If I could sum up my reads for June and July, it would be books that were decently interesting but not super earth-shattering. The two biggest exceptions to that were The Future is Analog by David Sax, which you can read my thoughts on here, and The Power of Fun by Catherine Price.
I actually listened to The Power of Fun on audiobook and I would highly recommend it to anyone. Price is the narrator and her delivery is spot on, especially when delivering some very deadpan humor. (I seriously laughed out loud after hearing her say “We are all going to die.” If that’s not excellent narration, I don’t know what is.) But beyond that, I adored the book. Not only does Price argue for bringing more fun into our lives, but she gives clear steps on how to do it, as well as a really excellent definition of “true fun” we can use as a benchmark. I think this is a must-read for creatives (because fun can be an excellent pathway into creativity) but I would recommend it to anyone whose life feels a little stagnant.
Speaking of creativity, I read three books on the subject last month: Emotion by Design by Greg Hoffman, Inspired by Matt Richtel, and The Runaway Species by Anthony Brandt and David Eagleman. All had interesting tidbits, though none blew me away with a whole new worldview.
If I had to pick a favorite of the three, it would be Emotion by Design. Hoffman is the former Chief Marketing Officer at Nike, where he worked in the design department for the majority of his career. I’ve often said the artists and makers can learn a lot about marketing from sport, and I loved how Hoffman weaves together these two areas so seamlessly. Art has the power to inspire in the same way that sport does, but for some reason we often fall short in using that same sense of emotion and connection in our marketing. I had two small complaints about Emotion by Design. One is that it’s hard to divorce my feelings about Nike as a brand from Nike as a company and the often questionable methods they use to manufacture their products. And the second is that, as an individual creative, it’s hard not to read some of the suggestions and think, “well of course those worked for Nike, they’re a huge company with a massive budget.” Still, of the three books I read on creativity, Emotion by Design left me feeling the most inspired.
I wish I could say the same for The Mirror and the Palette by Jennifer Higgie. I was so excited to dive into this book about women’s self-portraiture and hoped it would be a worthwhile companion to Seeing Ourselves by Frances Borzello, which before The Mirror and the Palette was the only other book focused exclusively on female self-portraiture. (You can read my thoughts on Seeing Ourselves here.) And while I think it’s a great introduction to a number of incredible female artists (including a few I wasn’t familiar with, which I always love) it left me wanting in a few ways. First, I was a little disappointed that the book only focused on painted self-portraiture. I’ll admit, this was a bit selfish, as I take photographic self-portraits and teach a class on self-portraits as a marketing tool, but I also feel like choosing not to include photography took out some incredible 20th-century artists and denies the ways that the camera expanded women’s abilities to control their own images. Beyond that, I wanted the book to dive more into the motivation behind self-portraiture. While the chapters were arranged thematically around different concepts, most of what followed was not a deep dive into the concepts but more biographical details about the women whose work reflected those concepts.
All of that being said, I would still recommend this book to anyone interested in women in the arts, particular because the more support we have for books like this, the more will get written. It’s just best to enter this book expecting it to be more biography than theory.
There was definitely more theory in Mona Chollet’s In Defense of Witches, though if you’re fairly versed on feminist history and theory, there’s not really much that you won’t already know. Still, I found this an interesting read as well. I read it back in June, and I will say that not a lot stuck with me, so take that with a grain of salt.
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