Everybody just got here

In this week's newsletter: summer reading recommendations, writing tips, and more... 

In this week's newsletter: summer reading recommendations, writing tips, and more... View this email in your browser Hey y'all, Here are 10 things I thought were worth sharing this week:  Looking for summer reading? Here are 10 good books I've read so far this year. (And here are all my favorite books for the past decade or so.)   Errol Morris on "The Pianist and the Lobster." (My favorite line: "It's hard to forgive yourself, really, if you've done nothing wrong.")   Author Richard Wright spent the last years of his life writing thousands of haiku.   Need some writing prompts? Try a bag of words.   The wisdom of director Billy Wilder. (Also: re-read this interview with director Agnes Varda.)   A nice essay on Day of the Tentacle, one of my all-time favorite adventure games. (You can get the remastered version on Steam.)   Jonathan Fields interviewed me for the Good Life Project podcast. Really fun conversation.    Ear candy: The electronic band Autechre gave away 2 hours of unreleased music from their early days. (If you like punk, I've been listening to a Spotify playlist recreation of the 1980 Rough Trade compilation, Wanna Buy A Bridge?)   Eye candy: Our friends got my wife and I hooked on Rick and Morty.   Remember: Everybody just got here. 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.

Finding something new to say

In this week's newsletter: No input, no output, book recommendations, ear and eye candy, and more...

In this week's newsletter: no input, no output, book, movie, and music recommendations, and more... View this email in your browser Hey y'all, Here are 10 things I thought were worth sharing this week:  I'm on vacation, thinking a lot about how you have to take time to recharge and find something new to say. (As Joe Strummer put it: "No input, no output.")   I re-read Charles Portis's True Grit, and man, that novel is even better than I remembered. The perfect summer read. After I finished, I started re-reading The Dog of the South, my favorite of his, and after I devour that, I might finally read Escape Velocity, a collection of his odds and ends.   I came across some old notes to myself about how I wanted to proceed. They mostly hold up.   Another great case for going back to blogging. (I especially loved the part about gardening. See my post: "The gardens where ideas grow.")    A good poem for battling the onslaught of social media: Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself, 4."   Stay calm and do the washing up.   Streaming: my wife and I loved season four of our favorite soap opera, Billions. Trashy, smart, and fun, just how I like my TV.   Eye candy: I saw Jim Jarmusch's zombie flick The Dead Don't Die. It's nowhere near as good as his vampire movie, Only Lovers Left Alive, or my favorite of his, Down By Law. Still, there was a lot to enjoy, especially all the Ghoulardi references.     Ear candy: Bill Callahan's new record is on endless repeat at our house. Just a wonderful album that I cannot recommend enough. I've also been getting into Flying Lotus, especially the album You're Dead! Here's a nice little interview with his musician grandmother. (He's the great nephew of Alice Coltrane!)   You are fine without advice or suggestions. 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 PS. I just signed a bunch of my books at Bookpeople in Austin, TX, including the new one, Keep Going. You can order signed copies online at Bookpeople.com. They ship everywhere! 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.

Curious is a good thing to be

In this week's newsletter: curiosity, old age, musical archives, mystery, and more...

In this week's newsletter: curiosity, old age, musical archives, mystery, and more... View this email in your browser Hey y'all, Here are 10 things I thought were worth sharing this week:  Stick around and stay curious, because curious is a good thing to be.   This week I finished Donald Hall's A Carnival of Losses: Notes Nearing Ninety, which is a little looser than Essays Over Eighty, but plenty enjoyable. I did a "people you follow" search for both of these collections and the only result was John Wilson's review, which is very good. (Next up: reading more of Jane Kenyon's poems.)   I re-read the wonderful books in Bruno Munari's workshop series: Drawing a Tree, The Tactile Workshops, Drawing The Sun, and Roses in the Salad. (I have not been able to track down the other two books in the series, A Flower With Love and Original Xerographies, which both seem to be out-of-print and ridiculously expensive. Lemme know if you have a lead on them!)    Favorite thing I wrote this week: Writers on how stuttering shaped their work. (TL;DR: it was an excuse to post this recording of my six-year-old reading Philip Larkin.)   "The Day the Music Burned." Terrific reporting by Jody Rosen on the 2008 Universal fire and also a meditation on the music industry, historic preservation, and recording technology. Reminded me a lot of Nicholson Baker's Double Fold.    More from my blog: Wandering zines, a look at the original mechanicals for The Medium is the Massage, the fate of an archive, and Thoreau's obsession with frogs.   Ear candy: Rather than paying a hacker's ransom, Radiohead released 18 hours of stolen OK Computer sessions on Bandcamp.   Françoise Gilot's memoir, Life with Picasso, has been reissued, and at 97, she says she regrets nothing.   When the world's most famous mystery writer vanished. (Agatha Christie's An Autobiography is my wife's favorite book.)   Speaking of mystery: There's something buried in the moon. (If you're reading this, the sun has not died yet, and that's not nothing!) 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 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.