Books like Daily Rituals — picked by fans

What will happen to the world if most of us—everyone except one or two humans, in fact—disappear?

According to Marlen Haushofer, the world will continue on just fine. I find that idea to be a little shocking, sure, but also comforting: maybe humans aren’t essential to the world’s existence after all. Maybe the world doesn’t need humans for drama, love, heartbreak, or healing.

This is what I would call an anti-post-apocalyptic book, one in which no one is a hero because humanity is beyond saving. Instead, the narrator has deep relationships with several animals—a dog, some cats, and a cow—animals that aren’t anthropomorphized in the slightest but treated with dignity, love, compassion, and complexity. I reread this slow and meditative page-turner every few years. I’m going to keep reading it for the rest of my life.

This book has been criticized for ignoring the brutal aspects of the Bolshevik revolution and giving us only old-world elegance and luxury. Hello? It’s historical FICTION! Instead of facts, the author gives us atmosphere, a charming main character who is being gradually revealed to us.

It made me ask: Did time change him, or was he always that way, and the events brought out his “true” self? It’s a story told in a polished style or, as one reviewer put it, with “a permanently arched eyebrow.” 

This fascinating and charming book was written by a French magazine editor after he suffered a massive stroke and was locked inside his own body, unable to speak or move. Incredibly, he wrote this book in his mind throughout the day and then each letter was slowly transcribed by blinking his eyes. I kept thinking about this book long after I read it. It’s a nightmare scenario, but he leads us all the way through it. We’re with him as he survives and even finds meaning when almost everything else is lost.

It spoke to my heart. It opened up a world of spirit and intuition, of love and grace that I had never connected with before. Discovering this book was like discovering a new and deep friendship.

The book read like poetry. It provided inspiration in my life at a time when I was new to spiritual seeking. I was so inspired by its words and insight that I typed up pages of quotes I wanted to remember. It felt as if it spoke to a wisdom deep within me and called it to awaken.

I’ve gone on to love other books written by John O’Donohue, but Anam Cara will always be my favorite.    

I adored this partly fictionalized, richly realized novel, which fleshes out the life of China’s greatest female painter, Pan Yuliang (1895–1977).

Rescued from a brothel by a wealthy government official, she fled to where the action was—1920s Paris—after graduating from art school in Shanghai. Boldly specializing in paintings of female nudes, including of herself, Pan was invited by high-profile artists to return to Shanghai and display her art, only to become embroiled in a series of widely publicized scandals over her nudes, leading her to quit China for good and resettle in Paris.

Her uncompromising devotion to her independence and her art marginalized her into a life of poverty and posthumous fame. It’s precisely these noble qualities that endeared me to Epstein’s treatment of the artist.

As an undergrad, I was blessed to have two professors who changed the course of my life: Angela Davis and Whitney Chadwick. Both of these professors discussed the intersectionality of gender, race, and class. Women, Art, and Society was published in 1990, and in 2020, the sixth edition was released. Although women artists’ representation in art history pedagogy has improved since 1990, the art world in general still favors men over women, making Chadwick’s book a relevant read. It provides a historical and critical look at women artists from the Middle Ages to the present, covering a range of media and artists from various cultural and geographical backgrounds. It challenges the assumption that great women artists are the exception to the rule and charts the evolution of feminist art history. 

This is such a fun read―a fictionalised account of the real-life husband and wife’s experience of walking the Camino de Santiago. I love how the two protagonists, who start as strangers, take turns to tell their stories, especially the hilarity in the ‘he said–she said’ of their relationship―they really are opposites but both bring out something remarkable in the other. Romantic in a very real way.

This book should be considered the bible of women’s artistic expression. Built on the idea of physical spaces and how they nurture the creative endeavor a woman does there, Where Women Create introduces you to dozens of extraordinary artists, textile designers, mixed media artists, book producers, entrepreneurs, and product designers. You get lost in their stories and inspired by their ingenious outlook on organization, clutter, and ways to keep the artistic spark alive.

This story made me want to stand up and cheer.

I loved how it brought to life one of my favorite late nineteenth-century female artists—Suzanne Valadon. I also loved how the book wove her tale with that of a contemporary woman, motivated by Suzanne’s bold art and life.

I rooted for both women as they struggled for personal and professional fulfillment, feeling disheartened by their frustrations and jubilant over their victories, such as Suzanne’s acceptance into the Académie des Beaux-Arts. It thrilled me how she overcame the many societal barriers in her path and won over the Académie with her powerfully expressive art.  

This is the true story of Phyllis Pearsall who (amongst other adventures in a remarkable life that was also filled with personal tragedy) decided to chart and map the geographical districts of London – a project which eventually tuned into the A-Z map. Over a year Pearsall walked 23,000 London streets to achieve this remarkable feat and set up the Geographers’ Map Company. Pearsall is complex and flawed and Hartley wasn’t always able to separate fact from the fiction (Mrs P was a wonderful storyteller but sometimes contradicted herself). Ultimately Hartley concludes ‘If there is a scene, or a word, or a character, you believe to be too fantastical, it is likely they are real.’ Mrs P did have an extraordinary life.