Ask an Artist: What to Read
Many holiday shoppers turn to the time-honored gift favorite: Books! But there’s so much to choose from. So I culled the favorite childhood books from the Artist Q&A, along with recent favorite reads and offer the following ideas. To keep you headed in the right direction, here’s the link to the DART Indie Bookstore lineup.
Rachel Domm
Q: What was your favorite book as a child?
A: The wacky world and escapism of Sideways Stories from Wayside School, by Louis Sachar, stands out in my mind still. As for illustrated books, the millions of details and scenes in Richard Scarry's books provided endless things to look at.
Q: What is the best book you’ve recently read?
A: The book Daily Rituals: How Artists Work is a recent and very inspiring discovery. The author, Mason Currey, collected anecdotes and excerpts about creatives (from Jackson Pollock to Simone de Beauvoir) on their work habits. Some common threads I found among them is talking breaks for walks and dividing the day into sections that are the most productive for the individual. I have been trying to incorporate both of those things into my day. But of course, there were artists in the book whose creativity was fueled by long nights, lots of booze and lots of coffee. Everyone has their own method! [more]
© Roman Muradov. Cover design and illustration for the 2014 edition of Best
American Nonrequired Reading.
Chelsea Pettyjohn
Q: What was your favorite book as a child?
A: The Jolly Postman, Peter Pan, and Matilda. I was also obsessed with this book called The Stones are Hatching —I have yet to meet anyone else who ever read it.
Q: What is the best book you’ve recently read?
A: The best books are the ones missing from your own bookshelf because you've lent them out—I think you only force the really great ones onto other people. A few I can think of: The Ramayana (as told by Aubrey Menen), The Glass Castle (Jeanette Walls)You Can't Win (by Jack Black), Eating Animals (by Jonathan Safran Foer), The Liar's Club (Mary Karr), Helter Skelter (VincentBugliosi), Drugs Are Nice (Lisa Crystal Carver), and obviously Peter Pan (by J.M. Barrie). [more]
Nate Williams
Q: What was your favorite book as a child?
A: Anything by Gary Larson.
Q: What is the best book you’ve recently read?
A: The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography, by Simon Singh. [more]
Roger Chouinard
Q: What was your favorite book as a child?
A: The Walt Disney Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge comic books written and illustrated by Carl Barks.
Q: What is the best book you’ve recently read?
A: I’d like to mention two: “Making Modernism” by Michael Fitzgerald, which tells how Picasso’s dealers help market him as the most famous artist of the 20th century and “The Future of the Brain” by Michio Kaku, which explores the amazing things we’re learning about the brain and all its capabilities. [more]
Roman Muradov
Q: What was your favorite book as a child?
A: I can't remember what I liked as a child; my taste took a pretty long time to develop.
Q: What is the best book you’ve recently read?
A: In the last few months I read and enjoyed Peter Mendelsund's Cover and What We See When We Read, Tom McCarthy's C, Deirdre Bair's biography of Saul Steinberg, John Gray's Immortalization Commission and Thomas Pynchon's Inherent Vice. I just finished rereading Nabokov's Pnin and now I'm moving on to Pale Fire, which is always a treat.
Sarah Jacoby
Q: What was your favorite book as a child?
A: I had too many. I read a lot. A LOT. Runaway Bunny. Calvin and Hobbes. A Gift of Magic by Lois Duncan. Man did I want ESP so bad as a kid.
Q: What is the best book you’ve recently read?
A: I'm reading the Wildwood Chronicles by Colin Meloy at the moment. Colin has done an excellent job of re-creating a Naria-eque series that hits all the right spots for me. Talking animals get me every time. I also just read Airships by Barry Hannah. He's one of my favorites at the moment. Fucked up southern lit. It pairs nicely with Wildwood. [more]
Paul Rogers
Q: What was your favorite book as a child?
A: I used to check out this book from the library every week, it was a history of comics calledThe Penguin Book of Comics.
Q: What is the best book you’ve recently read?
A: I’m working on a map of Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles for Herb Lester, so I’ve just re-read all of Chandler’s novels. They are all great, if you’ve never read them a good place to start is The Big Sleep. [more]
Jonathon Rosen
Q: What was your favorite book as a child?
A: Too many to list. Voyage to the Mushroom Planet, a major monograph on Heironymous Bosch, Dr Suess's Sleep and Birthday books, The Griffin and the Minor Canon (Sendak), Raggedy Ann, The Dog who Belonged to Himself, Goodnight Moon, Picasso at Work (David Douglas Duncan)...um, jeez how much time have you got?
Q: What is the best book you’ve recently read?
A: Empire Rising by Thomas Kelly, a novel about the building of the empire state building and Depression-era New York City corruption. Fantasia of Color in Early Cinema, about hand coloring in early film. A New Method of Landscape by Alexander Cozens, the blot-master general about free-association and art in the 18th century, long beforeRorscharch did blots. [more]
Alexander Cozens, A Blot: Tigers, c.1770-80.
Vivienne Flesher
Q: What was your favorite book as a child?
A: I have always loved Grimms' Fairy tales. Even now, on cold nights I crawl in to bed and read them. So creepy! But my very favorite was a German book, “Struwwelpeter,” by Dr. Heinrich Hoffmann.
Q: What is the best book you’ve recently read?
A: "This One Summer" by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki. It’s a wonderful story and Jillian is an amazing artist. Each page is a delight to look at and I’m always wondering how on earth she can draw like that, she’s brilliant. [more]
Riccardo Vecchio
Q: What was your favorite book as a child?
A: The Book of the Happy Lion, by Louise Fatio and Roger Duvoisin.
Q: What is the best book you’ve recently read?
A: Mark Twain’s Innocents Abroad. It is a series of letters and caricatures of romantic travel books from the mid 19th century, written during his travels to Europe and the Middle East in 1867. Because of my own recent travels, I've been particularly attracted to travel essays and diaries. Besides Twain’s wit and canny observation skills in mocking American manners and European attitudes, it is an eerie reminder of how unresolved some of the issues he talks about are to this day. [more]
Daniel Horowitz
Q: What was your favorite book as a child?
A: The Giving Tree, by Shel Silverstein
Q: What is the most interesting book you’ve recently read?
A: The Orientalist, by Tom Reiss [more]
Tomi Um
Q: What was your favorite book as a child?
A: An Encyclopedia.
Q: What is the best book you’ve recently read?
A: Seven Mozart Librettos, a verse translation by J.D. McClatchy; CCCP Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed, by Frédéric Chaubin. [more]
Michael Cho
Q: What was your favorite book as a child?
A: I really liked 1984 by George Orwell when I read it in the 7th grade. It suited my dual romantic and pessimist nature quite well.
Q: What is the best book you’ve recently read?
A: I’ll go with a graphic novel here, The Salon by Nick Bertozzi. It details the meeting and friendship between Picasso and Braque and that period in modernist art. It’s fantastic and lively and moves at a great clip. [more]
