Thoughtful, poetic, and powerful. Much like keeping a daily gratitude journal, poet Ross Gay wrote slice of life essays every day for an entire year. Nothing is too small or insignificant to cause delight, from candy wrappers to nicknames, to basketball—and this unique format reveals just as much as a tell-all memoir. Please note that while this book is packed with delights there are also some tough moments and hard themes. He reminds us to find delight in the every day, even in spite of life’s injustices and difficulties that so often come our way.

A natural follow up to The Book of Delights, Ross Gay’s new essay collection is about the benefits of community and connection and all that we gain when we care for one another. A timely, thoughtful read from a wonderful writer. You could read an essay a day or inhale it in one go.

Award-winning poet Gay returns with another collection of essayettes, compiling a year’s worth of eloquent gratitude for ordinary things—that is, if you consider the satisfaction of being weirdly early for a coffee shop meeting or a cluster of sweet potatoes that looks like snuggled bunnies to be “ordinary.” This is like reading the gratitude journal I wish I could write: there’s no false cheer here, just deep joy and copious appreciation for the wonder and frailty of our everyday lives. Be sure not to miss—and maybe even begin with—the Appendix of Brief Delights and reading list tucked in the back. You could certainly gulp down the whole book at once, but I can’t think of a more delightful fall routine than starting the day with a nice cup of something delicious and one of Gay’s essayettes.