Books I read in 2010

I made a visual list of the year in books at the end of 2009, and it was a lot of fun. (Thanks to Sakatsu for the reminder!) I had less time and money to devote to books this year, but I still managed to get in quite a few. Here’s a mostly comprehensive* list of what I read in 2010:

books I read in 2010. click for big version!

* Doesn’t include books I re-read (I do this often), or any books I’ve sold and since forgotten about.

From left to right:

Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne and Beyond: Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the Musee d’Orsay. I went to see this exhibit over Christmas, which I loved, and picked this book up there mostly to remind me of which pieces I saw. The color reproduction could be better, especially on the Van Gogh paintings, but it’s not bad.

Visions of Japan by K. H. Brown. Collection of Kawase Hasui’s shin hanga masterpieces. One of my favorite artists. Great color reproduction in this, and an interesting overview of the shin hanga movement in the introduction.

The Small Business Start-Up Kit for California by Peri H. Pakroo J.D. Read this over the summer, and I honestly don’t remember much about it – other than how scary I found the idea in general. I plan to reread this one in the next month or so.

Shin Hanga: The New Print Movement of Japan by Barry Till. I adore shin hanga.

How to be an Illustrator by Darrell Rees. Have only read about half of this so far, picked it up at Kinokuniya over Christmas.

The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life by Twyla Tharp. Very good. lots of useful stuff.

Small Business Kit For Dummies by Richard D. Harroch. Are you starting to guess what my scary awesome plans for this year might be? 🙂

Fundamentals of Illustration by Lawrence Zeegan. Read very early on in the year and also a little hazy in my memory. Another on the “to re-read” list.

Escape from Cubicle Nation: From Corporate Prisoner to Thriving Entrepreneur by Pamela Slim. All kinds of things you need to consider, great for the “I wanna do this but omg how??” sort of feeling.

Leonardo: Discovering the Life of Leonardo Da Vinci by Serge Bramly. A used bookstore find. I’ve always liked the guy, and after playing Assassin’s Creed 2 I was craving a biography. Interesting. Not quite halfway through with this, I go back to it whenever the mood strikes me.

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. Entertaining, informative, good read.

Nonviolent Communication by Marshal Rosenberg. I’m with Havi – the tone inspires some eyerolling, but the stuff he’s writing about is very useful if you can look past that.

The Wisdom of the Enneagram and Personality Types by Riso and Hudson. Used bookstore scores. I like reading about archetypes, and systems that categorize and describe them. The enneagram somehow seems to click neatly with things I’d already figured out about myself and some of the people I know. It’s especially handy where it gets into the various levels of health for a type, and shows how positive traits at the higher levels get twisted into negative ones at the lower levels. Also helpful are the sort of gateway red flags for each level – unhealthy habits of each major personality type to watch out for. Reading these two helped me organize my own insights on friends and family (and myself).

Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert. Great!

Leonardo on Painting. Excerpts from Leonardo Da Vinci’s notebooks on the subject. Fabulous, useful, inspiring. Highly recommended for artists. These same concepts show up in my painting and drawing classes all the time. The book has quite a few illustrations from his notebooks, too.

The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley. I read The Hero and the Crown last year and really liked it. Liked this one too.

Howl’s Moving Castle by Dianna Wynne Jones. Been meaning to read the book ever since I saw Miyazaki’s movie, finally got my hands on a copy and loved it.

Scott Pilgrim volumes 1-4 by Brian O’Malley. SO. ADORABLE. And hilarious. Still need volumes 5 & 6.

The Art of Non-Conformity by Chris Guillebeau. Wish this book had been around when I was in high school, I could have really used it then! Still a great read now, though. While a lot of it is familiar ground, covering ways of thinking I’ve since sussed out on my own, there’s a lot of good strategy and inspiration here. For anybody dissatisfied with a “normal” life.

Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment by George Leonard. Just the sort of thing to read when you’re working on long-term improvement at something. He’s writing from a martial arts background, but of course it’s applicable to any lifelong endeavor.

Not pictured:

Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter by James Gurney. As a reader of his awesome blog, I’ve been looking forward to this one for a while. Wide-ranging look at many aspects of color and the lighting effects that influence it, culled from many posts from said blog. It’s such a huge subject that unfortunately Gurney doesn’t get too deep into any one aspect, but the book serves as a good introduction and starting point for further research – or if, like me, you’ve already studied these things a bit, a good visual index/reminder. Great companion to his previous book, Imaginative Realism.

Clutter Busting: Letting Go of What’s Holding You Back by Brooks Palmer. The book is in the same vein as his blog, which I’ve enjoyed for a while now. I like how gentle and relentless Palmer is, and how simply but powerfully he relates stories from his clutter busting clients. The book’s full of his experiences with clients which serve to illustrate the various types of clutter and methods of dealing with it. Sprinkled throughout are simple tips and related exercises. It is not, however, one of those “10 hacks to super-organize your kitchen” or “buy these nifty containers to store (aka hide) your stuff in” type of book. Palmer makes a point of stating that you don’t need to buy anything new, except perhaps a box of trash bags. He also asserts that organizing is something you only do after you get rid of all the stuff in your way. As a seasoned declutterer most of this was familiar ground to me, but even so I found it a soothing and inspirational read. Lent to a friend.

A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami. I love reading novels set in Japan, and Murakami’s books always have a satisfying element of fantastic weirdness to them. This isn’t my favorite of his books – think that’s a tie between Kafka on the Shore and What I Talk About When I Talk About Running – but it was still enjoyable. Read the whole thing one sunny Sunday in May, have since sold it back.

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcom Gladwell. I feel a little behind the times, reading this three years after its release. In fact, I’ve read so many books that mention the info in this one that it seemed redundant to me – even though I’m pretty sure he wrote about it first. Interesting, but not a keeper – sold it back to the used bookstore I got it from.

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson. Great, interesting, inspiring read.

Saiyuki Reload Volume 8 and 9. It’s Saiyuki, so of course it’s awesome!

J.C. Leyendecker. Don’t own this yet, but I read the whole thing in Borders one afternoon. His work is so fabulous. (Except the babies, they creep me out.)

Drawing Down the Moon: The Art of Charles Vess, also read in Borders.

Drawings of Mucha, the one book I did buy at Borders that one day. Lovely book of sketches and finished drawings. I’d love to find a good collection of all his finished works someday – if you know of one, please recommend!

Grounded by Seth Stevenson. Great concept – circumnavigating the globe without ever flying – but somewhat hampered by his shallow, superior attitude.

There was also Eat Pray Love (bleh) and Under The Tuscan Sun (snore).

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