Discovering the masterpiece right in front of you

In this week's newsletter: paying attention, a slew of book recommendations, and more...

In this week's newsletter: paying attention, a slew of book recommendations, and more... View this email in your browser Hey y'all, San Francisco: Tickets to my talk at Litquake are going fast! Here are 10 things I thought were worth sharing this week:  Discovering the masterpiece right in front of you.   This week I fell in love with Edward Gorey's The West Wing, a creepy wordless story collected in Amphigorey. I also read a galley of Jerry Saltz's How To Be An Artist and Malaka Gharib's I Was Their American Dream. And I've been completely sucked into Van Gogh: The Life. (In Range, David Epstein called it "one of the best books I have ever read in any genre.")   There are so many talented people with books out or coming soon that I don't really know what to do other than list them here and add them to my stack: Eleanor Davis, The Hard Tomorrow; Kevin Huizenga, The River at Night; Tillie Walden, Are You Listening?; Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key; Liana Finck, Excuse Me; Josh Gondelman, Nice Try; Manjula & Orin Martin, Fruit Trees for Every Garden; Don Hertzfeldt, The End of the World;  Erika Hall, Just Enough Research (2nd Edition); David Heatley, Qualification; and, last but not least,  Chase Jarvis, Creative Calling. And everybody I missed. Phew!    Twyla Tharp and DJ Shadow on how to get ideas by digging and scratching.   One of the best things I read this week: "The Lesson of Grace in Teaching," which led me, of all things, to post one of my (unedited) diary entries online.   Recommended: Making block prints with the kids. (Make some spooky skeletons!)   How to download your Tumblr and your Twitter archive. (I backed up mine this week.)   How to recession-proof your creative practice.   RIP musician Kim Shattuck.   Your assignment this week: Please notice when you are happy. 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 book! If you're seeing this newsletter for the first time, you can subscribe here. xoxo,  Austin Austin Kleon is the author of Steal Like An Artist and other books. Subscribe to this newsletter   Copyright © 2019 Austin Kleon, All rights reserved. My mailing address is: Austin Kleon 19885 Detroit Road Box #222 Rocky River, OH 44116 You're getting this email because you signed up for it at austinkleon.com. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list. Amazon Affiliate links offset the cost of sending these missives.