• The Small Stuff Ian Bogost (Allen Lane £20, 240pp)

We have all been told, by politicians, business leaders and busybodies, not to ‘sweat the small stuff’, but, asks Ian Bogost in a very entertaining book, why the hell not? The small stuff is, by and large, the more interesting stuff. Wars rage and the world burns, but I’m more interested right now in the alphabetical order of my bookshelves, or the new pants drawer I have recently been given by my girlfriend. Bogost believes that the material world is teeming with unexpected opportunities for sensual pleasure, and all we have to do is to allow ourselves to experience them.

The enemy, as so often, is technology, and most specifically, the smartphone. How many times have we seen parents in restaurants fiddling with their phones and ignoring their children? How many times have we been those parents? I used to have a mobile, but I left it on a lectern in 2016 to go to the loo, while I was presenting a quiz at The Oval, and when I returned, someone had nicked it. I have never replaced it, and although my family complain incessantly they don’t know where I am, the upside is they don’t know where I am.

Bogost says: ‘It’s a cliche to urge you to “stop and smell the roses”, but you don’t even have to stop. Their scent is already in the air when they bloom alongside the path to the preschool drop-off. Have you taken a whiff?’ I have indeed. ‘It’s not too late to reclaim the lost joy of everyday interactions, because the world in which you live is full of ordinary stuff with which you might yet commune. It’s easy, and free, and consequence-free. I call it gratification, and this is a book about how to rediscover it.’

Many of the most interesting passages of the book involve actual conversations about ‘stuff’. There’s one in which Bogost meets another dedicated consumer of Diet Coke and they agree that it tastes worst out of plastic bottles. Cans are slightly better, but both of them much prefer the version you get in pubs where syrup is mixed with carbonated water in the drinks ‘gun’ the bartender operates. And the best Diet Coke of all, they agree, is that served in Texas in huge knobbly red buckets. Oddly enough I had a similar conversation recently with some Maltesers fans. We all agreed that they taste so much better from the waxed cardboard boxes than from the plastic bags. In fact I may be compelled to go out and buy a box as soon as I have finished writing this review.

The Small Stuff is immensely cheering, and will have you looking at the moquette patterns on public transport in a new light. Bogost doesn’t believe in deferred gratification: he thinks that people like me, who always leave the best bit of the pizza until last, when it’s usually gone cold, are idiots. But there’s nothing deferred about the pleasure this book will give. Whether you like to pour the tea first or the milk, I think you’ll love it.