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Daily Rituals: How Great Minds Make Time, Find Inspiration, and Get to Work by Mason Currey—Franz Kafka, frustrated with his living quarters and day job, wrote in a letter to Felice Bauer in 1912, “time is short, my strength is limited, the office is a horror, the apartment is noisy, and if a pleasant, straightforward life is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by subtle maneuvers.”

Kafka is one of 161 inspired—and inspiring—minds, among them, novelists, poets, playwrights, painters, philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians, who describe how they subtly maneuver the many (self-inflicted) obstacles and (self-imposed) daily rituals to get done the work they love to do, whether by waking early or staying up late; whether by self-medicating with doughnuts or bathing, drinking vast quantities of coffee, or taking long daily walks. Thomas Wolfe wrote standing up in the kitchen, the top of the refrigerator as his desk, dreamily fondling his “male configurations”. . . Jean-Paul Sartre chewed on Corydrane tablets (a mix of amphetamine and aspirin), ingesting ten times the recommended dose each day . . . Descartes liked to linger in bed, his mind wandering in sleep through woods, gardens, and enchanted palaces where he experienced “every pleasure imaginable.”

Here are: Anthony Trollope, who demanded of himself that each morning he write three thousand words (250 words every fifteen minutes for three hours) before going off to his job at the postal service, which he kept for thirty-three years during the writing of more than two dozen books . . . Karl Marx . . . Woody Allen . . . Agatha Christie . . . George Balanchine, who did most of his work while ironing . . . Leo Tolstoy . . . Charles Dickens . . . Pablo Picasso . . . George Gershwin, who, said his brother Ira, worked for twelve hours a day from late morning to midnight, composing at the piano in pajamas, bathrobe, and slippers . . .

Here also are the daily rituals of Charles Darwin, Andy Warhol, John Updike, Twyla Tharp, Benjamin Franklin, William Faulkner, Jane Austen, Anne Rice, and Igor Stravinsky (he was never able to compose unless he was sure no one could hear him and, when blocked, stood on his head to “clear the brain”).

Brilliantly compiled and edited, and filled with detail and anecdote, Daily Rituals is irresistible, addictive, magically inspiring.

Read

— 2019 —

  • Know My Name: A Memoir by Chanel Miller (Rating: 5+/5)
  • Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don’t Know by Malcolm Gladwell (Rating: 5+/5)
  • Light a Penny Candle by Maeve Binchy (Rating: 4.5/5)
  • Off the Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done by Laura Vanderkam (Rating: 5/5)
  • Dare to Lead by Brené Brown (Rating: 4/5)
  • How Does a Poem Mean? by John Ciardi (Rating: 5/5)
  • The Overstory by Richard Powers (Rating: 4/5)
  • The Dutch Girl: Audrey Hepburn and World War II by Robert Matzen and Luca Dotti (Rating: 3/5)
  • Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing by Mignon Fogarty (Rating: 5/5)
  • Educated by Tara Westover (Rating: 5+/5)
  • Outer Order, Inner Calm by Gretchen Rubin (Rating: 1/5)
  • Next Year in Havana by Chanel Cleeton (Rating: 5/5)
  • The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters by Balli Kaur Jaswal (Rating: 2.5/5)
  • The Good Neighbors: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers by Maxwell King by Fred Rogers (Rating: 4.5/5)
  • Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance (Rating: 5/5)
  • The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout, Ph.D. (Rating: 4/5)
  • Dreyer’s English by Benjamin Dreyer (Rating: 5/5)
  • The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown (Rating: 5/5)
  • Becoming by Michelle Obama (Rating: 5/5)
  • The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine Who Outwitted America’s Enemies by Jason Fagone (Rating: 5/5)
  • The Other Einstein by Marie Benedict (Rating: 3/5)
  • The Library Book by Susan Orlean (Rating: 4.5/5)
  • The Real Story: Understanding the Big Picture of the Bible by Dr. Edward Sri and Curtis Martin (Rating: 2/5)
  • The Royal Nanny by Karen Harper (Rating: 3.5/5)
  • The Trump Card: Playing to Win in Work and Life by Ivanka Trump (Rating: 3/5)
  • Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (Rating: 5+/5)
  • Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain by Antonio Damasio (Rating: 4.5/5)
  • Bell Canto by Ann Patchett (Rating: 4.5/5)
  • Women Who Work: Rewriting the Rules for Success by Ivanka Trump (Rating: 3/5)
  • Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou (Rating: 5+/5)
  • Rules of Civility by Amor Towles (Rating: 4/5)

— 2018 —

  • How to Be a Hepburn in a Kardashian World: The Art of Living with Style, Class and Grace by Jordan Christy (Rating: 2/5)
  • When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi (Rating: 5/5)
  • Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman (Rating: 4/5)
  • Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate (Rating: 5/5)
  • The Doctors Mayo by Helen Clapsattle (Rating: 2.5/5)
  • Commonwealth by Ann Patchett (Rating: 4.5/5)
  • Pachinko by Min Jin Lee (Rating: 5/5)
  • Why We Can’t Wait by Martin Luther King, Jr. (Rating: 5/5)
  • Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg (Rating: 4.5/5)
  • Parson’s Pleasure by Roald Dahl (Rating: 4.5/5)
  • Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng (Rating: 5/5)
  • Small Bites: Forty Short Stories by Don Tassone (Rating: 4.5/5)
  • The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism by Olivia Fox Cabane (Rating: 2/5)
  • A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (Rating: 5/5)
  • The Inward Morning by Henry Bugbee (Rating: 3.5/5)
  • The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin (Rating: 3/5)
  • All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (Rating: 5/5)
  • If It’s Not Impossible… the Life of Sir Nicholas Winton by Barbara Winton (Rating: 4/5)
  • The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah (Rating: 4.5/5)
  • The City Baker’s Guide to Country Living by Louise Miller (Rating: 3/5)
  • Chasers of the Light: Poems from the Typewriter Series by Tyler Knott Gregson (Rating: 4.5/5)
  • Tales of the Jazz Age by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Rating: 4.5/5)
  • The Astronaut Wives Club by Lily Koppel (Rating: 4/5)
  • Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath (Rating: 4.5/5)
  • Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl (Rating: 5/5)

— 2017 —

  • Words Can Change Your Brain by Andrew Newberg, MD and Mark Robert Waldman (Rating: 3.5/5)
  • Monster Loyalty: How Lady Gaga Turns Followers into Fanatics by Jackie Huba (Rating: 3/5)
  • The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett (Rating: 5/5)
  • Drive by Don Tassone (Rating: 4.5/5)
  • Write Like Hemingway by R. Andrew Wilson, PhD (Rating: 5/5)
  • Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner (Rating: 3/5)
  • What Color is Your Parachute? by Richard N. Bolles (Rating: 3.5/5)
  • Firefly Summer by Maeve Binchy (Rating: 4.5/5)
  • The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo (Rating: 5/5)
  • The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath, Edited by Karen Kukil (Rating: 3.5/5)
  • Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman (Rating: 4/5)
  • Braving the Wilderness by Brene Brown (Rating: 4.5/5)
  • All Our Worldly Goods by Irene Nemirovsky (Rating: 4.5/5)
  • The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran Rating: 5/5)
  • Blink by Malcolm Gladwell (Rating: 5/5)
  • Suite Français by Irene Nemirovsky (Rating: 5/5)

2018 Favorites

To Read

  • Chasing My Cure: A Doctor’s Race to Turn Hope into Action by David Fajgenbaum
  • The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
  • The Makioka Sisters by Jun’ichirō Tanizaki
  • Getting Naked by Patrick Lencioni
  • The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni
  • The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni
  • The Ideal Team Player by Patrick Lencioni
  • Writing that Works by Richard Anderson
  • The Givers and the Takers by Cris Evatt and Bruce Feld
  • Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King
  • The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White
  • Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss
  • Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies by June Casagrande
  • The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century by Steven Pinker
  • Woe is I by Patricia T. O’Conner
  • You Are What You Speak by Robert Lane Greene
  • ‘Cherry’ Ingram: The Englishman Who Saved Japan’s Blossoms by Naoko Abe
  • No Friend But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison by Behrouz Boochani
  • The Immoralist by Chloe Benjamin
  • The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
  • A Call to Mercy: Hearts to Love, Hands to Serve by Mother Teresa
  • How to Dress for Success by Edith Head
  • The Little Pink Book of Etiquette: A Civilized Guide to Getting It Right by Ruth Cullen
  • The Little Dictionary of Fashion by Christian Dior
  • Lessons from Madame Chic: 20 Stylish Secrets I Learned While Living in Paris by Jennifer L. Scott
  • Polish Your Poise with Madame Chic: Lessons in Everyday Elegance by Jennifer L. Scott
  • All in Good Taste by Kate Spade New York
  • Emily Post’s Etiquette: The Definitive Guide to Manners by Peggy Post
  • Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins
  • Proper, Poised and Polished by Patricia Napier-Fitzpatrick
  • Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies by Ross King
  • 100 Years of Fashion by Cally Blackman
  • Empress of Fashion: A Life of Diana Vreeland by Amanda Mackenzie Stuart
  • The Little Book of Hygge: The Danish Way to Live Well by Meik Wiking
  • The Opposite of Loneliness: Essays and Stories by Marina Keegan
  • The Starboard Sea by Amber Dermont
  • Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder by Arianna Huffington
  • The Spy Wore Red by Aline Griffith, Countess of Romanones
  • The Spy Went Dancing by Aline Griffith, Countess of Romanones
  • The Spy Wore Silk by Aline Griffith, Countess of Romanones
  • 1984 by George Orwell
  • The Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt’s Masterpiece, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer by Anne-Marie O’Connor
  • World Without End by Ken Folloett
  • Anatomy for Runners by Jay Dicharry
  • Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
  • Along the Infinite Sea by Beatriz Williams
  • A Writer’s Guide to Powerful Paragraphs by John Walsh
  • The Art of Readable Writing by Rudolf Flesch, PhD
  • Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks
  • Over to You by Roald Dahl
  • Mrs. Kennedy and Me by Clint Hill
  • The Boat People by Sharon Bala
  • A Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure
  • Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
  • All You Could Ask For by Mike Greenberg
  • The Girl Who Wrote in Silk by Kelli Estes
  • A Fall of Marigolds by Susan Meissner
  • Tribe by Sebastian Junger
  • Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
  • The Soloist by Steve Lopez
  • Dear Mrs. Bird by AJ Pearce
  • Words that Work by Dr. Frank Luntz