21 Dragons » Reviews

Within the Frame by David duChemin

Alvin — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 05:21:55 +0000

As a photographer, it’s both inspiring and maddening to see a beautiful photograph and wonder just how the photographer did it. I mean, there are photographs that are really good, with excellent composition and beautiful light. And then there are photos that transcend the really good; you don’t just appreciate them with your eyes alone but respond to them with your heart. Those are the photographs I wanted to learn how to take.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a single book that talked about that. There were a lot of books about composition, technique and gear – which were great, but nothing about how to distill moments of feeling into a single frame.

Until I found Within the Frame: The Journey of Photographic Vision by David duChemin. To be honest, I’ve wanted to write about this book for the longest time, but I kept putting it off because I have no idea how to summarize a book which I’ve learned so much from. In the end, I think the best way for me to put it is to put it bluntly; this book changed my game.

It helped me move up from taking photos like these of Japan in 2008:

To photos like these in 2009:

I’m not sure if the difference is as obvious to you, but it sure is to me. Without having read Within the Frame just before I left for Japan in 2009, I couldn’t have improved as much as I did. I’m pretty sure of that, as I purposely set out to apply what I’d learned from the book.

duChemin is probably best known now as the “gear is good, vision is better” guy, and he lays out that idea in Within the Frame. It doesn’t read so much as a “how to shoot” book as a “how to think about what you shoot” book. How do you shoot what moves you? How do you use universal themes and conflict to tell a story within a frame? How do you shoot people, places and cultures in ways that are specifically your own?

In short, Within the Frame is a gem. I didn’t just learn how to tell stories within a frame – to make a photograph not of something but about something – but also how to sharpen, express and chase a personal photographic vision. Highly recommended.

Note: David duChemin has two sequels to Within the Frame; VisionMongers: Making a Life and a Living in Photography, which I’m reading now, and Vision & Voice: Refining Your Vision in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, which was just published and I’m eagerly waiting for. He also runs an insightful blog and an ebook store Craft & Vision, which sells great photography ebooks at very low prices.

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller

Alvin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:00:41 +0000

Suppose somebody wants to make a movie about you. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Except what happens when you realize your life’s so boring it makes for a pretty bad movie? A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life is the true story of how that happens to best-selling author Donald Miller, and what he does to re-write his life into a better story.

Miller is a beautiful writer. The first few chapters had me thinking he was a little whimsical, but his poetry builds into a tour de force deeper into the book. A Million Miles in a Thousand Years is a story about stories; what stories are, how they affect us, how we all live stories, how to live a better story, and how better life stories make for better characters. With raw honesty and wit, he tells us the story of his own journey to create a story-worthy life, using the principles of good story-telling to guide him.

Story-telling is real, it’s not a new 7-step product cooked up to making someone rich. The story of story is as old as mankind. We all tell stories. We make sense of our world through story. I’m a writer. I’ve read the classics on story-writing, plot-building and act structure. I never expected someone to weave the elements of story-writing into a book that teaches them to you, while showing you how the author used them to live a better life at the same time, and have it be beautifully written.

And make you think too – Miller’s made me think, really think, about the story of my own life while reading his book. I love how human the story is; Miller’s no superman, he gets things right and gets things wrong too, but manages to find beauty in all of it. It’s not a book that’s all light and glory, he writes about death and suffering also. It helps me relate, and I find the realness inspiring.

To be sure, the book goes into the subject of God and Christianity a fair bit, and that might or might not be your thing. I’m not a Christian, but I was fine with it; the revelations were lovely and relevant all the same.

I loved reading A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. If you want a book that teaches, inspires and challenges you, skip the next self-help book and read this instead.

Favorite Blogs of 2009

Alvin — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 03:51:17 +0000

My favorite blogs of 2009; the signals amongst the noise that taught me new things, made me think different, and made me want to write better.

43 Folders

To me, Merlin Mann is the sanest voice in all of productivity blogging (well, most times). He pointed out that if you’re spending a lot of time reading productivity blogs about how to be more productive, you really just need to get your ass back to work. Amen. I love this man’s honesty and the way he writes; funny, conversational and chocked full of thought.

Try Real Advice Hurts, The Problem with “Feeling Creative”, and NaNoWriMo: A Pep Talk and a Warning. If you have 37 minutes and 22 seconds, watch Makebelieve Help, Old Butchers, and Figuring Out Who You Are (For Now). Long, but awesome.

Chiron

Rory Miller wrote the excellent Meditations on Violence: A Comparison of Martial Arts Training & Real World Violence and Chiron is his personal blog. It’s not always an easy read, he writes about aspects of violence and psychology that I think most of us living in cosy, peaceful lives don’t want to know about. But it’s real, and it opens my eyes. He recently wrote that “Chiron isn’t about growing readership and I’m not writing for you. We all know that.” I love that. Ironically, I think that commitment to honesty on his part is what drives people to read his blog anyway.

Try Teaching for Chaos, Glitches and Denial, All In, Through the Looking Class and Caveat Lector (Four-Way Breakdown for martial artists).

Gaping Void

For a while there, I thought Hugh had lost it – a lot of his posts early in the year seemed to be all about selling his prints. Not a bad thing mind you, I’m happy to see him doing well, but I missed his kick-ass cartoons and writing. I shouldn’t have worried, because he’s back in full-force, and remains in my must-read list.

Try “Evil plans” are not products. “Evil plans” are gifts, “Fight like hell. This is it.” and More thoughts on “evil plans”. If you like his work, grab a copy of his book Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity (my review here).

Rands in Repose

Whenever I read something that Rands wrote I feel inspired, because I want to write like him, and depressed, because I don’t write like him. His reflections on the tech life are spot on (you really need to read The Nerd Handbook if you own one), but he also writes on varied topics like management, work life and creativity.

Try The Makers of Things, Up to Nothing and The Art of the Tweet.

Personal Development for Smart People

Which list about favorite blogs from any self-respecting (even semi) personal growth blog wouldn’t include The Steve? He’s become the poster child for personal development blogging mad success. Sure, some of his stuff is a little too new age-y for me, but you know what? He’s honest, original, and I learn from him. Compared to a lot of other personal growth bloggers, Steve’s operating on a whole different level, and I still look forward to his new posts.

Try How to Make Lots of Money During a Recession, How to Be a Man and Creating Abundance (video).

Pixelated Image

David duChemin wrote Within the Frame: The Journey of Photographic Vision, a book I love lots and credit for raising my game when I went shooting photographs in Tokyo this past autumn. His blog is full of real-world, practical and inspirational advice from someone who’s gone from bankruptcy to commercial success, great not just for photographers, but for anyone living the creative life. His blog isn’t new, but it’s my favorite find of 2009.

Try Credit Where Credit is Due. Or Not, Woulda – Shoulda – Coulda? and Just?

The Blog that Ate Mind Chatter

Bill Harris’ blog posts are really long, but worth reading all the way through. Less the motivational-type posts about how to succeed, make millions and triple your sex life, The Blog that Ate Mind Chatter deals with bigger questions like the meaning of life, and how to navigate sanely through this one limited life from a larger spiritual perspective that’s very Buddhist (the philosophy, not the religion).

Try News Flash: There’s No Escape, It’s All about Awareness and Where are you going? And Why? (Pretending like crazy that what you’re doing really matters.)

Updated: Included Bill Harris’ The Blog that Ate Mind Chatter in the list.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan

Alvin — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 11:00:29 +0000

It isn’t easy making facts and statistics interesting. Lots of things fail at it: textbooks, movies, teachers. But Michael Pollan’s book The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals makes a smashing job of it.

There are 2 reasons why I love this book: one, it’s made me smarter. It’s taught me more about my food and it’s made me think more about my food. Two, it’s damn good reading. I’ve added Pollan to the list of writers I want to be when I grow up.

Michael Pollan is a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine and Knight Professor of Journalism at Berkeley, he wrote both The Omnivore’s Dilemma and its sequel, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto. I read them out of order (sequel first), but discovered it doesn’t matter.

In Defense of Food was written as an answer to The Omnivore’s Dilemma, it was written as a practical guide for the person who wants to eat consciously, whereas The Omnivore’s Dilemma centers around Pollan’s quest story to understand food. It tells a story about walking in the cornfields, being knee-deep in cow manure, working as a farm-hand, and hunting for dinner. It’s what makes this book so much fun. And personal. Pollan isn’t a distant observer, he reacts and responds to what he sees and how it changes his perspective on food, and I couldn’t help but do the same as I read along.

Cleverly inter-weaved within this personal story are nuggets of facts and statistics, so you learn at the same time you’re entertained. Pollan pulls it off masterfully in The Omnivore’s Dilemma; even though it’s twice as long as In Defense of Food’s 200-odd pages, I found it harder to put down.

If you’re looking for a one-stop read about the source of your food and the consequences of what you choose to have for lunch, or you just want a darn good yarn, you can’t do worse than The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Check it out.

P.S. As a Singaporean, I can’t say how relevant some of the chapters are (I doubt that I’ll be shooting wild boar on Pulau Ubin anytime soon), but until we have a Michael Pollan of our own, I still recommend The Omnivore’s Dilemma for my local friends.

Ignore Everybody by Hugh MacLeod

Alvin — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 14:14:39 +0000

See those cartoons to the right of this column (if you’re reading via an RSS reader, click to go to 21 Dragons)? They’re all drawn by Hugh MacLeod of Gaping Void, sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometimes wise, Hugh’s work is always original. And if you haven’t already guessed, I’m a fan.

So I was really excited when Hugh announced that the most popular series on his blog, Ignore Everybody – on how to be creative – was going to be published as a book. So excited that I pre-ordered two copies, one for me, and the other as a birthday gift for a friend who works in the creative industry.

Having read my copy of Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity twice over already, I love the book. (My aforementioned friend who works in the creative industry as a 3D artist called me to tell me how he loves the book, and called it ‘life-changing’. Real story.) Here’s why.

5 Reasons Why I Love Ignore Everybody

1. Ignore Everybody is Real

Ignore Everybody isn’t full of politically correct quotes. In fact, some of the cartoons are down-right cynical. But they’re honest. And honesty connects.

You’ll never see a cartoon like the one below in any motivational book. But it is oh so true. Hugh isn’t a motivational speaker, he’s an artist. There is a difference.

2. Ignore Everybody is Useful

But Ignore Everybody isn’t just full of snark. Like how only a war veteran can write about the experience of war credibly, Hugh’s 40 keys to creativity in Ignore Everybody have been won and paid for through the process of doing creative work. If you want to be more creative, you’ll find useful advice in here.

3. Ignore Everybody is Original

I’m sick of experts whose only real expertise is to paraphrase other experts, which is why it’s a real treat to read something like Ignore Everybody, a book that doesn’t read like everything else. Good ideas have lonely childhoods? The hardest part of being creative is getting used to it? Meaning scales, people don’t? Hell yes.

4. Ignore Everybody is Funny

Real, useful, original and funny all at the same time? Now that’s a bargain.

5. Ignore Everybody is Inspirational

I don’t remember when exactly I started following Hugh’s blog, but I think it was circa 2005. Back then, he was just this dude who drew these gnarly cartoons, had some weird ideas about marketing like the personal microbrand and inspirational posts like The Hughtrain. (“We are here to find meaning. We are here to help other people do the same. Everything else is secondary.” Hell yes!) It’s been a real pleasure to follow Hugh’s journey from drawing his cartoons for pleasure to finding a way to draw them for profit.

And you know what? It’s highly inspirational too. It makes me think and secretly hope, if Hugh can do it – making something he loves and doing it for a living – maybe I can too. Like he puts it in Ignore Everybody; “the sovereignty you have over your work will inspire far more people than the actual content ever will.”

In short, Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity is highly recommended for anyone who wants to do kick-ass creative work. Buy the book and subscribe to Hugh’s blog already. Rock on.

Emergency by Neil Strauss

Alvin — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 02:17:30 +0000

Neil Strauss has been preparing himself for emergencies for the last three years, but not for ordinary emergencies like blackouts or losing a job. It’s The End of the World As We Know It stuff that Strauss is concerned about – known by the acronym TEOTWAWKI in the book – the collapse of the system and civilization as we know it.

If you find his name familiar, here’s why: Neil Strauss is the author of the best-selling book The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists. In The Game, he reveals how he turned from a lonely and clueless music critic into one of the most famous pick-up artists in the world.

In Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life, Strauss writes about how he slowly loses his faith in the system, and determines to learn how to survive outside of it. He transforms from an everyday city-boy into a wilderness survivor who shoots, tracks, hunts, lives in the wild with nothing but a knife and the clothes on his back, picks locks, hot-wires cars, evades bounty hunters and escapes across the border.

Emergency’s 5 Acts

The book is divided into five parts; Orientation, Five Steps, Escape, Survive, Rescue. Orientation is a short introduction. Five Steps tells the story of how Strauss saw through the cracks of modern civilization, and why he decides to learn how to survive on his own in case The Shit Hits the Fan (TSHTF for short).

Escape is about Strauss’s quest for a second citizenship in case he ever needs to bail from the US. In Survive he realizes that it’s not enough just to be able to escape, he needs to learn how to take care of himself wherever he is. This is the coolest part in the book where Strauss describes learning tactical shooting from Gunsite, tracking from Tom Brown Jr.’s Tracker School and knives from a hardcore knife specialist named Mad Dog. And Rescue is the concluding, about-turn in the story where he volunteers in local rescue operations to get used to TSHTF situations, and gains more from the process than he expected.

Is Neil Strauss Crazy?

I’ve always been a little paranoid, so a book about preparing for TEOTWAWKI is probably not the best book for my nerves. There were parts in the book that sounded really cool, like Strauss’s lessons in gun combat. And there were parts when I thought he was going over the edge, like conducting a self-imposed 3-day blackout to test his emergency preparations.

But as I read the book, I started to wonder if the failure of the system he talks is so far-fetched after all. Especially after recently reading in the same span of time about Iceland going bankrupt, Argentina descending into urban chaos, and the daily pessimism with the current recession.

Are the systems we trust to keep society as we know it going, fail-proof after all? And if they’re not, isn’t it better to be prepared for worst case scenarios than be caught flat-footed?

Is Emergency worth Reading?

Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life is not a straight how-to book with exact steps and techniques, but wraps a general introduction to the survivalist’s world in an entertaining personal journey. Some of the ideas in the book will be out of reach for most, like forking out half a million dollars for a 2nd passport and getting firearms training (personal firearms are illegal in my country). The book’s narrative flow feels clunky in parts, and Strauss’s final transformation from fear to power in the end doesn’t feel quite complete.

But I thoroughly enjoyed reading Emergency; Strauss’s writing is personal, philosophical and fun. He’s not afraid to be honest and show the times he falls in his quest to be a better person, and that helps me relate to him – a fellow city-dweller who’s also a stranger to the survivalist’s world.

There are two kinds of books in the world: the kind you read, think ‘how interesting’, then put down and go back to living the way you did before. Then there’s the rarer kind of book, the kind you read, think ‘how interesting’, then put down and you don’t live life quite the same way again. Emergency falls in the rarer category, and it’s already inspired a list of to-do things to prepare myself for emergencies that will probably make the people around me think I’ve gone crazy. But after reading it, I don’t look at the world the same way again and it’s worth reading if just for that alone.

At the End of Battlestar Galactica

Alvin — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 05:18:54 +0000

My friend Lester pressed the DVD into my hand, and told me I had to watch this science-fiction series that was making raves in the US. I took one look at the cover, and thought it looked like a corny, cheap re-make of a corny, cheap oldie.

I told him I’d catch it when I got home. Then I stuffed it into a drawer when I got home and forgot all about it.

Lester wouldn’t give up though. He kept hounding me to see it, so one day I succumbed and popped Battlestar Galactica into my DVD player. Today, I take back everything bad I ever thought about that cover. I’d even buy Lester breakfast, lunch and dinner for introducing me to the greatest TV series I’ve watched in my entire life.

Who Gives a Frak about Battlestar Galactica?

Fast forward three years later to present day, where the last episode ever of Battlestar Galactica screened just one week ago. In the five years it’s been on air, Battlestar Galactica‘s received critical acclaim from Time magazine, the American Film Institute, the Chicago Tribune, Rolling Stone magazine, and Newsday. It’s also been nominated for a total of six Emmy Awards and won a prestigious Peabody Award.

It’s also broken my heart, raised its beat, trodden it, inspired it, frustrated it, warmed it, and blown it away in awe. I don’t think I’ve ever been so gripped and surprised by how far a story’s been pushed before.

I think human beings live for those few, transcendent moments in our lives when we see something beyond anything we’ve experienced in our lives up to that point. Something that pulls your mind wide open and have you going fuck yes. That’s art. And I can’t believe the insane amount of times Battlestar Galactica has managed to take what I thought I knew about its story, pull it wide open, twist its balls and make me go frak yes.

Some people I speak to about Battlestar get turned away because they think it’s a show about spaceships, robots and explosions. While it has lots of spaceships, robots and explosions, at its core Battlestar Galactica‘s really about the people on those ships, facing extinction at the hands of those robots and explosions and how they come to terms with it. It’s a show about humanity, and about the best and the worst of us.

God’s in His Heaven, All’s Right with the World

Warning: Major spoilers ahead! If you haven’t watched till the end of Battlestar Galactica, please click away now. If you’ve never seen Battlestar Galactica, but think you might want to one day, please click away now and save yourself future joy and suspense. Namaste.

I felt cheated after first watching the very last episode of Battlestar. After a roller-coaster 4 seasons of twists, mysteries and expecting a cathartic revelation of answers; this is what we get? The hand of God?

To be sure, the rest of the season finale was Battlestar at its best; an intense suicidal mission, Kara’s Watchtower theme paying off as the co-ordinates to Earth, the heart-breaking end to Adama and Roslin’s love story. But Kara Thrace, Baltar’s and Caprica Six’s visions as angels of God? Battlestar had always been heavy on the symbolism and religion with names like Apollo, Athena and Hera, prophecies, visions and Baltar’s religious ramblings, but…really?

My first reaction was that executive producer, writer and developer Ron Moore had pulled the worst story trick in the book on everyone; the deus ex machina. So I whipped out my copy of Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting and checked.

The Writer’s Greatest Sin

Why does story guru Robert McKee call the deus ex machina ‘the writer’s greatest sin’ in his seminal screen-writing book?

Deus ex machina is a Latin phrase taken from the classical theatres of Greece and Rome, meaning “god from the machine”…

Story climaxes were as difficult twenty-five hundred years ago as now. But ancient playwrights had a way out. They would cook a story, twist Turning Points until they had the audience on the edge of their marble seats, then if the playwright’s creativity dried up and he was lost for a true Climax, convention allowed him to dodge the problem by cranking a god to the stage and letting Apollo or Athena settle everything. Who lives, who dies, who marries who, who is damned for eternity…

Deus ex machina not only erases all meaning and emotion, it’s an insult to the audience. Each of us knows we must choose and act, for better or worse, to determine the meaning of our lives. No one and nothing coincidental will come along to take that responsibility from us, regardless of the chaos around us. You could be locked up in a cell for the rest of your life for a crime you did not commit. But every morning you would still have to get up and make meaning. Do I bludgeon my brains against this wall or do I find some way to get through my days with value? Our lives are ultimately in our own hands. Deus ex machina is an insult because it’s a lie.

So, have Moore and gang cheated on us and introduced an improbable event to write away unexplainable plot twists? Is Kara Thrace ‘a god to the stage’ who dictates orders with divine wisdom? Are Gaius Baltar and Caprica Six’s visions gods who tell them how things should exactly go?

Despite their visions, our characters don’t act with the wisdom of gods, they stumble through the dark trying to make their way out of it, sometimes falling in the process. The more I thought about it, the more I felt that the writers of Battlestar hadn’t just pulled ‘the writers’ greatest sin’, but they did it in the service of saying that God exists. Boldly, in-your-face and without apologies – so Battlestar.

It’s an ending you either love or hate; you either accept it as something they’ve been building to from the start to make an unapologetic spiritual statement about man and machine, or a complete cop-out so they could pull every crazy stunt they’ve pulled without consequence.

(Unless the upcoming 2-hour TV movie The Plan shows us that Kara, Baltar and Six were all pawns in an even larger Cylon plan – are we going meta-Cylon?)

Why Battlestar Galactica Ends Perfectly

Maybe the greatest clue to the what-the-frak, answer-less ending of Battlestar Galactica comes from a blog post Moore wrote about the conclusion of another hit TV series, The Sopranos, titled The Sopranos Ends Perfectly:

For weeks, the speculation has centered around a simplistic black and white question for a show that revelled in never providing monochromatic answers: would Tony live or die? The prosaic nature of the question and its anticipated answer was itself was the most disappointing thing about the lead-up to the finale. Either Tony was going to get whacked, or he wouldn’t. “The Sopranos” would end with either the bitter little pill of the “bad” guy finally getting what he’s got coming or with the vaguely false relief of family affirmed and life goes on.

Instead, Chase managed to do the unthinkable, the unbelievable and the unprecedented: he yanked us out of their lives without any resolution whatsoever…

Oh, I’m sure there are those who will bemoan the lack of resolution to the story or that Chase has somehow “robbed the fans” but I’m a fan and I’m ecstatic. I’m glad he thumbed his nose at the tyranny of the narrative drive to bring things to a tidy conclusion so we can all clap and walk away without another thought about that mob family in Jersey, satisfied that all’s well that ends well. Screw that…

It’s poetic. It’s exciting. It’s perfect.

And most of all, I wish I’d thought of it first.

And the ending of Battlestar is poetic. Our beloved characters win the war and peaceful new lives on a lovely planet. Kara Thrace finds her peace. Caprica Six reassures Gaius Baltar as he completes the most revolutionary character change in the entire series. Poor Boomer makes her stand. Saul Tigh and Ellen Tigh, 2000-year old soul-mates, reunite. William Adama recites the lines of the book he and Laura Roslin shared as he sits besides her cairn, looking out at a vast landscape (oh, my heavy heart). And mysteries remain mysteries, as life’s mysteries do, and enrich our lives with wonder as they keep their secrets.

William Goldman, novelist, playwright and two-time Academy Award-winning screenwriter, says the key to all story endings is to give the audience what it wants, but not the way it expects. Battlestar Galactica has always been giving us what we wanted but not in the way we expected, and its end isn’t any different.

But You and I, We’ve Been Through That

It’s hard to let go of people, even fictional ones. After watching Battlestar Galactica for nearly three years, it’s hard to say goodbye to the characters I’ve come to know and love. Battlestar‘s happy ending may be a bit too trite for some people, but honestly, isn’t hope and a happy ending something all of us want for ourselves? And for all the frakked up craziness they’ve been through, the people and crew of the fleet sure deserve it.

Best Personal Growth Books of 2008

Alvin — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 07:55:33 +0000

Wherein favoritest becomes a word, and I share the favoritest personal growth books I read in 2008.

Personal Development for Smart People by Steve Pavlina

Surprise, surprise? Not really, if you’ve read my book review, Personal Atrophy for Foolish People anti-theory and Moving Towards Wisdom, Beauty & Strength application of the book’s principles.

There’s only one reason Personal Development for Smart People: The Conscious Pursuit of Personal Growth is up here, and that’s because its worked for me. I think Steve nails it when he describes the core principles of all personal growth as truth, love and power. Admittedly, it wasn’t such a big revelation to me since my friend Eleutherios had already introduced me to the Kabbalistic equivalent of wisdom, beauty and strength, but Steve’s re-introduction was the tipping point that came at the right time in my life.

I saw that applying these principles to be more honest to myself and others around me with Life Coaches Blog would make me happier, result in a greater connection to my heart and give me the power to get to the next stage in my life. And it has, not just on my blog but in my working and personal life as well.

The real litmus test of a book is whether I’d put cash down on it, and even though I’d already had a pre-release ebook review copy, the moment I saw it on the shelves I bought it.

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles is the book I want to buy for all my creative friends.

I first heard about The War of Art from The Mann, and had the unexpected fortune of finding it in a tucked away corner of the bookshop. I decided to buy this slim 165-pager even though, honestly, it didn’t look very interesting. But boy, am I glad I did.

In the book, Steven talks about the work we want to do and what stops us from doing it – a stopping force he calls resistance which separates ‘the life we live, and the unlived life within us.’

It’s a rare and cherished book that can make you see the world in a new light, and The War of Art does that for me. It spells out and nails down in a fresh way for me the internal forces that array against me doing my best work, how to beat it in a practical, no-nonsense way and even the spiritual nature of inspiration and the muse (which comes, after all, from beating resistance in a practical, no-nonsense way – nothing more airy-fairy than seating down and doing the work).

The most important lesson I learned from this book is a phrase that has stuck in my mind from the first day I heard it:

The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.

Meditations on Violence by Rory Miller

Meditations on Violence: A Comparison of Martial Arts Training & Real World Violence is a really good book that I wouldn’t recommend for everybody. For one, once you open it the first thing that greets you is a photo of a toilet floor smeared with blood. This is not your grandmother’s self-defense book.

A veteran corrections officer, Sergeant Rory Miller – a martial artist himself – talks about the difference between what martial artists train for and the types of violence he’s seen happen in real life, and why studying martial arts doesn’t always equal to learning self-defense.

I wish I could tell you more about this thought-provoking and thoughtfully written book, but the truth is that I’ve been loaning my copy out to everyone in my dojo the moment I finished it. What I do remember is the book shaking up every notion I had about my own training: I haven’t been able to look at martial arts and self-defense the same way since.

It’s a must-read for any martial artist who’s serious about self-defense and highly recommended also for anyone who wants to learn how to be safe (together with the other highly recommended book Cheap Shots, Ambushes, And Other Lessons and the encyclopedic website No Nonsense Self-Defense by Marc ‘Animal’ MacYoung).

Just be warned that the book pulls no punches.

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Ah, fiction! Or semi-autobiography travel/spiritual journey narrated like fiction in a sometimes overbearingly self-centered, but always thoughtful, well-written and satisfyingly funny way.

As fun as Meditations on Violence is serious, I read Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia not just once, but twice over because I underestimated the amount of time I would spend on the trains in Japan, and because I overestimated how easy it’d be to find an English bookstore in Japan. I enjoyed it tremendously both times though.

Eat, Pray, Love is the story of Elizabeth’s year of traveling through Italy, India and Bali as she indulges in food, meditation and finally, love. It’s her honest voice and her observations about life as much as anything that won me over in this book about self and worldly discovery. And yes, I can vouch that time in a meditation retreat can be just as frustrating as she writes about – you’re wrestling with your inner demons after all and not just Zen-ning out after all.

How to Get Rich by Felix Dennis

Not another how to get rich quick book by a bloke who’s only getting rich from teaching you how to get rich, you say? Ordinarily, I’m so jaded by assholes like that, that I tend to give books with such a blatant title a wide berth. But a friend of mine who runs his own business and doing rather well recommended it to me highly, and I’m glad I listened to his advice.

For one, Felix isn’t one of those scammy assholes. According to his book and Wikipedia entry, Felix Dennis is a ridiculously rich publisher who was ranked joint 95th on the Sunday Times Rich List 2007 with a fortune estimated at £750 million. He wrote How to Get Rich: One of the World’s Greatest Entrepreneurs Shares His Secrets after reviewing the book Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, and declared that it was ‘bunkum’ and ‘snake oil’, like every other self-help book he’d seen.

“Not one of those books was written by anyone who actually got rich – except by writing drivel for cretins.”

How to Get Rich is disarmingly honest, cleverly written, funny, full of life-lived wisdom and Felix never gets so full of himself to declare that he, and only he, has the ultimate secrets to making truckloads of cash. And surprisingly for a book that tells you how to get rich, he devotes one entire chapter of heartfelt reasons not to get rich, warning that the road to riches is often harder than you think.

The Gift of Nothing by Patrick McDonnell

I came across The Gift of Nothing quite by chance in a local bookstore, and fell in love with its simple message and beautiful ink illustrations.

Mooch the cat has a problem; what do you get for a friend who has everything? He thinks it over before reaching the perfect idea: he’d get his friend Earl the dog the gift of nothing. But where can you find nothing?

The 56-page Gift of Nothing reads like a child’s book, with a drawing and sentence or two per page. But I’d highly recommend it to adults all the same, for its lovely twist and simple way of reminding us that the best gifts in life come from the nothings we can hold; like friendship, love and trust.