Austin Kleon - Read like an artist

Hey y’all,

Here are 10 things I thought were worth sharing this week: 

1. I’m starting a book club! It’s called Read Like An Artist. Every month I’ll pick a book I love that’s related to living a more creative life. Here’s why I’m starting the club and how I chose this first book. If it sounds fun, I hope you’ll sign up!
    
2. To whet your appetite for the book club, here are some of my favorite posts I’ve written about reading: how to read more, how to eat a book, reading with a pencil, reading more than one book at a time, why you should read old books, books as distance learning, and books that suck you in and spin you out.
    
3. RIP Matt Thomas’s Sunday NYTimes Digest. Silver lining: We should get more good writing from Matt. (I’m a big fan of his blog and have stolen a lot from him over the years.)
    
4. The return of John Mulaney in the context of other stand-up comedians who go away so they can come back. (cf. Hilton Als’ “A Pryor Love,” collected in White Girls.)
    
5. A profile of composer Nicholas Brittel, who scored Barry Jenkins’ new adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad.
    
6. Business has been so weird lately, I’m fully prepared for somebody to offer me a contract in Dog Money.
    
7. Ear candy: the Czarface and MF Doom (RIP) collaboration Super What? dropped last Friday. Here’s rapper Esoteric on NPR talking about the record.
    
8. Eye candy: David Hockney paints the spring and shows us his sketchbook.
    
9. Documentary: I loved the concert film Depeche Mode 101. Made by D.A. Pennebaker (who made another favorite music documentary of mine, Don’t Look Back) and crew, it not only captures the band at their peak, it’s often blamed for The Real World and helping birth reality TV. (Another Depeche Mode related documentary worth tracking down is Synth Britannia.)
    
10. Books are like people: Sometimes they need fresh air and sunshine.