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A review by juliasilge
Personal Pleasures by Rose Macaulay
3.0
Here is one of the oddest of the odd inventions which man has sought out, this conveying to one another by marks scratched on paper thoughts privately conceived in the mind. It shows, as all the arts show, the infinite publicism of humankind, the sociability, the interdependence, which cannot endure to have a thought, to conceive a tale, a tune, a picture, an arrangement of words, or anything else, but all must forthwith be informed of it.
These opening lines to the essay titled "Reading" from this book really struck me; what an insightful comment that applies to blogging, Facebook, Twitter, or heck, even writing a book review on GoodReads! These phenomena were all scarcely a dream when [a: Rose Macaulay|112402|Rose Macaulay|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1221498379p2/112402.jpg] wrote this compendium of essays on pleasurable things in life, but my reading of this book struck me with how unchanging many of life's pleasures are. The book is an alphabetical arrangement of wry, witty, short essays on pleasures stretching from "Abroad" (on traveling outside your own country) to "Writing". Some of my personal favorites included "Not Going to Parties", followed immediately by "Parties", the chapter on "Bed" which has two sections ("Getting into it" and "Not getting out of it"), and of course I have a soft spot for the chapter on "Astronomy". The author is British, living from the 1880s into the 1950s, and spending a good part of her childhood in Italy, so it was interesting to notice which pleasures struck an immediate resonance with me (despite the chasm of time and location that separate our experiences) and which seemed unfamiliar. Some of the most evocative and lovely chapters that made me respond, "Yes! Exactly!" were on the smell of bread baking, swimming in the ocean, and taking a hot bath on a cold day. As I write this, it is 100 degrees outside on a hot Texas afternoon, but the bath chapter made me shiver with the damp London winter fog and long to slip into a hot, hot bath.
These opening lines to the essay titled "Reading" from this book really struck me; what an insightful comment that applies to blogging, Facebook, Twitter, or heck, even writing a book review on GoodReads! These phenomena were all scarcely a dream when [a: Rose Macaulay|112402|Rose Macaulay|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1221498379p2/112402.jpg] wrote this compendium of essays on pleasurable things in life, but my reading of this book struck me with how unchanging many of life's pleasures are. The book is an alphabetical arrangement of wry, witty, short essays on pleasures stretching from "Abroad" (on traveling outside your own country) to "Writing". Some of my personal favorites included "Not Going to Parties", followed immediately by "Parties", the chapter on "Bed" which has two sections ("Getting into it" and "Not getting out of it"), and of course I have a soft spot for the chapter on "Astronomy". The author is British, living from the 1880s into the 1950s, and spending a good part of her childhood in Italy, so it was interesting to notice which pleasures struck an immediate resonance with me (despite the chasm of time and location that separate our experiences) and which seemed unfamiliar. Some of the most evocative and lovely chapters that made me respond, "Yes! Exactly!" were on the smell of bread baking, swimming in the ocean, and taking a hot bath on a cold day. As I write this, it is 100 degrees outside on a hot Texas afternoon, but the bath chapter made me shiver with the damp London winter fog and long to slip into a hot, hot bath.