Austin Kleon’s 2018 Reading List

Unsolicited, but here’s my advice for visual thinkers (and others) who want to be better writers: Get Lynda Barry’s What It Is and do the exercises every day in a private notebook.

Unsolicited, but here’s my advice for visual thinkers (and others) who want to be better writers:

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Cartoonists, because their work demands work from two disciplines (writing/art, poetry/design, words/pictures), are highly instructive when it comes to visual people learning to write, writers learning to make art, etc. (Check out Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics for more.)

Beautiful stories. A perfect swan song.

I started the book on December 6 of last year, and followed along with each entry until January 10th.

Takes a look at Bach’s work through the recordings of his works throughout the years. I especially liked reading about Glenn Gould and Pablo Casals.

A day-by-day play-by-play of Prince in the recording studio at the height of his powers. I did a lot of skimming and skipping around, but really enjoyed it.

A sausage-fest, but a good sausage-fest.

A comic diary of Davis’s bike across the south. I love her work so much. If I had to pick, this might be my favorite book I read this year. She’s on fire, and I can’t wait to read what’s next.

Very much worth reading.

How much you enjoy it will probably depend on your familiarity with the music — I was eighteen and a freshman in college when I saw The Strokes in Newport, KY, in 2001, so it made me pretty danged nostalgic.

I was a year late to this, but it’s as advertised: Smart, smutty, and laugh-out-loud funny.

I loved this book, which was edited from Hannah’s actual diaries that he kept as a young man in 70s NYC. My only gripe is that the book doesn’t include images of the actual notebooks, which are wonderfully visual.

Devoured this one, and afterwards, was surprised it took me so long to pick it up. Glass writes about so many of my favorite topics: creativity, day jobs, parenting, lineage, etc. Totally accessible, and made me want to listen to more of his music.

I’m not so sure that Julavitz and I would get along together at a party, but dang, I liked her book.