Endangered Pleasures; In Defense of Naps, Bacon, Martinis, Profanity, and Other Indulgences

Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, 1995. First Edition [stated], Seventh printing [stated]. Hardcover. Very good/very good. Bob Barner (Illustrations) and Mark Green (Jacket. 22 cm. xii, 175, [3] pages. Illustrations. Bookplate signed by the author on the front flyleaf. Barbara Murray Holland (April 5, 1933 - September 7, 2010) was an American author who wrote in defense of such modern-day vices as cursing, drinking, eating fatty food and smoking cigarettes, as well as a memoir of her time spent growing up in Chevy Chase, Maryland, near Washington, D.C. Holland started working at Hecht's department store in the early 1950s. In a riposte to Virginia Woolf's 1929 essay A Room of One's Own in which Woolf stated that "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction," Holland wrote, "No, Mrs. Woolf." She must have "A job, Mrs. Woolf." Holland moved to Philadelphia, where she worked as a copywriter at an advertising agency. She also began writing articles and short stories that were regularly published in magazines including Ladies' Home Journal, McCall's, Redbook and Seventeen. Holland's first published books were for children, followed by Mother's Day in 1980, an autobiographical account of raising children while working full-time. In 1988 she published The Name of the Cat, a popular book that she updated. Turning to essays, Holland published three collections: Endangered Pleasures: In Defense of Naps, Bacon, Martinis, Profanity, and Other Indulgences (1995); Bingo Night at the Fire Hall: The Case for Cows, Orchards, Bake Sales & Fairs (1997), and Wasn't the Grass Greener? A Curmudgeon's Fond Memories (1999). Endangered Pleasures included some of her essays supporting habits such as drinking and smoking. The minute the alarm clock punctures our dreams, we go to work. We have convinced ourselves that productivity is the name of the game and that leisure is a notorious sign of laziness. In Endangered Pleasures, Barbara Holland insists that enough is enough. It's time to kick back, relax, and relish the truly good things in life. "Delightfully quirky".--The Boston Globe. Here is a refreshing look at life as it ought to be. Bare feet, gardening, dawdling over the newspaper, oversleeping, and idle summer vacations are infinitely more satisfying than counting fat grams, eating only vegetables, and sitting behind that desk every day. So toss out the guilt and rebel. Don't just stop and smell the flowers--call in sick and lie among them, preferably with a good friend, a bottle of wine, and a handful of chocolates. Endangered Pleasures is a delightful reminder that rest and relaxation are more rewarding than a job performance review. After all, life's too short. Why not have some fun while you're supposed to be living it? Derived from a Kirkus review: Holland presents a collection of exemplary little essays in praise of a lot of her favorite things. A kind of personal book of virtues, it's one that should, if life is fair, speak to a wide audience. From the first piece, ``Waking Up,'' through ``Lunch'' and ``Spring,'' on to ``Air,'' ``Fire,'' and ``Water,'' past ``Getting Older'' and five dozen others, the persuasive essayist chronicles her view of the Good Life in basic terms. She praises recreational talking and the recumbent state. Working is great, she tells us. Not working has its advantages, too. Because we dream, she reminds us, we know how a bird feels (``wonderful''), and she makes us remember that certain things, like happy hours, were given to humanity for enjoyment; it's wasteful and wicked to scorn them. The author expounds on diverse matters that make her heart leap for joy, from firecrackers, gardening, cats, and dogs to bare feet, speeding, and whistling. Her heart leaps a lot, to be sure, though there are a few things, like seat belts, with which Holland is not entirely pleased. Written in confident style, one in which nouns may masquerade as sentences, this winsome text corrects a current misapprehension about the world—it may not be so bad, after all. Just consider all the fun in it. There's the Fourth of July. Down comforters. Flora. Fauna. Books of essays. Holland, with her instructive essays, may not lengthen our days on this planet, but perhaps a few of those days will be enhanced for a little while. And that's not bad at all.