuitable friends and lovers and use bad words, or even bad grammar. No one can make us go to school, or wear a raincoat, or clean up our room, or remember to say thank you, or kiss Aunt Doris, or wash our hands, or be nice to our sister, or put away our toys, or hang up our jacket, or eat our turnips, or respect our elders. For a while, there, it’s glorious.”
***
In short, it’s a gentle reminder to appreciate and enjoy what we have, to worry less about checking off boxes and accomplishing tasks, counting calories or Weight Watchers points, drinking filtered water, eating steamed broccoli, and generally behaving respectably and dutifully, being constantly caught up in doing more, moving faster, and working harder.
***
Buy a few copies. One for yourself, one for your favorite person who is a little too busy, and one to give to the next person you see who needs a little cheering up. (Pay it forward. It certainly can’t hurt. And seek out pleasure where you can find it. It absolutely won’t hurt.)
***
Barbara Holland herself lived until age 77, smoking cigarettes and drinking Scotch by the half-gallon, until the end.
***
RATING (one to five whistles, with five being the best): 3.5 Whistles
***
HOW TO PURCHASE: Amazon
***
ALSO ON OUR BOOKSHELVES:
A Patchwork Planet, Anne Tyler
A Room With a View, E.M. Forster
An Infamous Army, Georgette Heyer
Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Blue Highways, William Least Heat-Moon
Bonjour Tristesse, Francoise Sagan
Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, Roz Chast
Cockpit Confidential, Patrick Smith
Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
Envious Casca, Georgette Heyer
Gaudy Night, Dorothy L. Sayers
Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen, Laurie Colwin
Hyperbole and a Half, Allie Brosh
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou
If on a winter’s night a traveler, Italo Calvino
Malice Aforethought, Frances Iles
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, Helen Simonson
Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town, Jon Krakauer
My Life in France, Julia Child with Alex Prud’homme
Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
Notorious RBG, Irin Carmon & Shana Knizhnik
One Summer: America 1927, Bill Bryson
Out of the Blackout, Robert Bernard
Plotted: A Literary Atlas, Andrew DeGraff
Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, Carlo Rovelli
Super Sad True Love Story, Gary Shteyngart
The Cuckoo’s Calling, Robert Galbraith
The Dancer of Izu, Kawabata Yasunari
The House Without a Key, Earl Derr Biggers
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot
The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P., Adelle Waldman
The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat, Oliver Sacks
The Monogram Murders, Sophie Hannah
The Mother & Child Project, Hope Through Healing Hands (ed.)
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark
The Tender Bar, J.R. Moehringer
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Rachel Joyce
The Unrest-Cure and Other Stories, Saki
The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin
They Call Me Naughty Lola, David Rose
Up At the Villa, W. Somerset Maugham
84, Charing Cross Road, Helene Hanff
***
Laura LaVelle is an attorney and writer who lives in Connecticut, in a not quite 100-year-old house, along with her husband, two daughters, and a cockatiel.
Laura can be contacted at laura@newswhistle.com
***
Lead-In Image Courtesy of Jen Bray Photography / Shutterstock.com
