Austin Kleon

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Nell Painter’s Old in Art School

My April pick for our Read Like an Artist book club is Nell Painter’s Old in Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over. To join our discussion next month, sign up now.

Here’s my intro:

Is it ever too late to become an artist?

At the age of 64, Nell Painter, an accomplished historian and writer, best known for her acclaimed bestselling books, The History of White People and Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol, decided to go back to art school. This book is her “memoir of starting over” and details her time navigating a world that is predominantly young and white. Her classmates are shocked by her age and one professor tells her that she will never be a real artist. Despite it all, she finds meaning in the art and artists she loves, and investigates age and race in the art world. This book is a first for the club because… I’ve never actually read the book! It’s been recommended to me by countless people whose taste I admire, and I’ve been meaning to read it for years, so I’ll be reading it along with y’all.

To join our discussion, sign up for the club.

Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks

My March pick for our Read Like an Artist book club is Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks. To join our discussion next month, sign up now.

Here’s my intro:

What will you do with the rest of your time?

What sounds like a straightforward self-help book is actually a deep reflection on the nature of time and how humans have historically dealt with it. “The average human lifespan is absurdly, insultingly brief,” Burkeman writes. “Assuming you live to be 80, you have just over four thousand weeks.”

Burkeman gives us permission to be imperfect, to forget about little tweaks and life hacks, and focus on the big things that matter. Freelancers, or creative people with weird schedules, might find comfort, as I did, in how difficult it is to make time off count when that time off isn’t shared by others.

I love how Burkeman is able to pull off the magic trick of writing self-help books that are, at their core, deeply suspicious of their own genre.

Four Thousand Weeks was one of my very favorite books I read in 2021. (His previous book, The Antidote, one of my favorite reads of 2013, was a big influence on my book Show Your Work!, which is the first book I consciously wrote knowing it’d be shelved in self-help.)

Here are some notes I took on the “The Principles of Patience” section of the book.

Oliver has agreed to chat with me online about the book in late March, so stay tuned for that!

To join our discussion, sign up for the club.

Sarah Ruhl’s Smile

My February pick for our Read Like an Artist book club is Sarah Ruhl’s Smile: The Story of a Face. To get the book in time to join our discussion next month, sign up now.

Here’s my intro:

Sarah Ruhl is a playwright, a MacArthur genius, and two-time Pulitzer finalist. This book is about what happened after she survived a high-risk pregnancy and woke up with the left half of her face paralyzed by Bell’s palsy, losing her ability to smile. Ruhl transcends the genre of medical memoir: As she did in her wonderful book, 100 Essays I Don’t Have Time To Write, Ruhl weaves a tapestry of wit and wisdom out of her experiences with creative work, motherhood, and her reading life. I love the way this book made me think about beauty, asymmetry, and imperfection.

I’m also delighted to note that Sarah has agreed to chat with me online about the book in late February, so stay tuned for that.

To join our discussion, sign up for the club!

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