Personal Pleasures is an anthology of 80 short essays (some of them very short) about the things the feminist critic and nivelist Rose Macaulay enjoyed most in life. The complete list consists of:
Abroad
Album
Arm-Chair
Astronomy
Bakery in the Night
Bathing
1 Off the Florida Keys
2 Off the Ligurian Coast
3 In the Cam
Bed
1 Getting into it
2 Not getting out of it
Believing
Bird in the Box
Book Auctions
Booksellers' Catalogues
Bulls
Candlemas
Canoeing
Chasing Fireflies
Christmas Morning
Church-going
1. Anglican
2. Roman Catholic
3. Quaker
4. Unitarian
Cinema
Clothes
Cows
Departure of Visitors
Disbelieving
Doves in the Chimney
Driving a Car
Easter in the Woods
Eating and Drinking
Elephants in Bloomsbury
Fastest on Earth
Finishing a Book
Fire Engines
Flattery
Flower Shop in the Night
Flying
Following the Fashion
Fraternal
Getting Rid
Hatching Eggs
Heresies
Hot Bath
Ignorance
1. Of one's neighbours
2. Of current literature
3. Of gossip
4. Of wickedness
5. Of one's pass-book
Improving the Dictionary
Listening In
Logomachy
Meals Out
1 On the roof
2 On the pavement
New Year's Eve
Not Going to Parties
Parties
Play-Going
Pretty Creatures
Reading
Shopping Abroad
Showing Off
Solitude
Sunday
Taking Umbrage
Talking about a New Car
Telling Travellers' Tales
Turtles in Hyde Park
Walking
Writing
While each essay can be read on its own as a short dose of delicious writing, the collection is also an autobiographical selection, revealing glimpses of Rose's own life, and making us laugh helplessly with her inimitable humour.