Sunday December 14, 2025
Four Random Books from My Shelf
1.
An Illustrated Life: Drawing Inspiration from the Private Sketchbooks of Artists, Illustrators, and Designer
(2008)
Author: Danny Gregory
My AP English teacher Mrs. Beaven gave me this book when I was a senior. I can’t even remember now why she gave it to me. Regardless, I feel so grateful now to have received this book as a gift! It’s been a wealth of inspiration for me all these years.
The book features images from 50 artists’ sketchbooks alongside with an in-depth interview about each artist’s process. Included are:
R. Crumb
Christopher Niemann
James Jean
Cathy Johnson
Amanda Kavanagh
…and many more.
Danny Gregory also has a phenomenal Youtube channel which I love called Sketchbook Skool. He has pep talks for artists, videos about creativity, and interviews with artists.
2.
The Body in Motion: Its Evolution and Design
(2011)
Author: Theodore Dimon, Jr., EdD
Ever since I was a little kid and Mom was taking my brother and me to the library, I was checking out books on the human body systems.
I discovered this book browsing the stacks of the Main Library in downtown Akron a couple years ago. I had been looking at figure drawing books, and I decided to mix things up and take myself to the science section on the lower floor instead of the art section.
This book is only 100 pages, but it blew me away. It’s unlike any other book I’ve read on the human body. was so impressed that I had to buy my own copy.
Dimon’s book isn’t like all other anatomy books that merely label the muscles and bones. He explains very comprehensively through an evolutionary lens why our body is arranged the way it is and how our body maintains its upright posture, which is the main factor responsible for our unique cognitive abilities and the evolution of language.
“The musculoskeletal system is indeed a remarkable moving machine, but viewing muscles and bones in purely mechanical terms hardly begins to do justice to the range and beauty of our anatomical design. It is not an overstatement to say that the human body is the vehicle of the soul, for without it, none of our singular human achievements—not even those that are considered purely intellectual or abstract—would be possible…The muscles that support upright posture, our shoulders, limbs, and voice—all are tangible aspects of our higher selves. To understand our physical design is to understand the underpinnings of our intellectual, social, and artistic lives” (Dimon xix)
Out of respect for the author and the publisher’s wishes not to share portions of this book, I’ll only include one set of pages here as a sample to entice you to get it for yourself. I really can’t overstate how amazing this book is.
3.
Secrets of the Mummies
(1984)
Author: Joyce Milton
I’ve been fascinated with mummies since I was four years old. When I was little, my dad would bring home videotapes from the library for us to watch, and one of them was the Reading Rainbow episode for “Mummies Made in Egypt.” Someone uploaded the video to Youtube recently…watching it got me all emotional.
My mom would read this book with me before bed. I’m surprised that it’s still on my shelf, but I treasure these older children’s books. The musty smell of pages…the illustrations…the memories of being in the old library.
4.
Bruegel
(1975)
103 reproductions selected and introduced by Christopher Brown
I bought this from one of the Cleveland Institute of Art Library’s book sales. I’m a sucker for oversize art books.
There’s a darkness and strange quality about artwork from the Northern Renaissance that really speaks to me. I have a framed print of Hans Holbein’s The Ambassadors (1533) hanging in my living room.
From the back cover:
“Pieter Bruegel (about 1525-1569) was the greatest painter active in the Netherlands in the sixteenth century. Fewer than fifty of his pictures survive today and they are of three main types: scenes from peasant life; religious subjects; and landscapes. To all three he brought remarkable gifts of observation, a sizzling sense of line and feeling for colour at once bold and pungent….This new anthology presents all aspects of Bruegel’s art, and the many details emphasized not only his mastery of handling but also the rich variety of his imagination.”
