Books like Illustration — picked by fans

Blake was the unwitting father of many things—among them, illustration as we have come to know it.

He was (metaphorically speaking) a sport (botanically speaking) an unprecedented visionary in both word and image. For the best of his illustrations, or "illuminations" as he called them, you might want to look at The Book of Job and ask yourself where the authority of these images and imagery comes from.

As far as his texts go, my favorite is probably The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, mostly because of a section called “Proverbs from Hell.” (He who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence.) Never before or since have wisdom and subversion sung together in such harmony.  

I’ve always had a weak spot for etchings and engravings.

My mother was a woodcut artist, and I suspect that in some prior life, parallel universe, or retirement plan, I am an etcher, even though certain of the techniques baffle me. The value of the medium is both aesthetic—to pronounce exactly—but also practical—to allow for copies.

Either way, and especially in the case of Doré, the effect is to cement the image, and in this way to do a kind of terrible thing, when you think about it: to rob Dante’s image from the reader’s imagination, to define what an angel looks like, or a storm, or the contours of heaven and hell.

So should we curse an artist like Doré, for having come between us and the poem, or do we thank him, for preserving it more indelibly than the words alone ever could?

Compared to the other recommendations here, this one is a bit of a cheat, being a collection. But it does well to cover a whole swath of artists from what’s come to be called the "Golden Age" of illustration: Parrish, Dulac, Rackham, J.W. Smith, Pyle, N.C. Wyeth, and more.

What is it that distinguishes them as a "school"? The material, first–vivid, classic tales of action and adventure. But there are certain shared aesthetic values as well. Colors that glow in juxtaposition, and (again) an open embrace of the line as a way of pronouncing and demarcating edges. False, but also clarifying. A little like the piano. Or any word you choose. 

And then there are the illustrators who were finally allowed to generate their own material.

Jean Giraud was the visionary behind the famously unfinished Jodorowsky Dune movie, but also Blade Runner, Alien, Tron, and The Fifth Element. All these and more were based upon drawings and comics by Giraud.

Whether he has inscribed our minds or read them, it’s clear to anyone who glances in the direction of his later work—especially those titles credited to "Moebius"—he lived rent-free in some corner of the collective imagination.

He is also said to be one of those artists who drew without apparent hesitation or forethought. That is, in practice, he appeared to be more of a transmitter than a creator. As with all the best.

Last summer, we buried our parents’ ashes in a cemetery near the family home.

At about 3 AM the night before, lying in my boyhood bed, I was thinking about what I should read for the ceremony. I hit upon the idea of the "hazelnut" passage from Julian’s revelations, which remains just about my favorite page in all English literature. But I wasn’t able, in those wee hours, to find the right version online. Nor was there a printer in the house.

The next morning, I was going through a bunch of my old boxes in the basement—they’d been damaged in a flood the prior spring. I had to chuck almost all the books because of mold. Magically, one of the survivors was this edition of the Norwich—which I had purchased back in college, and which fittingly fits in the palm of your hand. I read directly from it at… show more.

This abridged edition of the much longer Gospel is still lengthy for this list, but such a perfect size and shape—a little golden brick, perfect for the lower pocket of a cargo pant, and well worth the weight.

An account of Gupta’s meeting and brief apprenticeship with the last consensus divine incarnation in the Vedantic tradition, the Paramahamasa Sri Ramakrishna (who fell ill and died during its composition), this volume need not be read sequentially.

Every page contains its own lesson, is happy to be opened and closed, or left alone to rub against the side of your left knee. The perfect pebble for your shoe. 

I love translation. Oftentimes, the style to which I aspire could be called “as translated.”

I especially enjoy translations of sacred texts. The Tao Te Ching stands out in that regard first because it admits in its first line that “the Tao that can be named is not the Tao.” Second, the entire text is so short you can compare translations while standing in the aisle of the bookstore.

I recommend this one because Stephen Mitchell is kind of the Goldilocks of all translators, and because this version is also among the smallest and most portable. I also enjoy that, when I voice-typed this description, the computer translated my pronunciation of the title as “the dowdy chain.”   

Before Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, there was this, which is considerably shorter and more to the point.

Published in 1958, Herrigel’s book was a threshold moment in the westward spread of Eastern ideas. I read it in high school, and what still sticks with me is the kyudo Master’s instruction on how to draw the bowstring: “to let only your two hands do the work, while your arm and shoulder muscles remain relaxed, as though they looked on impassively. Only when you can do this will you have fulfilled one of the conditions that make the drawing and the shooting ‘spiritual’.” 

This novel explores the mysteries of the heart, much as Jane Austen did. The book’s chapters correspond with Austen’s six novels and the six meetings of the book club focused on her. As five women of various ages and one man discuss each Austen novel, their witty sparring reveals the complexity of their own searches for love and meaning. By studying Austen’s novels, the book club members, all of them at a crossroads, understand themselves better and forge a path forward. Having read and re-read Austen for decades, I love this book for showing how Jane Austen speaks to us two centuries after she died.

As a mystery reader and writer, I idolize Agatha Christie, the bestselling fiction writer of all time. In her 60+ detective novels, the mystery is always solved, but she left behind an unsolved mystery about herself. In 1926, after Archie Christie asked for a divorce to marry his lover, Agatha vanished for eleven days. Found after a massive manhunt, she never revealed why or how she disappeared. The Christie Affair solves that mystery in an inventive way, narrated by Archie’s mistress, a character I didn’t expect to like but grew to understand. I love the novel’s intertwining of history and mystery. It explores the effect of war on the hearts and minds of the characters and includes a murder solution worthy of Dame Agatha.