I know a book about a marriage and family breaking up shouldn’t be on one’s holiday reading list but Happens Every Day  isn’t maudlin and self-pitying at all.  Here’s a bit I liked about finding happiness and good pancakes:

You start to look at the tiniest things to make you feel better, alive.  Anything to give you a moment of happiness.  My friend Eve told me to look at the fallen leaf on the road and try to see even the smallest glimpse of beautiy….One Sunday morning the four of us were at brunch.  It was painful.  We were faking being a family…The place where we were having brunch was actually the town bar, but on Sundays a renegade brunch cook took over the kitchen that usually slung out frozen bar food.  He produced world-class eggs and pancakes.  His specialty was savory pancakes.  I ordered pancakes with asparagus, Gruyere, and ham.  They were served with maple syrup and two eggs on top.  It was a leap of culninary faith to order them…..I did what the waiter told me to and poured the syrup over the dish.  It was sublime.  Somthing about the sweet and savory and the sharp cheese and the runny yolks.  I called out, “Sweet lord these are incredible!”  And I started to laugh.  It was as if I was eating dulce de leche ice cream for the first time.  A bomb of involuntary happiness went off in my mouth.  Josiah didn’t seem to appreciate my enthusiasm, and the boys continued to throw hash browns on the floor and dump the salt on the table, but at that very moment my life was being saved.