Austin Kleon — Books I recommended on the Show Your Work! tour ...

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Books I recommended on the Show Your Work! tour

I can’t stand being in a bookstore talking about only my own books and not the books I love. One of my favorite things to do on this last tour was very quickly cruise through the bookstore before my talk and pick up five (somewhat random) books to recommend during Q&A. I tried to get a decent selection, pick at least one poetry book and read a poem, and post a photo of the books from each night to my Instagram. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time at every store and not every gig was in an actual bookstore, so I only have 9 batches of books. More than enough for your summer reading, though…

Mason Currey, Daily Rituals

The Essential Scratch & Sniff Guide To Becoming A Wine Expert

Patrick DeWitt, The Sisters Brothers

Maira Kalman, And The Pursuit of Happiness

Jane Mount, My Ideal Bookshelf

Frank O'Hara, Lunch Poems

Adam Sternbergh, Shovel Ready

Lynda Barry, The Freddie Stories

Ad Reinhardt, How To Look: Art Comics

Yoko Ono, Grapefruit

Japanese Death Poems

Anthony Burrill, I Like It. What Is It?

Matt Z. Seitz, The Wes Anderson Collection

Philip Larkin, Collected Poems

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind

Tony Millionaire, The Sock Monkey Treasury

Emily Dickinson, The Gorgeous Nothings

Steven Johnson, Where Good Ideas Come From

George Saunders, Tenth of December

Yoko Ono, Acorn

Joe Hill, NOS4A2

Eadweard Muybridge, The Human Figure In Motion

Decomposition Book

Ellen Lupton, Thinking With Type

Chip Kidd, Go

Betty Edwards, Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain

Kay Ryan, The Best Of It

Katherine Dunn, Geek Love

John Green, The Fault In Our Stars

Alison Bechdel, Fun Home

Lewis Hyde, The Gift

Isa Chandra, Isa Does It

Oliver Jeffers, Lost and Found

Shel Silverstein, Where The Sidewalk Ends

Max Barry, Lexicon

Vaughn & Staples, Saga

Tim Kreider, We Learn Nothing

Magma Sketchbook

Studs Terkel, Working

Mary Ruefle, Madness, Rack, and Honey

David Byrne, How Music Works

Sarah Thornton, Seven Days In The Art World

Nathaniel Philbrick, Why Read Moby-Dick?

Maira Kalman, And The Pursuit of Happiness (forgot I’d already recommended this)

Lynda Barry, What It Is

Jay-Z, Decoded

See a bunch of other books I recommend here.

show your work show your work tour books

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