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On his 42nd birthday, the poet Ross Gay began writing a short essay about something that delighted him, and he kept at it until his 43rd. The result, The Book of Delights (2019), became a New York Times bestseller and took him far beyond poetry readers. By then he had already published three poetry collections; the third, Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude (2015), won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. He teaches at Indiana University and helped found the Bloomington Community Orchard, and fruit trees, gardens and pickup basketball run through almost everything he writes. This guide covers his seven key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 7 key books · 2006–2023 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Ross Gay has published seven books: four poetry collections, from Against Which (2006) to the book-length poem Be Holding (2020), and three essay collections, The Book of Delights (2019), Inciting Joy (2022) and The Book of (More) Delights (2023). Start with The Book of Delights; for the poetry, go to Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude (2015), his most awarded book.
Where to Start with Ross Gay
If you want his best-known book
→ The Book of Delights (2019) — a year of short daily essays.
If you want his poetry
→ Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude (2015) — the collection that won the National Book Critics Circle Award.
If you want the longer argument about joy and grief
→ Inciting Joy (2022).
If you want his most ambitious poem
→ Be Holding (2020) — one basketball move, a whole book.
7 Ross Gay Books, in Order
Against Which
Gay’s first book, published by CavanKerry Press in 2006. The poems move between elegy and celebration and already take on the subjects of his later work: family, the body, violence and race in America.
Bringing the Shovel Down
His second collection and the first in the University of Pittsburgh Press’s Pitt Poetry Series, which has published all his poetry since. Its poems hold violence, labour and the body alongside tenderness, in a harder register than the books that followed.
Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude
Poems about gardens, orchards, friends and grief for his father, many of them written in long, run-on lines; the title poem is a long, sprawling poem of thanks. It won the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award for poetry and the 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Award and an NAACP Image Award. The National Endowment for the Arts chose it for its Big Read in 2022–2023.
The Book of Delights
Written between his 42nd and 43rd birthdays, a short essay a day about something that delighted him: a friend’s air quotes, carrying a tomato seedling onto a plane, a nod between the only two Black people in a room, a praying mantis. Racism, loss and grief sit inside the same short pieces. Published by Algonquin in February 2019, it was his first prose book and became a New York Times bestseller.
Be Holding
A single book-length poem built around one move by Julius Erving, Dr. J of the Philadelphia 76ers, in the 1980 NBA Finals against the Los Angeles Lakers. From that moment it moves out to pickup basketball, the flying Igbo and the Middle Passage, photography, surveillance, state violence and his family. In 2021 it won the 75,000-dollar PEN America Jean Stein Book Award, the first university-press book to do so.
Inciting Joy
Longer essays, which Gay calls “incitements”, arguing that joy is not the opposite of sorrow but grows out of shared sorrow and care. Their material includes a family deathbed, pickup basketball, cover versions of songs he loves, a dance party, community gardening and, in “Grief Suite”, an abusive college football coach. Algonquin published it in October 2022.
The Book of (More) Delights
A second round of daily delights: 81 short essays, opening on his 47th birthday in a rented cabin in Vermont and closing with “My Birthday, Again”. The subjects include foraged apples, three beautiful spoons, his cat and the garlic he plants each year. Algonquin published it in September 2023.
In What Order to Read Ross Gay
None of his books depends on another, so you can read by form. The essays are the easiest way in: The Book of Delights first, then Inciting Joy, which makes the longer argument behind the delights, then The Book of (More) Delights, which reads best once you know the first.
For the poetry, start with Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude and go back to Against Which and Bringing the Shovel Down to see where it came from. Save Be Holding for later: it is one long poem and asks for a sitting or two of its own.
A reading path
1. The Book of Delights (2019)
2. Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude (2015)
3. Inciting Joy (2022)
4. Be Holding (2020)
5. The Book of (More) Delights (2023)
Everything Else Ross Gay Published
Beyond the 7 key books: 2 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Collaborative chapbooks
2
2 books · 2014
- 2014Lace and Pyrite: Letters from Two Gardenspoems written as letters about their gardens, with Aimee Nezhukumatathil
- 2014Rivera chapbook with Richard Wehrenberg Jr.
The years · 1974–2023
Quick facts about Ross Gay
- Known for
- Writing about delight, gratitude and joy as practices carried out alongside grief, most widely in The Book of Delights (2019).
- 1974
- Born in Youngstown, Ohio
- 2006
- First book, Against Which
- Born
- 1974, Youngstown, Ohio; grew up outside Philadelphia
- Education
- Lafayette College, where he played football; MFA, Sarah Lawrence College; PhD in English, Temple University
- Teaches
- Poetry at Indiana University, Bloomington
- Awards
- National Book Critics Circle Award (2015), Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award (2016), PEN America Jean Stein Book Award (2021)
- Fellowships
- Guggenheim Foundation, Cave Canem, Bread Loaf
- Community
- Founding board member of the Bloomington Community Orchard, a free-fruit project
The red mark is 2019: The Book of Delights, the book that brought him readers outside poetry.
How Ross Gay Writes: Delight as a Discipline
Gay treats attention as something you practise. The Book of Delights had a rule: one essay a day, for a year. For The Book of (More) Delights he wrote them daily, quickly and by hand. What looks like a light subject is a method: noticing the small good thing on a day that also holds racism, illness or a death.
His poems favour long, run-on sentences that keep adding clauses instead of stopping, as in the long title poem of Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude. Be Holding pushes the same habit further: one poem, the length of a book, circling a single basketball move. The essays are looser and often funny, and a piece can turn from a joke to a grief in a sentence.
The subjects come from his own life in Bloomington: fruit trees, the community orchard, pickup basketball, friends and family. In Inciting Joy he argues outright what the earlier books show, that joy is made together and out of sorrow, not in spite of it. For more writers who look this closely at the ordinary, see the guides to Mary Oliver and Wendell Berry.
Watch
Ross Gay in conversation with Adrian Matejka
Gay talks with the poet Adrian Matejka about The Book of (More) Delights at a Family Action Network event in Evanston, Illinois, in October 2023.
Frequently asked questions about Ross Gay’s books
Who is Ross Gay?
An American poet and essayist, born in 1974 in Youngstown, Ohio. He teaches poetry at Indiana University in Bloomington and is best known for Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude (2015) and The Book of Delights (2019).
How many books has Ross Gay written?
Seven books of his own: four poetry collections and three essay collections, all listed on this page. He also co-wrote two chapbooks in 2014, Lace and Pyrite with Aimee Nezhukumatathil and River with Richard Wehrenberg Jr.
What are Ross Gay’s books in order?
Against Which (2006), Bringing the Shovel Down (2011), Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude (2015), The Book of Delights (2019), Be Holding (2020), Inciting Joy (2022) and The Book of (More) Delights (2023).
Where should I start with Ross Gay?
With The Book of Delights: short daily essays you can read in any order. If you want his poetry, start with Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude.
What is Ross Gay’s most famous book?
The Book of Delights (2019), a New York Times bestseller. Among his poetry, Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude (2015) is the best known and the most awarded.
What awards has Ross Gay won?
Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude won the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award for poetry and the 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, and was a National Book Award finalist. Be Holding won the 2021 PEN America Jean Stein Book Award. He has fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and Cave Canem.
Is The Book of Delights poetry or prose?
Prose. It is a collection of short essays, many only a paragraph or two long, written one a day between his 42nd and 43rd birthdays. It was his first prose book.
What order should I read The Book of Delights and The Book of (More) Delights in?
Publication order: The Book of Delights (2019) first, then The Book of (More) Delights (2023), which opens on his 47th birthday. Inciting Joy (2022), which came out between them, works well as a bridge.
What is Be Holding about?
It is one book-length poem built around a move by Julius Erving in the 1980 NBA Finals against the Los Angeles Lakers. From there it moves to pickup basketball, the Middle Passage, photography, surveillance, state violence and family.
What is Ross Gay’s writing style?
Long, run-on sentences and lines that keep adding instead of stopping, and a habit of holding joy and grief in the same sentence. His essays are shorter, looser and often funny.
What is the Bloomington Community Orchard?
A free-fruit community orchard in Bloomington, Indiana, run as a nonprofit. Gay is a founding board member, and the orchard and its fruit trees appear throughout Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude and his essays.
Footnotes
- Ross Gay — Poetry Foundation
- Ross Gay wins PEN America Jean Stein Book Award — University of Pittsburgh Press
- Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude — rossgay.net
- The Book of Delights — rossgay.net
- The Book of (More) Delights — Kirkus Reviews
- The Author — Wichita Public Library Big Read
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“Sharing what we love is dangerous, it is vulnerable, is like baring your neck, or your belly.”
— Ross Gay, Inciting Joy (2022)
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