The Joy of Small Things by Hannah Jane Parkinson review – a compendium of delights

The Guardian writer's collection of her columns is a droll and open-hearted bite-size read

In 2018, when things seemed bleak, both in her personal life and in the world at large, the journalist Hannah Jane Parkinson started writing a column for the Guardian on small things that gave her joy. The idea, she freely admits, was nabbed from JB Priestley, who wrote a book some 70 years earlier called Delight. If this grouchy Yorkshireman could take the time to sit down and document his everyday exultations," she reasoned, then I, someone whose default is a sort of droll cynicism, could do the same."

After three years of celebrating dogs in parks and night buses, regional accents and the subtle pleasure of closing browser tabs - a period that spanned the onset of a pandemic, when even small pleasures were in short supply - the column came to an end in September. Now Parkinson has turned it into a book, gathering together more than 100 entries, each one short and snappy as befits the theme.