Five Recommended Reads for the Creative Human

by e. nork

As a bibliophile, writer, and mild hoarder, I have over time accumulated a collection of books I’ve found in that all-too-familiar bookstore fever, which have turned out to be priceless assets in my creative (and human) endeavors. Here are five of those aforementioned imperative reads, for those who not only want to create great works, but live a great life:

ONE: Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style

One would not build a house without a cement foundation - such is the case for writing without The Elements of Style. If there’s anything learning Latin for five years has taught me, it’s that there’s merit in getting back to basics and digging into the building blocks of sentence structure, be it a 2,000 year old epic poem or your diary entry from last night. Strunk and White provide a gleaming, timeless, comprehensive guide to the almost mathematical structure of sentence composition - it’s like a calculator, but for writing.

TWO: Steal Like An Artist by Austin Kleon

This brilliantly curated piece offers a simple ten-step mantra for the living and implementation of a creative lifestyle, as well as a few odd looks from book-judgers on the subway. The book itself is a piece of art, perfectly square and annotated with Sharpie infographics, alternating between typeface and the chunky, oversized handwriting of the author himself. The handmade feel adds to the overall message of the book, which is simply make something, anything! Rejecting the notions of unadulterated originality and the fickle hand of inspiration, Kleon spells out some simple, pragmatic ways of fostering creativity - essentially, dip your fingers in paint, and fake it ‘til you make it.

THREE: Daily Rituals by Mason Currey

Meticulously collaged together from letters, interviews, diaries, photographs, and articles from The Paris Review, Daily Rituals spells out the daily modus operandi of some of the world’s most important thinkers and artists, ranging from Karl Marx to TS Eliot to Andy Warhol, mapping out the peculiarities of each of their often austere and mundane routines. Some artists worked exclusively lying down in bed, others only in the dead of night in their study with a pipe, others standing with their typewriter on top of the refrigerator. This book provides the easiest reference source for emulating the work of your idols - by following their agenda.

FOUR: One Page at a Time by Adam J. Kurtz

One Page at a Time is the ultimate coloring book for quote-on-quote adults, in the same vein as Keri Smith’s Wreck This Journal. This is a book comprised of prompts, and lots of blank space.The premise is ,”this is just paper”: nothing really should be dictating for us what the purpose of paper even is - this book strips away pretenses, and allows the reader (reader? user? the lines are blurred) to just experience in their hand the feeling of creating something. Some of my personal favorite prompts include “Write it huge, fill all of this space. Stare at it. Now turn the page”, “Draw an oddly specific do not disturb sign”, and “Just write your name. Just be here right now. That’s it”.

FIVE: The Pocket Scavenger by Keri Smith

This book is the ultimate and possibly only excuse to hoard small discarded objects and tape them into a book and keep that book on your bookshelf. Smith has created a giant scavenger hunt, 72 specific object assignments to pilfer in our life wanderings, everything from handwriting samples from strangers to “green things” to used teabags. The book prompts a date, location found, and the story of how you procured the object in question. This act, like all great literature and art, give us, humans just trying to figure all this out, to actually look (Sherlock-style) at the world around us and come by our own educated and innovative observations.

I hope some of these books can help you, my fellow readers/writers/artists/makers of things and collectors of objects, as they’ve inspired my work and (hopefully) work to come!

#enork #misc