In Which I Take a Look at the Books That Guided Me Through 2014

This is the time of year when book bloggers and magazines and newspapers are touting their Best Of lists. I, however, am going to take a different slant on my reading for the year 2014.  

Here you have Belle's Book Guide, a look at a few books that especially entertained and guided me through the year.

To begin with, for a total education I could have just read and re-read two books: Alain de Botton's The Art of Travel which covers everything from literature to history to art, and, yes, a few travel destinations along the way, and The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel which offers shelves full of architecture, histories of private and public libraries and their patrons, lost books, burned books, and a community of international authors.

Here are other BOOKS that made up my reading list this year and what they brought to my life:

Beauty: The Southerner's Handbook celebrates the beauty of what makes Southerners Southern and gave me insights into my own below-the-Mason-Dixon line heritage. These were well-written essays collected by the editors of Garden and Gun magazine on everything from sweet tea and barbecue to the Great Southern Novel and the Art of Wearing Pearls.

Anytime I read one of Peter Mayle's novels set in France - this year it was Chasing Cezanne - I know I am in for a sensory extravaganza. He not only paints for me the landscape and architecture of the region but also the glories of food and drink and the pleasures of the table. Delicious.

Observation: Reading books such as Delight by J.B. Priestly and A Book of One's Own: People and Their Diaries by Thomas Mallon remind me to slow down and take a good look at everyday pleasures and to be mindful of recording them in my own journal. Also, dipping into the wacky worlds of  Dave Barry (You Can Date When You're Forty) and Bill Bryson (A Walk in the Woods) and reading their close observations and experiments with life keep me from taking things too seriously.

In Still Writing by Dani Shapiro, I observed a writer at work and also felt as if I had spent time with and gotten to know a new friend. Her look at her own writing practice with its perils and pleasures is a must-read for anyone looking to jump start her creative life. 

Obfuscation: Of the over one hundred books I read this year more than 40 of them were mysteries/suspense/thriller novels. I do love a puzzle. These were books ranging from the old school Agatha Christie's The Body in the Library to the new school world of Tim Hallinan's witty burglar Junior Bender. It takes a clever author to hide clues in plain sight and yet keep me guessing.

Kindness: Unlike the murder and mayhem found in the books above, kindness and good spirits abound in The All-Girls' Filling Station Last Reunion by Fannie Flagg; the ever delightful 84,
Charing Cross Road and The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street by Helene Hanff; and, my favorite of the year, The Pink Motel by Carol Ryrie Brink. In each of these books the kindnesses of strangers and the affection of the characters for each other (including dogs and blue jays) encourage one to just Be Kind.

Simplicity, Solitude, Silence: There are a dearth of books telling me how to pack more into and organize every nanosecond of my days. I, however, prefer to live a life with broad margins. I aim to leave time between activities - whether chores and errands or the more contemplative ones of painting and writing. Here are the books that inspired me this past year: Shelter for the Spirit by Victoria Moran; two by Elaine St. James, Simplify Your Life and Living the Simple Life; and the first two 'shells' (her chapters on solitude and simplicity) in Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea.

For the complete list (to date) of my shelf full of books for 2014, browse here.

Now, what books guided you through the year?

Delight by J.B. Priestly

J.B. Priestly delighting in his

typewriter and pipe

It just has to be said - Delight by J.B. Priestly is a delight!

I got my hands on this book, published in 1949, through an inter-library loan. Hooray for my public library. It actually came from the shelf of the University of Louisville Ekstrom Library so it didn't have far to travel. Maybe two miles...

Anyway, Priestly, a self-professed grumbler, wrote this book with the intent of helping raise the morale of the British people after the end of World War II by giving them reasons to rejoice of life's simple pleasures. It contains 114 short essays on such delights as fountains, smoking, a gin and tonic, old photographs, charades, a walk in the pine wood. Easy enough to be delighted by any of those (except maybe the smoking!)

But digging deeper, Mr. Priestly comes up with such pleasures as: not going, suddenly doing nothing, discovering Vermeer, a first time abroad, found money, orchestras tuning up, and departing guests.

The longest essay here runs to maybe three pages; most fit on one page or two. All are written in the richest of language and with more than a twinkling of humor. If you can get your hands on a copy of this Delight, I don't think you will be disappointed.

And it may get you to thinking about some of your own delights. It certainly did me.

You will see what I mean. Here is Number Fifty-one:

There is a peculiar delight, which I can still experience though I knew it best as a boy, in cosily reading about foul weather when equally foul weather is beating hard against the windows, when one is securely poised between the wind and rain and sleet outside and the wind and rain and sleet that leap from the page into the mind. The old romancers must have been aware of this odd little bonus of pleasure for the reader, and probably that is why so many of their narratives, to give them a friendly start, began with solitary horsemen, cloaked to the eyebrows, riding through the night on urgent business for the Duke, sustained by nothing more than an occasional and dubious ragout or pasty and a gulp or two of sour wine (always fetched by surly innkeepers or their scowling slatterns), on side-roads deep in mire, with wind, rain, thunder-and-lightning, sleet, hail, snow, all turned on at the full. With the windows rattling away and hailstones drumming at the paper in the fireplace, snug in bed except for one cold elbow, I have travelled thousands and thousands of mucky miles with these fellows, braving the foulest nights, together crying "Bah!"

Delighting in J.B. Priestley

I came across this title in my morning reading and was reminded that long ago I tried to find this little book but to no avail. The book in question is Delight by J.B. Priestley. It was published originally in 1949 and contains 114 short essays in praise of simple pleasures. Things were pretty dismal in England at the time; its people were still suffering from the effects of the war and these thoughts offered a bit of cheer.

I am a sucker for this type of book! A 60th anniversary edition was published five years ago which may have been when I searched for it before.

Now I am on a quest once again. I have submitted an inter-library loan request and have contacted Powell's Books concerning a copy it has listed as available (I want to make sure it is not a former library book).

I await a response. 

Here is a bit of the review of Delight written by Lisa O'Kelly for The Observer in 2009:

There is much here to raise a smile, not least Priestley's wonderfully lucid prose, which is a delight in itself. The little things in which he takes pleasure are varied and often hugely affecting: dancing; fountains; a walk in a pine wood; a new box of matches; the sound of a football or an orchestra tuning up; long trousers; playing a cracking game of tennis; smoking in a hot bath; being silly with children; waking to the smell of bacon and coffee; getting a great idea.

Mr. Priestly was a novelist and playwright. In the 1940s, he wrote the play An Inspector Calls which was performed by a touring company here sometime in the 1990s. The company put a call out for some local folks to be a part of a crowd scene. I auditioned but apparently didn't have the look they wanted. Oh, well. My one chance at Broadway.

My failed theater career aside, after a gloomy and dreary January, this book sounds to be the perfect pick-me-up.