Ten things that delight me:

CHAMPAGNE!

The trailer on the left might be handy for one’s book launch party. The one on the right seems pretty perfect to take on the road for a book tour. Park that baby outside a bookstore and no more empty seats at the reading!

 2. Beautiful soap with old-fashioned labels, like these from Claus Porto.

3. Charles Dickens’s characters, especially The Infant Phenomenon (aka Ninetta Crummles) from Nicholas Nickleby and the sublimely flustered Flora Finching from Little Dorrit.

5. (Really it’s #4, but being my own webmaster, I can’t manage to fix that). DOG shaming on the internet.

6. Knitting yarn, especially Shetland and Shilasdair from Scotland and cashmere lace yarn from Louisa Harding’s Yarntelier in England.

 

7. Really good chocolate. And I’m not talking Hershey’s kisses, either. 

8. Beautiful embroidery and textiles. The older, the better.

9. Dog-foot violets.

10. Paris.

 My ten favorite books, in no particular order (as of today):

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

True Grit by Charles Portis ( Donna Tartt absolutely rules with the narration of the audiobook)

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (must be illustrated by Tasha Tudor) 

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (Ruby Dee’s narration of the audiobook is earth-shattering.)

Beloved by Toni Morrison

The Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald

Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray