Weekly newsletter: How to be happy

This week: notes to myself, maintaining perspective, my favorite books, TV, movies, and more... View this email in your browser. Hey y'all, Here are 10 things I thought were worth sharing this week:  Some simple notes to myself.    Jerry Seinfeld's trick for maintaining a sense of perspective.   A tiny Christmas miracle: my 2-year-old woke up and decided he could draw! And I blogged about comparing kid's art to cave paintings and using scraps of my boys' drawings in my notebooks.   I enjoyed Mitch Resnick's book, Lifelong Kindergarten, about cultivating creativity through, projects, peers, passion, and play. (Here's a video of him talking about the book.)   I finished Oliver Sacks' The River of Consciousness. Really good. I'm now reading Eve Babitz's Eve's Hollywood. (I really liked Slow Days, Fast Company.)   Ear candy: I'm listening to this "lost" Velvet Underground album, zoning out to Hiroshi Yoshimura's Music for Nine Post Cards, and catching up with Aquarium Drunkard's 2017 Year in Review.   Streaming on Netflix: we finished Halt and Catch Fire, and while I wasn't totally crazy about the finale, I really loved the show. (Check out their great playlists on Spotify.)    My favorite movies and TV shows I watched this year. Top 3 movies: Get Out, The Handmaiden, and City of Gold.   I'm still putting together my Top 100 list of stuff that made my year. Here are lists from the past 3 years.    In case you missed it last week, here are 15 great books I read this year. (And here's how to read more next year.) Thanks for reading! If you like this newsletter, forward it to a friend, buy a book, a calendar, or tweet me some love.  If you're seeing this newsletter for the first time, you can subscribe here. Hope y'all have a really wonderful New Year. xoxo,  Austin PS. There's a giveaway of the new calendar happening over on my Instagram. If you're like me and you sort of hate entering giveaways, the calendar is only $10 here. Austin Kleon is the author of Steal Like An Artist and other books. Subscribe to this newsletter Follow me elsewhere: Twitter Instagram Tumblr Copyright © 2017 Austin Kleon, All rights reserved. You're receiving this newsletter because you signed up for it at www.austinkleon.com My mailing address is: Austin Kleon 4301 W. William Cannon Dr. Suite B 150 #241 Austin, Texas 78749 Add us to your address book unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences

Weekly newsletter: 15 great books I read in 2017

This week: the best of my reading year and how to read more in the new year... 

This week: 15 great books I read in 2017 and how to read more in the new year... View this email in your browser. Hey y'all, Here are 10 things I thought were worth sharing this week:  A list of my favorite books I read this year.   I wrote about the folly of making lists, and re-visited some of my previous reading years.    Here's how to read more next year.   I'm currently reading Oliver Sacks' The River of Consciousness, one of the last books he worked on before his death. It has some great stuff on memory, creativity, and, yes, stealing!   I've also been dipping into Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey, and doing a daily reading of A.R. Ammons' Tape for the Turn of the Year.   An ode to the search box, and why I wish computers were still dumb.   We've all been through enough this year, so I hope you work as little as possible in these last few weeks. (If you need an anthem, try "Hallelujah, I'm a bum!")   We're watching non-stop Christmas movies around our house. I finally saw The Thin Man and loved it.   We're also playing non-stop Christmas music. If you can't get enough A Charlie Brown Christmas, you might enjoy my christmas jazz playlist on Spotify. (For me, Christmas sounds like John Coltrane's version of  "My Favorite Things.")   If you need to do some last-minute shopping, here are some of my favorite gifts and stocking stuffers. Thanks for reading! If you like this newsletter, forward it to a friend or tweet me some love.  If you're seeing this newsletter for the first time, you can subscribe here. Happy holidays,  Austin PS. The new year will be here soon. Get my new calendar! PPS. Here's a festive photo from my Brazilian publisher — books make great gifts, you know...and mine fit in a stocking! :)  Austin Kleon is the author of Steal Like An Artist and other books. Subscribe to this newsletter Follow me elsewhere: Twitter Instagram Tumblr Copyright © 2017 Austin Kleon, All rights reserved. You're receiving this newsletter because you signed up for it at www.austinkleon.com My mailing address is: Austin Kleon 4301 W. William Cannon Dr. Suite B 150 #241 Austin, Texas 78749 Add us to your address book unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences

Weekly newsletter: Everybody’s got something

This week: how to hide and still be found, how to keep a diary, and a list of stocking-stuffers for the holidays...

This week: how to hide and still be found, how to keep a diary, and a list of stocking-stuffers for the holidays... View this email in your browser. Hey y'all, The year is 95% over. Time for a new calendar! Here are 10 things I thought were worth sharing this week:  How to hide and still be found.   When my first son was born, Nancy was all I could manage to read. After reading the classic essay [PDF], I have been waiting for the book version of How To Read Nancy for years. It didn't disappoint. If the idea of reading 200+ pages on Nancy doesn't do it for you, just steal this advice from the author: "Study something you love in depth."   I wrote about David Sedaris's method of keeping a diary and the importance of revisiting notebooks. (And guardian spirits!)   I enjoyed David Rakoff's essay collection Half Empty. Really funny. Great sentences. Don't miss his bit on the Broadway show Rent.   I finally finished Walter Isaacson's biography of Leonardo da Vinci. I wasn't a huge fan of the book's structure, honestly, but here's how to wake up like Leo. (I read two really outstanding biographies this year: Laura Walls' Thoreau: A Life and Stefan Zweig's Montaigne.)    Why I'm obsessed by the simplest cut.   Ear candy: it's NSFW, but I really liked Jon Ronson's podcast series, The Butterfly Effect. (His book So You've Been Publicly Shamed was near the top of my favorite reads of 2015.)   Eye candy: my wife and I loved The Fabulous Mrs. Maisel and Christmas in Connecticut.    Tis the season to freak out about last-minute holiday shopping! Don't worry, here's a big list of my favorite stocking-stuffers. (Might I suggest some books I like and some books I signed?)   If you're having a rough time, remember: the demons hate fresh air. (Also: stay away from the "this sucks!" hammer!) Thanks for reading! If you like this newsletter, forward it to a friend, buy a book, buy a calendar, or tweet me some love.  If you're seeing this newsletter for the first time, you can subscribe here. xoxo,  Austin PS. Steal Like An Artist is in the NYTimes Book Review this week and also on sale at Target! Not bad for a 5-year-old book. Austin Kleon is the author of Steal Like An Artist and other books. Subscribe to this newsletter Follow me elsewhere: Twitter Instagram Tumblr Copyright © 2017 Austin Kleon, All rights reserved. You're receiving this newsletter because you signed up for it at www.austinkleon.com My mailing address is: Austin Kleon 4301 W. William Cannon Dr. Suite B 150 #241 Austin, Texas 78749 Add us to your address book unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences