Welcome back to the Elastic Waist Book Club, the book club for smart and discerning people who now have plenty of time to have bought the book, we hope! This go-round, we're talking about Endangered Pleasures: In Defense of Naps, Bacon, Martinis, Profanity, and Other Indulgences.

Moderation, I think, is the watchword of Sensible Modern Thinking--enjoy just a square of good dark chocolate, have a glass of wine a night because it's heart-healthy, exercise but not to exhaustion because you'll just hurt yourself, get enough sleep--but not too much, because you're just screwing up your body's rhythms and ruining it for everyone. Moderation is healthy, and pleasurable, even--who feels ready and wide-awake and bouncy after a 12-course meal and a bottle of wine, or an entire box of cookies? But it can be exhausting, having to be good all the time--having to assign good or bad labels to your behaviors, your choices, having to control yourself, stay in the straight-and-narrow, behave.

Holland recognizes the necessity and the complete joy that can come from eschewing the rules, dumping the healthy ideal, and reveling in the things that we are not supposed to do, and often not even admit that we enjoy. There is a pleasure in the illicitness of the act, but Holland moves beyond that, to the very pleasure itself, divorced from the idea of morality, of transgression and wrong-doing and sin. She describes each indulgence in sensory, sensual terms, so that the idea of guilt dissolves entirely, in most cases.

The best part of the book, I think, is that Holland does not go for the easy targets in the checklist of the Seven Deadly Sins. She tackles the secret, almost shameful stuff we rarely, if ever, admit that we enjoy. From the reckless endangerment that driving without a seatbelt represents to the joy of absolute selfishness, taking advantage of the generosity offered to you instead of demurely and modestly waving it aside, enjoying the misfortune of others, particularly when it secures your own fortune. Terrible things. Let's not entirely eradicate the guilt we experience. Let's not lie and say we don't enjoy those moments, even for the tiniest split second.

The pleasure here is that Holland revels in them, and we can revel with her, almost guilt-free.

So what did you think? Did Holland nail the pleasure of guilty pleasures? Did she go too far, celebrating the guiltiest of them? Is there a reason most of these are, in fact, endangered (the joy of not exercising at all, for instance) or should they be brought back--ironically, in moderation? What's your favorite guilty pleasure?