Second Star: and other reasons for lingering

by Philippe Delerm, Jody Gladding (Translator)

Overview

A #1 bestseller in France, Second Star is an inspiring series of lyrical meditations on life's smallest moments, from peeling a clementine, drinking a cold mojito, to washing your windows

A still life in motion, Second Star "consumes the present" with a patient curiosity, asking us to "put off tomorrow" and join Philippe Delerm in tasting, touching, listening, and noticing.

Whether biting into a bitter turnip or savoring a summer evening in June, Philip Delerm's literary snapshots transport us to simple, often overlooked sensations and pleasures, and, pausing, expand a moment or emotion outwards in concentric circles.

Vividly translated by Jody Gladding, these evocative vignettes invite us to linger, to "savor the few moments of silence"––as if each bite of a ripe watermelon, each exhaled breath on a bitterly cold day, each cloudy evening on the beach, were our last.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781953861542
Publisher:	Steerforth Press
Publication date:	05/16/2023
Pages:	164
Sales rank:	1,100,807
Product dimensions:	5.52(w) x 6.20(h) x 0.45(d)

About the Author

Philippe Delerm was born in 1950 in a suburb of Paris. A retired schoolteacher, Delerm writes fiction, essays, and children's books. His collection of essays La Première gorgée de bière et autres plaisirs minuscules sold more than one million copies in France and became a #1 bestseller. It was translated into English as The Small Pleasures of Life (also known as We Could Almost Eat Outside: An appreciation of life's small pleasures) translated by Sarah Hamp. He has published eleven books, including AUTUMN which won the Prix Alain-Fournier in 1990.

Jody Gladding has translated the works of Elizabeth Deshays, Hervé This, and Jean Giono, among others. She has written several books of poetry, including the spiders my arms (2018). Gladding has been honored with a Whiting Writers’ Award, an Academy of American Poets Prize, a Centre National du Livre de France Translation grant and a French-American Foundation Translation Award, along with a MacDowell Colony fellowship, a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford, and a residency at The Frost Place.

Editorial Reviews

"Throughout this collection of lighthearted vignettes, the author invites readers to slow down and cherish moments . . . getting caught in a rain shower, eating a clementine one-handed . . . or the joy of bouncing a baby in your arms . . . Delerm’s brief observations allow readers to dip in and out, offering moments of reflection and contemplation."
--Kirkus Reviews

"Delerm finds resonant meanings in everyday objects, moments, and coincidences, burrowing into surprisingly emotional depths as he probes attachment and loss . . . The point of the exercises in Second Star is to mentally invigorate, to sharpen how we look at the things in plain sight that we take for granted."
--Thomas Filbin, The Arts Fuse

Delerm’s beautiful book of brief meditations reminds us that lingering, observing, noticing, wondering—about a gesture on the soccer pitch; visitors to the public piano; oneself interacting with others on the street, on the train—is one of the ways our lives become meaningful.
--Ross Gay, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and author of New York Times bestseller, The Book of Delights

"Philippe Delerm is capable of taking the smallest sensations and observations and turning them into quiet meditations that fit within a frame that is never too tight or too large."
--Joseph Schrieber, Rough Ghosts

"Delerm packs big ideas into small packages . . . While Delerm is interested in slowing the reader down to savor minutiae and to question some of life’s accepted nuisances, holiness is averted. In its place are intelligent observations and terse judgments laden with wit . . . Delerm’s literary snapshots nestle well into the long history of authors penning atmospheric flash and micro essays . . . This is the perfect book to keep handy after a rough day."
--Ben Woodard, On the Seawall


"Whether it’s watching a couple dance on the Seine, listening to the sounds of Venice, watching a man on the bus, or dancing without knowing how, this is a book that breathes life into the reader, one snapshot at a time."
--Amy Bobeda, Full Stop

From the Publisher

2023-01-11
A French author meditates on the simple pleasures of life.

In the translator’s note, Gladding writes, “these pieces are drawn from The Troubled Waters of the Mojito and The Ecstasy of the Selfie, the most recent collections of…Delerm’s ‘literary snapshots,’ a genre he invented over two decades ago and still uniquely represents.” Throughout this collection of lighthearted vignettes, the author invites readers to slow down and cherish moments—e.g., getting caught in a rain shower, eating a clementine one-handed, and dancing as if no one is watching, “making peace with your body.” Delerm also explores the serenity that comes from folding sheets, the brightness to be found in washing windows, and the calmness that arrives when you hold a physical book in your hand. “In essence,” writes the author, “it holds a promise of solitude, retreat, silence.” Other elements of everyday life take on a darker tone, such as the self-destructive nature of vaping, the drama associated with achieving the perfect selfie, the isolation of using a smartphone, the impatience that can arise from waiting at a restaurant, and the agitation that comes from losing memories to Alzheimer’s. Of one such person, the author writes, “She’ll remember that she lost something, she won’t know what. They say it’s hell. But there isn’t a word for it.” Delerm examines many intimate moments in life, such as the expressions of ecstasy that desserts can elicit or the joy of bouncing a baby in your arms. The author also contemplates the regional joys of France and Italy, including viewing a Michel Bouquet play from the third balcony, watching tango dancers near the Seine, and observing summer tourists gather at the San Giacomo fountain in Venice. Although the text feels disjointed, perhaps necessarily so, Delerm’s brief observations allow readers to dip in and out, offering moments of reflection and contemplation as time permits.

Brief, tender instruction on how to stop and smell the roses.

Kirkus Reviews