Show Your Work! 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered by Austin Kleon

Title: Show Your Work! 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

Author: Austin Kleon

Genre: Art, Business

Show Your Work! by Austin Kleon is a short, quick read that merges a how-to guide with the inspiration of a self-help book (but without the cheese). With Kleon's encouraging advice, you will finish the book feeling inspired and confident on how to move forward in promoting your creativity. Kleon lays out 10 easy ways for creatives to share with others what they're doing in a way that's authentic and meaningful. From how to talk about your creative ventures to strangers (even if you aren't making any money from it yet) to practical ideas of what to post on social media (even if you don't have a "finished product"), Kleon's presentation is really approachable, and any creative (artists, writers, musicians, etc.) would find something beneficial to glean from this book. Highly recommended.

- Sarah P.

Check out Show Your Work! @ the library.

The Girl You Left Behind by Jojo Moyes

The Girl You Left Behind by Jojo Moyes weaves the tale of two stories together to create a captivating book. The first story, set in World War I France follows a young woman named Sophie, the owner of a hotel. When the Germans make their way into France, Sophie and her sister are forced into using their hotel restaurant to feed the German soldiers and their Kommandant. With her husband gone to war, the Kommandant and Sophie begin to chat about art, particularly the piece entitled The Girl You Left Behind which was painted by Sophie's husband. Not hearing from her husband for several months has Sophie desperate to do just about anything to ensure that he is safe, even if it means sleeping with the enemy. When things don't go according to plan, Sophie is sent to a prison camp in Germany and little is known about after that.

Fast forward to the year 2000 in London, where Liv is still grieving her architect husband. On a whim one night, Liv decides to go out on the town where she meets Paul, a former cop. The two strike up a relationship only to have that relationship go awry when Liv finds out that Paul is working for a firm that recovers stolen art work. When Paul realizes that Liv is now the owner of the once looted, now sought after painting of The Girl You Left Behind things get far more complicated.

Moyes does an amazing job of weaving together two captivating stories so different from one another. Who will keep the painting? What happened to Sophie? Can Paul and Liv work things out? All of these questions come down to the final few pages. Using beautiful language, Moyes once again wrote a book that's unable to be put down.

Headlong by Michael Frayn

Martin and his wife and baby daughter have arrived at their country home so Martin, a philosopher, can work on his book. But, when he visits the neighbors and sees that they have recently purchased some old paintings at a rummage sale, he convinces himself that they have unknowingly purchased the missing work of an old master. Rather than inform the neighbors of this possibility, he plots and connives to get the painting for himself. Avarice takes control of his life. His obsession causes him to neglect his book and aggravate his wife (an actual art historian). To prove his own hypothesis, he delves deeply into the study of the paintings of Pieter Brueghel, a Dutch painter of the sixteenth century. And he undertakes some ridiculous shenanigans (including the promise of an affair with the wife of the art buyer) to acquire the painting. Just when it seems that Martin has successfully acquired the painting, a series of disastrous events bring him crashing (literally) back to reality.  Farcical humor makes this book uproariously funny. 

Check out Headlong @ the library!

Woman in Red by Eileen Goudge

Alice Kessler spent nine years in prison for running down the person who killed her son.  She has missed out on her other son, Jeremy’s childhood and is determined to make up for lost time.  Jeremy is then falsely accused of rape and Alice is forced to face the fact that her son may end up in jail as well.  At the same time Alice arrives back in town, Colin McGinty returns as well, staying in the house his grandfather left him. Their paths intersect and they end up becoming very important to each other.   This book has it all: romance, suspense, mystery, and intrigue.  You’ll root for the characters.  Check it out@ the library!

My Ideal Bookshelf

In My Ideal Bookshelf more than one hundred creative individuals share the titles of the books that are most important to them. Artist Jane Mount has painted a bookshelf for each of these lists and a short essay accompanies each shelf. The cultural figures featured in this book are not only writers and editors but also musicians, chefs, actors, photographers, designers and an athlete. Some names are well-known and some are not. This book can be enjoyed in many different ways. The art is so delightful you can enjoy just looking at the pictures. You can find out which books some of your favorite celebrities value. You can see who has read the books you have read. You can keep track of which titles and authors appear most often. You can even create your own bookshelf, photocopying the blank graphic on the back cover.  Fiction, history, biography, philosophy, poetry, science and even children’s books fit on these eclectic celebrity bookshelves and they might also be part of yours!

The Paper Garden: An Artist (Begins Her Life's Work) at 72 by Molly Peacock

Mary Delaney was a minor member of the British aristocracy in the 18^th century. After the death of a much older husband ended an unhappy marriage, she created for herself a new life, full of friends, music, art, science and remarriage. During her second widowhood, at the age 72, Mrs. Delaney began to construct flower mosaics from cut paper and continued to do so for the next 10 years, creating 985 beautiful and botanically correct pictures, now kept in the British Museum. Paper Garden contains color reproductions of some of her work.

Sacre Bleu: A Comedy d'Art by Christopher Moore

This dark tale starts with the suicide of Vincent Van Gogh and introduces readers to the lives of the Impressionist painters in Paris.  Based on the painters’ documented lives and personalities Moore weaves history with fantasy in an intriguing way.   All of the events are tied together by the Colorman, who has produced the “Sacred Blue” during human history.  Color paintings are interspersed throughout the text, giving the reader a feel for the artists’ work.   Check out the gorgeous Sacre Bleu @the library!