Small Press Dispatch: In Defence of the Delightful

Roseanna Pendlebury There are plenty of ways of talking about books that make me especially happy, and they all bear some baggage. I could say “trash”, which comes with a big side order of judgment about the worth of the literature; I could say “cosy” and then get into any number of arguments on the internet about whether cosy is legitimate, or what it even is. But there’s a way I prefer to think about this category of books, ones that I turn to when I want something to bring me a certain sort of joy: these are the books I describe as “delightful”. What is “delightful” in this context? Delightful isn’t genre-specific, it can be literary or SFFnal or a murder mystery. The last book that I found delightful was a romance (Fan Service by Rosie Danan). They are books that make me smile, or possibly even laugh. They have a lightness to them, an ease that draws you in and keeps you reading: I want to call them “frothy”, even. If cosy is the warm blanket and the mug of tea, delightful is the…