Welcome to Litsy!

#5JoysFriday

-Our first snowfall of the season! ❄️
-Picking up a book that came in at a local indie bookstore, River Bend Bookshop.📚
-Got my auld lang syne match😀📚
-at the Holy Cross v UConn women‘s basketball game last Tuesday with my husband, sister (HC grads like me), brother-in-law, & my UConn alum son. My sister took the photo.

This is my 3rd completed book of the #readathon. I liked it and recommend it. #deweysreadathon @DeweysReadathon

Current essay collection for daily reading “dips”

#CopperBopper #whpg #Griff #DogsofLitsy #ReadICT

QUESTION??? Do you think JOY is a virtue? To satisfy a challenge category…

i am rereading INCITING JOY (which is the actual best) with my partner and Gay has got me all hepped up about planning my spring garden beds

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate, and happy Stat holiday to those who don't but still have time off work 😊
I hope you are all able to find some time to do something that brings you joy. I'm chipping away at getting books onto shelves, although there is a bit of a snag and trim pieces need to come off and be reworked. All will be done eventually.

Gay‘s joy, gratitude, and hope are infectious. He lists many opportunities for joy to be found in some surprising places. There are several stories laced with happiness and fun. But the ones that really stuck with me are the way that joy finds its way even in occasions of grief and shared suffering.

Gay writes so beautifully about the ways he's found to appreciate life, despite the many factors that feel crushing. His pieces are often rambling and digressive -- with footnotes that are sometimes longer than the essay! -- but repay attention.

#URC

#ReadICT BookSwap! 😃 I left some great ones and picked up these delights (pic on left.) 🌟 Pic on right is of the tagged book/s author! He came to speak but I didn‘t have time to buy a book and get it signed so I didn‘t meet him. 😔

I'm giving this a soft pick. Compared to Book of Delights, I had trouble sticking with this one when listening to it in my car. That being said, I loved the section on grief. And I love Ross! Can't wait to try some of his poetry.

I don't know how to review this book except to say that Ross Gay absolutely floors me every time. If you haven't read him, give yourself this gift.

Also, yes, I flew Southwest because my brother booked our flights. And yes, it was terrible. What chaos!

Ross Gay is a treasure. I wish I was friends with this wonder-filled being. I was moved to tears with several of these essays and nodded along as he describes the simultaneous exhausting and exalting experience of being human. Joy manifests in a multitude of ways, if only we can appreciate it. Admittedly, at times his long/rambling sentences were necessary to re-read but that‘s more a me-problem as I‘ve been distracted by kids, holidays and life.

I consider Ross Gay‘s Inciting Joy to be a true masterpiece. Gay repeatedly took my breath away with his quiet emotional power, which dazzles in these essays in a wild, satisfying dance between the personal and political. There were at least a dozen occasions where I wanted to stand up and applaud, or weep, or cheer out loud, or reach out and hug my loved ones. Spend some time hanging out with Ross Gay in these essays, you‘ll be glad you did!

Reading Ross Gay makes me feel (to paraphrase Emily Dickinson on poetry) like the top of my head‘s been blown off…in the most exciting, nourishing, comforting, challenging ways. Here, he muses on the power of community and connection to incite joy, touching on gardening and grief, mutual aid, masculinity, mental health, even skateboarding and pedagogy—offering at every turn a vital, radical, secular yet deeply spiritual wisdom the world needs.

Our household has been hit with the flu 🤧
My youngest and I have been down for days. Thank heavens for tissues, audiobooks, and Bluey!

Happy Thanksgiving to Litsy folk who celebrate! Happy Thursday to those who don‘t!

We stayed at a cozy hotel while visiting my husband‘s family.

I‘m feeling so grateful and finding the joy all around, with the help of this life affirming book.

Side note: Ross Gay is so amazing and deserves to be read much more widely than he is. I teared up twice during the first few chapters of this one.