No way can I bury this lede: Steal Like an Artist has officially sold over a million copies. Hard to wrap my head around that number. Huge thanks to those of you who’ve read and shared the book over the past decade or so.
Here are 10 other things I thought were worth sharing this week:
I finished Don Quixote and it is now one of my all-time favorite books. The Edith Grossman translation is very readable (with an introduction by Harold Bloom), but what I loved best was the first audiobook that came up when I searched the Libby app, an older recording narrated by David Case, who once said, “I really believe I was born to narrate audiobooks.” I believe it! It’s hard to come back after reading such a great book, so now I’m reading recklessly, casting about for my next big adventure.
After I finish a “large, loose, baggy monster” of a book (Henry James’s words) it seems right to swing in the opposite direction and pick up some short and tight books. Here’s a list of some of my favorites under 200 pages. (While some of us have been publishing “slim volumes” for over a decade now, I am told that this is their year.)
In our summer reading thread, several of you mentioned you were reading Irish writer Claire Keegan, who, as the NYTimes put it in her profile, “harnesses the power of brevity.” I picked up her novella Foster, and liked it fine, but her most recent book, Small Things Like These, had me in tears at 3 A.M. Only 80 pages, but packs the punch of 400. (I also listened to her read her story, “So Late in The Day,” and found her discussion of the story really interesting.)
A gorgeous-looking book of Anna Atkin’s cyanotypes.
I was sad to hear that the writer Owen Egerton is leaving Austin, but I love this advice he gives to his students: “Go deeper and weirder and make something that is so human and so strange that it can't be duplicated by an algorithm.“
Watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade with the kids inspired me to take down the paywall for my letter on notebooks in movies from earlier this year. (A fun fact I had forgotten about the movie: Tom Stoppard is to thank for many of the good lines.)
Can’t wait for Will Hermes’ biography of Lou Reed — I really enjoyed his book Love Comes To Buildings On Fire.
Ear candy: a 3-hour long show of my friend Thor Harris playing some of his favorite songs. (If you just want the songs, I made a Spotify playlist for myself.) For fun: Juvenile does “Back That Azz Up” on NPR’s Tiny Desk.
Lawrence Weschler’s latest Wondercabinet is crammed full of subjects I love thinking about: Pools, physics, and aphantasia.
Can you hear the cosmic bass note?
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xoxo,
Austin
PS. The paperback of Show Your Work! has recently been deeply discounted on Amazon, though I’m not sure for how much longer. If you or someone you know is struggling with self-promotion and building an audience, this is the book to get.
PPS. Thanks to Mrs. Hall for this lovely photo of a stack of Keep Going she gifted to her students!
i had to google lede: - “lede” is the journalistic spelling that originated in newsrooms in the mid-20th century. It was created to avoid confusion with “lead,” the metal traditionally used in printing presses. Even though digital printing has largely replaced physical printing, “lede” continues to be used in journalism today. - from proofed.com - now i have a new word :) thanks Austin!
Oh, now I’m excited to read Don Quixote. Thanks. I just finished the Camiño de Santiago on a folding bike, so more Spanish adventures for the win!