Recreational Reading: On Creativity

Notes from a reading rabbit hole

Dear Friends,

Are you, like me, prone to stumbling down intellectual rabbit holes? Do you watch five documentaries in a row about the same historical event? Dive into stacks of books on a single subject? Listen to a musician’s entire discography at a go? Then we understand each other.

I love a good Youtube rabbit hole. In recent years—especially since Covid—I’ve spent an absurd amount of time watching videos about fountain pens, cult deprogramming, “slow living,” mountaineering disasters, and lots and lots of author interviews. (For the record, I’m usually also cooking or answering emails or the like. I am a chronic multitasker: I can’t just sit and watch.)

But this sort of deep-dive has also always characterized my reading life. I think a lot of children are this way: think of the hundreds of Nancy Drew and Boxcar Children and Babysitters’ Club books. I have fond memories of summer afternoons sitting on the back porch with a glass of lemonade and a stack of Encyclopedia Brown books. I read every book about horses in the Sno-Isle library system. I read every C. S. Lewis book I could get my hands on (surprising, I know). Not only did I read all of Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain, I read The Prydain Companion, which traces the books’ borrowings from the medieval Welsh Mabinogion.

(Incidentally, I remembered that book five-ish years later in a college literature course when I found a mention of the Mabinogion in a footnote to a short extract from David Jones’ In Parenthesis. That moment of excited recognition had a significant influence on my academic trajectory.)

These days, academic research gives me regular opportunities to dive deeply into a single subject. What is literary scholarship, but an excuse to accumulate a large pile of books and read them all? (It’s a lot more than that, actually—but I do have a lot of piles of books in my office right now.)

Nevertheless, I still find myself burrowing into niche subjects in my recreational reading as well. I’ve written about these adventures before. Last year, it was novels inspired by true crime podcasts. Now, as this newsletter continues to evolve, I’m contemplating making these ‘reports from the bottom of a rabbit hole’ a recurrent series.

What do you think of that idea? Let me know if you enjoy this letter—or if you don’t!

My latest reading obsession: books about creativity. I’ve needed a bit of inspiration in my own writing life, and so I’ve begun hunting it relentlessly in my reading. I thought I’d share the books I’ve read and what I thought of them. Perhaps they might interest some of you, or perhaps you’ll have books to recommend to me. If so, please share in the comments!

(A note: I don’t mention some of the most popular books for writers, such as Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way or Stephen King’s On Writing, because I’ve read them before and haven’t circled back to them this time. But I do also highly recommend those.)

Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, Mason Currey – I loved this book. Currey offers short, one-to-four-page profiles of the working routines of a plethora of famous creatives, from the notoriously punctual Immanuel Kant, to the relentless Toni Morrison. Ideally, you should read this book in short snatches. It is, in the best sense, the sort of volume you could keep on a shelf in your bathroom for ten years, and dip in and out of with total enjoyment. Reading it straight through was a bit much, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Currey also wrote a follow-up, Daily Rituals: Women at Work, which I’ve just started dipping into.

Write Through It: An Insider’s Guide to Publishing and the Creative Life, Kate McKean – I’m a big fan of Kate McKean’s newsletter, Agents and Books. If you’re looking for an up-to-date introduction to commercial publishing, from the perspective of a literary agent as well as a writer, this is a great book to pick up.

Refuse to Be Done: How to Write and Rewrite a Novel in Three Drafts, Matt Bell – I’ve only just started this one, but so far I resonate with Bell’s descriptions of the drafting process. I’m looking forward to the chapters on revision, which I expect will be very helpful. By the way, that title—“Refuse to Be Done”—is really solid advice for any long-form creative project. No further commentary needed.

Create Anyway: The Joy of Pursuing Creativity in the Margins of Motherhood, Ashlee Gadd – If you like Christian devotional writing and books about creativity, then you will probably enjoy this. I found parts of it deeply touching and inspiring: the messy process of harmonizing creative life with the demands of family is something I think about all the time these days. It’s very clear that the author is a blogger: the chapters (of which there are many) follow a predictable format: anecdote – theological and creative reflection – conclusion – journaling prompt. There’s nothing wrong with this in principle, but I found it repetitive and taxing after a while. Again, this might be because I read the book too fast.

Adorning the Dark: Thoughts on Community, Calling, and the Mystery of Making, Andrew Peterson – I love Andrew Peterson’s music, and so I was excited to realize that he’s written books about creativity as well. I’m halfway through Adorning the Dark and thoroughly enjoying it so far. It blends memoir, creative advice, and theological reflection in a manner similar to Gadd’s book, but I think Peterson pulls it off better. His description of his vocation—“to use whatever gifts I’ve been given to tell the truth as beautifully as I can”—is, I think, an excellent mission statement for any artist in any medium.

I’ve also, by delightful coincidence, recently read a couple of remarkable books based on extended interviews with artists:

Faith, Hope and Carnage, Nick Cave and Seán O’Hagan – This remarkable book, carved out of long phone conversations conducted in the depths of the pandemic, allows the musician Nick Cave to reflect on the relationship between grief, faith, and creativity. In particular, Cave shares extensively about the loss of his teenage son, Arthur, in 2015. I don’t want to say much more, because it’s one of those texts everyone should encounter for themselves. You might love it or hate it. But I’ll certainly be reading it again: Cave’s description of loss as a reason to engage the world with greater love and boldness deeply moves me. If you want a taste, you can read this marvelous profile of Cave written by none other than Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury.

Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself, David Lipsky – This book was a fascinating contrast to Faith, Hope and Carnage. In the latter volume, the comfortable rapport between Cave and O’Hagan is clear throughout. These are two people who want to talk with each other and want to understand each other. Lipsky’s account of his whirlwind few days shadowing David Foster Wallace on the book tour for Infinite Jest is very different. The two are obviously uncomfortable, sometimes combative. Lipsky’s presence as a character in the narrative is obtrusive, which will probably annoy some readers. The transcripts are also far less edited than those in Faith, Hope and Carnage: Lipsky adds contextual notes but removes none of the crutch words, fragments, and inarticulacies of actual conversation. This makes it a fascinating insight into Wallace, but again, sometimes frustrating to read. That said, I find Wallace’s insights into the spiritual malaise of U.S. culture—particularly as it relates to entertainment and consumerism—incredibly incisive. If you don’t want to read the book, you can always watch the movie.

So that’s what I’ve been reading! I’ve got many more books in the pile, mostly thanks to this extensive list of recommendations from Helen Sword. Her book Stylish Academic Writing is next up.

How about you? What are you reading? Any books on writing or creativity to recommend? Any intellectual rabbit holes you’d like to share?

Wishing you a week full of delighted discovery,

Sarah