| Hey y'all,
Here are 10 things I thought were worth sharing this week: - Keep Going comes out on Tuesday, so you only have a few days left to pre-order and get a free print. (Here's how.) Monday, I'm hitting the road on a 25-city tour. It's my biggest ever. First stops: Austin, Philadelphia, and NYC. Come see me. Bring a friend or two or ten. (And please read this before saying, "Why aren't you coming to my town?")
- I've been doing tons of interviews to promote the book. Here's a nice one with CJ Chilvers in which we discuss parenting, Indiana Jones, and my librarian background. I'm trying hard to enjoy this moment, the quiet before the cyclone, but book tour has me anxious (gotta try to channel my inner Rick Steves!), so I'm making a lot of collages, treating the page as a place to escape.
- This week I read Dryer's English, a writing guide by Random House's longtime copy chief, Benjamin Dreyer. It's funny and fun to read. (For desk reference, he recommends Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary [gotta have a paper dictionary!], their Dictionary of English Usage, and their twitter account: @merriamwebster. He also recommends The Chicago Manual of Style and the out-of-print Words into Type.)
- I've been feeling extra addicted to my phone lately, so I read Cal Newport's Digital Minimalism. Newport writes, "doing nothing is overrated," so I'm gonna chase him (or his book, rather — that was a funny image) with Jenny Odell's How To Do Nothing.
- I'm currently reading How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk, which has one of the greatest opening lines I've ever read: "I was a wonderful parent before I had children."
- The late great Amy Krouse Rosenthal was a big influence on Keep Going (she was up on the bulletin board), so I was happy to see her daughter Paris carrying on her legacy with Project 1, 2, 3, a journal based on Amy's Instagram project. (Speaking of the bulletin board, the Van Gogh Museum is posting a bunch of great stuff about David Hockney on their Twitter feed.)
- On the blog I wrote about the friendship of Saul Steinberg and Kurt Vonnegut and the connection between Corita Kent and Albert Camus.
- A couple of poems: "Poem" by Joe Brainard (you've read I Remember, haven't you?) and "Berryman" by W.S. Merwin. ("if you have to be sure don't write")
- Ear/eye candy: watch harpist Mary Lattimore do her thing at The Art Institute of Chicago.
- RIP musician Scott Walker.
Thanks for reading. If you like this newsletter and want to support it, forward it to someone who'd like it or, even better, buy them a copy of Keep Going.
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xoxo,
Austin
PS. Thanks to @cigelske's 5-year-old for perfectly capturing how I feel right now: | | | |
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