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What It Is
How do objects summon memories? What do real images feel like? For decades, these types of questions have permeated the pages of Lynda Barry’s compositions, with words attracting pictures and conjuring places through a pen that first and foremost keeps on moving. What It Is demonstrates a tried-and-true creative method that is playful, powerful, and accessible to anyone with an inquisitive wish to write or to remember. Composed of completely new material, each page of Barry’s first Drawn & Quarterly book is a full-color collage that is not only a gentle guide to this process but an invigorating example of exactly what it is: “The ordinary is extraordinary.”
210 pages, Hardcover
First published May 13, 2008
About the author
Lynda Barry
45 books1,070 followersLynda Barry is an American cartoonist and author, perhaps best known for her weekly comic strip Ernie Pook's Comeek.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 690 reviews
June 11, 2008
THE ORDINARY IS EXTRAORDINARY. i love this book like i have never loved a book. i want to make out with it, caress it, sleep with it near my pillow and wake up clutching it after a bad dream.
this book is related to the Lynda Barry writing class WRITING THE UNTHINKABLE! which i took in april. this class and book are for people who think they want to write, but don't know where to start. it's also for people who never thought about writing, people who already write, and people who like other people and people who don't like other people. this is a book for the crazy, and the sane. this book is my immune system.
this book is the transportation system for my mental health.
this is a way of thinking / writing / creating that is related to DEEP PLAY or CREATIVE CONCENTRATION and centered around THE IMAGE. this is how lynda barry makes those pictures and stories we love. this is how you can help your brain sort things out. this is how we can remember the things we need to remember, the little things, and forget the things we need to forget!
this book & ms. lynda's writing class changed my life!! it sounds superfluous but i am serious! i feel like i am becoming a different person every day when i work on my Bullion Cube journals with Sea-Ma the sea monster class monitor. i love all the little pictures, the scraps of ideas and memories. i love that there can never be writers block again in my life!!!!!
my girlfriend bought this book for me, special ordered in olympia washington where lynda barry went to college at evergreen and learned this IMAGE method from marilyn frasca. while we waited at the cash register to buy the book, i found a greeting card with a Rumi poem on it, and i knew right then that this was a Big Big Deal. please check it out, get out your three-ring binder, and don't read anything you write for at least a month. dang. this review is appx. 1/100000th as strongly as i feel about this book.
this book is related to the Lynda Barry writing class WRITING THE UNTHINKABLE! which i took in april. this class and book are for people who think they want to write, but don't know where to start. it's also for people who never thought about writing, people who already write, and people who like other people and people who don't like other people. this is a book for the crazy, and the sane. this book is my immune system.
this book is the transportation system for my mental health.
this is a way of thinking / writing / creating that is related to DEEP PLAY or CREATIVE CONCENTRATION and centered around THE IMAGE. this is how lynda barry makes those pictures and stories we love. this is how you can help your brain sort things out. this is how we can remember the things we need to remember, the little things, and forget the things we need to forget!
this book & ms. lynda's writing class changed my life!! it sounds superfluous but i am serious! i feel like i am becoming a different person every day when i work on my Bullion Cube journals with Sea-Ma the sea monster class monitor. i love all the little pictures, the scraps of ideas and memories. i love that there can never be writers block again in my life!!!!!
my girlfriend bought this book for me, special ordered in olympia washington where lynda barry went to college at evergreen and learned this IMAGE method from marilyn frasca. while we waited at the cash register to buy the book, i found a greeting card with a Rumi poem on it, and i knew right then that this was a Big Big Deal. please check it out, get out your three-ring binder, and don't read anything you write for at least a month. dang. this review is appx. 1/100000th as strongly as i feel about this book.
July 26, 2008
What It Is by Lynda Barry is a fascinating memoir/scrapbook/writing guide that almost defies definition. The first half of the book contains melancholic comic panels about Barry's alienated childhood and how drawing and writing saved her from loneliness interspersed with large one and two page spreads of collages that contain great writing prompts, like "Do thoughts move?" "What is a secret? What is it made of? Where is it kept?" "What is a monster? Do we need them?" The second half of the book contains actual writing exercises, also collaged, that made me want to crack open a notebook, lick my pencil, and give them a try. The more time I spend with this book, the more I want to spend with it. Every time I go over one of Barry's collages, I see more. I know I will be looking at this title again and again, and going to it for ideas for my own student writers.
I'm very excited about this book. It's the freshest piece of media I've come across in awhile, as it is non-linear, multi-format, and interactive.Because of these elements, it
will be a challenging read for some, but I think the benefit that comes from wandering around in Barry's brain for a pleasant while far outweighs the slight discomfort some will have in getting used to the unusual format.
I'll be carrying this one around with me for awhile, I think. I just don't want to be parted from it!
I'm very excited about this book. It's the freshest piece of media I've come across in awhile, as it is non-linear, multi-format, and interactive.Because of these elements, it
will be a challenging read for some, but I think the benefit that comes from wandering around in Barry's brain for a pleasant while far outweighs the slight discomfort some will have in getting used to the unusual format.
I'll be carrying this one around with me for awhile, I think. I just don't want to be parted from it!
July 5, 2016
Imagine every page is like this, like opening a box of treasures. And in it, a germ of an idea: how and why does one write?
Many moons ago, when I was a teenager, I found a book that was very similar to this one in message (but in execution very different). It was Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg.
Like this one, it advocated writing non-stop for a set amount of time or until you fill a page. It also said to not stop to read over what you wrote until later. And to turn off that editing part of your brain. The method is very similar with small differences.
But unlike this book, I found that one at the perfect impressionable age. Thus, it was the one that changed my life. I know that sounds dramatic, but it did. It introduced me to a craft that I still continue to pursue.
I would give that book 5+ stars. Yet, this one may be even better. If I had read it when I was a teenager (though I'd have to travel in time to do it) it may have been the one to change my life instead.
When it comes to a book like this, what we're looking for is the amount of inspiration per square inch. And this one does not fail in that department.
Instead of approaching writing as a craft, Lynda Barry approaches it as a byproduct. The main product of writing is the process of writing, is what you gain from the act of doing it. And I mean "act" as in the physical act, as Barry advocates using our very visceral bodies as much as possible rather than type-typing it on a laptop.
More than that even. Not only does she advocate writing by hand, she even advocates using a paintbrush. She luxuriates in the strokes of her brush. The melding of writing and painting, of the very particular shapes of the letters with the very particular meaning of the words all in the service of wiping any thought from our brains.
Since writing for Barry is a physical act, the brain is useless and only gets in the way. I loved this book, and I loved its companion Picture This: The Near-sighted Monkey Book which I read a few days afterwards. I highly recommend them, especially if you are a teenager. But even if you aren't, it will still inspire.
December 12, 2014
Part graphic novel, part memoir, part writing prompt guide, this book is a treasure of many kinds of art in one. As inspiration, it's tops. As aesthetic assault, it's also tops. I really enjoyed it.
But I did have this nagging feeling I often get when I look at the graphic art from a clearly gifted mind: I don't know the word for it. Intimidation? Confusion? Guilt of some kind? The collage format makes me want to stare at each piece for individual inspiration, but the OCD in me wants to make sense of everything I see. One of the themes of the book - an important one - is that it's not always about making sense, and that that impulse alone can block you from seeing or creating true art. I loved Barry's descriptions of the two questions that shrivel up artistic impulse: is this good? and does this suck? She's right. Point well taken. And yet the art itself was such a sensory assault that I found myself breathing more deeply when I got to a page with words formed into a story. This could be my shortcoming: I am not a very good graphic artist, and not just from a withered impulse that she describes in most adults. I'm just better with words. Sometimes looking at art like this is like reading in a foreign language, and I had trouble getting over it even as I enjoyed the pages.
But I did have this nagging feeling I often get when I look at the graphic art from a clearly gifted mind: I don't know the word for it. Intimidation? Confusion? Guilt of some kind? The collage format makes me want to stare at each piece for individual inspiration, but the OCD in me wants to make sense of everything I see. One of the themes of the book - an important one - is that it's not always about making sense, and that that impulse alone can block you from seeing or creating true art. I loved Barry's descriptions of the two questions that shrivel up artistic impulse: is this good? and does this suck? She's right. Point well taken. And yet the art itself was such a sensory assault that I found myself breathing more deeply when I got to a page with words formed into a story. This could be my shortcoming: I am not a very good graphic artist, and not just from a withered impulse that she describes in most adults. I'm just better with words. Sometimes looking at art like this is like reading in a foreign language, and I had trouble getting over it even as I enjoyed the pages.
February 25, 2017
This book explains my whole entire childhood. Why I did what I did and why I didn't do most things other kids did.
This book explains why it all changed at some point and I stopped.
I'm glad I've already gotten back to most of the things I used to do as a kid (write, draw, color, imagine, play) because it's me. It's who I am.
This book explains a lot of the kind of mind I have right now. All the stuff about imagining, remembering, forgetting, dreams and fears and nightmares. It's all me. Why I doodle and why one thought leads to another in a way that other people have the hardest time following my train of thought when I try to explain something.
In particular, I remember those moments of trying desperately to come up with an imaginary friend and feeling like a freak when I couldn't. Most of my closest friends at the time had imaginary friends. It was like a craze and I lied I had one just to fit in (and to be able to play with my friends because most play evolved around the imaginary friends.) I still remember one: My friend's imaginary friend was a real horse (with a mind of its own) but it was also a balloon filled with helium. So, sometimes the horse would "try to run away" and my friend would just reach her hand up as if she was reaching for a balloon string and "pull it back down".
I need this book.
"What is the reason for it (doodling)? I believe it's because it helps us maintain a certain patient state of mind and there is a part of us which has never forgotten this. In the beginning it's one of the reasons we draw though we may never notice this effect with the thinking part of our minds."
"I loved to copy comics at night in front of the TV. -- It was a form of transportation. I did it because it helped me to stay by giving me somewhere else to go. Maybe this is why we draw shapes in the margins during meetings or -- when we're waiting on the phone. Drawing can help us stand to be there. That, alone, is something. Give a kid a crayon and some paper when they are stuck waiting somewhere. Somehow it changes things. How?"
This book explains why it all changed at some point and I stopped.
I'm glad I've already gotten back to most of the things I used to do as a kid (write, draw, color, imagine, play) because it's me. It's who I am.
This book explains a lot of the kind of mind I have right now. All the stuff about imagining, remembering, forgetting, dreams and fears and nightmares. It's all me. Why I doodle and why one thought leads to another in a way that other people have the hardest time following my train of thought when I try to explain something.
In particular, I remember those moments of trying desperately to come up with an imaginary friend and feeling like a freak when I couldn't. Most of my closest friends at the time had imaginary friends. It was like a craze and I lied I had one just to fit in (and to be able to play with my friends because most play evolved around the imaginary friends.) I still remember one: My friend's imaginary friend was a real horse (with a mind of its own) but it was also a balloon filled with helium. So, sometimes the horse would "try to run away" and my friend would just reach her hand up as if she was reaching for a balloon string and "pull it back down".
I need this book.
"What is the reason for it (doodling)? I believe it's because it helps us maintain a certain patient state of mind and there is a part of us which has never forgotten this. In the beginning it's one of the reasons we draw though we may never notice this effect with the thinking part of our minds."
"I loved to copy comics at night in front of the TV. -- It was a form of transportation. I did it because it helped me to stay by giving me somewhere else to go. Maybe this is why we draw shapes in the margins during meetings or -- when we're waiting on the phone. Drawing can help us stand to be there. That, alone, is something. Give a kid a crayon and some paper when they are stuck waiting somewhere. Somehow it changes things. How?"
Shelved as 'non-fiction-to-read'
September 24, 2014The subtitle is "How to channel your inner cephalopod". How do I not already own this?
My cephalopod demands to be channeled!
My cephalopod demands to be channeled!
December 4, 2012
(More pictures at parkablogs.com)
This book screamed "Buy me!" when I saw it at the Drawn & Quarterly booth at San Diego Comic Con 2009. It is that good!
With a brush in the right hand, and a pencil on the left, the multi-eyed monster on the back cover spoked, "Welcome to writing the unthinkable". That's the essence of this book created by Lynda Barry, putting vivid imagination onto paper.
What It Is is a scrapbook that's filled to the brim with sketches, coloured illustrations, collages, comics, autobiographical writing, random thoughts and even a bit on creative writing.
Every page is elaborately decorated, an exploration into the unknown realms of imagination. And every page is just fun to look at.
This book is creativity and self expression, great for flipping through when you're feeling random or looking for inspiration.
I'll give this book two thumbs (drawn with smiley faces) up.
By the way, What It Is won the 2009 Eisner award for Best Reality-Based Work, but I didn't know that when I bought it. It's also one of the top 100 books picked by Amazon editors for 2008.
Read
November 9, 2008Don't file this book under currently-reading.
Label it currently-utilizing.
Part philosophy, part workbook, all Right On!
Label it currently-utilizing.
Part philosophy, part workbook, all Right On!
August 26, 2023
Figures I'd read like 10 other Lynda Barry books before finally reading this one - her most popular based on Goodreads ratings. Also it does feel like a perfect synthesis of the topics she covers in all her other works. Half of the book is basically collage pieces that explore the meaning of art and creativity. The other half Barry explores her childhood and the impact it still has on her personality. It's quite moving actually.
June 16, 2009
Barry does it again! I love the free way she uses collage along with her more customary brush and ink work. Meet the Magic Cephalopod who guides us to our imagery,Sea-Ma, the nonjudgmental writing instructor, and the Near-Sighted Monkey who likes to clip magazines while watching TV and drinking beer.
6/16/09 I now own a copy of this book with my very own personal inscription from the author! She even drew a near-sighted monkey for me!
May 15, 2011
First, let’s start with what Lynda Barry’s graphic novel is not: drab, ordinary, boring. As an intellectual rhapsody of the power of image, form, and function within writing, What It Is is unlike any book I’ve ever experienced: undeniably an oddity– although wonderfully so. Barry’s stylized use of color, text, imagery, and wording is gorgeous, and the thoughts/questions that she poses are intuitively reflective. Her “essay” questions (which bear the post script “we do not know the answers”) cover topics such as the nature of imagery, the effect of words, and the concept of a story in relation to one’s own past, present, and future.
Reading this graphic novel, and indeed pondering some of the questions it asks, brings to light my (lately dormant) creative side, and also the desire in me to do something about it. It isn’t so much the subject matter itself, but more the abstract and free-formed way in which Barry presents her thoughts that makes this book so compelling; I’m in awe of her style. She professes the idea that writing doesn’t always need structure: writing, art, creativity can be as unrestrained as we want it to be, which I think is a concept that lately I’ve overlooked.
Reading this graphic novel, and indeed pondering some of the questions it asks, brings to light my (lately dormant) creative side, and also the desire in me to do something about it. It isn’t so much the subject matter itself, but more the abstract and free-formed way in which Barry presents her thoughts that makes this book so compelling; I’m in awe of her style. She professes the idea that writing doesn’t always need structure: writing, art, creativity can be as unrestrained as we want it to be, which I think is a concept that lately I’ve overlooked.
December 16, 2008
Lynda Barry takes readers on a visual exploration of insecurities and uncertainties about the world in What It Is. Barry's obsession with storytelling and authenticity shines as she reflects on incidents in her life that led her to express herself through words and drawings. She reflects on whether childhood is a place or a time in one's life, and whether the past isn't an integral part of your present experience that you can draw on to help the creative process. The book contains many ideas, questions, and exercises to assist readers in exploring their own ideas and memories, and includes samples from Barry's own daily sketch-diary. Highly recommended for teens who were fans of Barry's One! Hundred! Demons! (an Alex award winner) and those artistic teens who would appreciate the voice of experience encouraging them to embrace and hone their talent.
January 5, 2014
This beautiful, inspiring book is essential reading for anyone from the life-long artist/writer feeling down on themselves to those suffering from writer's/artist's block, all the way to those who for whatever reason gave up their childhood joy of writing and drawing for more adulty pursuits. Lynda Barry always manages to speak to the heart without ever going down the cutsie path. Essential reading material.
P.S. I really adore her friend the Magic Cephalopod.
P.S. I really adore her friend the Magic Cephalopod.
August 23, 2010
I think about this book, about Lynda Barry, a lot. 5 stars a lot. I can't tell you why I like it, that'd be embarrassing, you might find out I care about stuff and then you might call me a pussy and then I might cry - or punch you - depending on the day. And let's face it, more than being honest about who I am I want you to like me....
July 19, 2013
This collage /mixed media graphic novel is usually the type of book that thrills me, chills me and lights my fire.
I have no idea why there is no spark, if it were an ex-boyfriend I would whine "but we look so good together on paper..." By the end if this zine I screamed UUGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH inside my head.
It's not you, it's me.
I have no idea why there is no spark, if it were an ex-boyfriend I would whine "but we look so good together on paper..." By the end if this zine I screamed UUGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH inside my head.
It's not you, it's me.
November 11, 2012
Great book! A simple yet incredibly effective techniques for finding stories that are already there inside you. I love Lynda Barry! Great for both young Adults and the older kind of Adults too.
April 9, 2016
This book is Lynda Barry herself.
September 15, 2009
"What It Is" by Lynda Barry is part journal, scrapbook, sketchpad, self-help book, memoir, and writing exercise book, so I find it rather limiting to think of it as solely a journal. However, I suppose this book asks us to look at how we define the boundaries of a journal in the first place. "What It Is" is not a journal in the traditional sense. It is a journal that has been compiled with an audience in mind and with well-crafted pages in which the image often corresponds with the words, such as the narrative pages of Barry’s story about her artistic inhibition and her later freedom. I find the correspondence between Barry’s images and words in these narrative sections interesting as a few people have pointed out that they appreciated these sections the most. This is an important aspect of Barry’s project because it shows the power of image-word correspondence, and perhaps how images and words can compliment and reinforce one another.
The image-word correspondence is not quite as obvious on the other pages of "What It Is", but I found them fascinating nonetheless. I liked how they forced my brain to work harder than I do when just reading text as I was trying to find associations between the images and the words. I enjoyed this type of reading because it refuses linearity. My eye wandered around the page, completely stimulated, looking for order and understanding, yet I didn’t find it frustrating. Rather, I found it inspiring because it felt somewhat more organic, personal, and intuitive. In the end, I didn’t find it necessary to make sense of it; rather I enjoyed processing the image-word layers of each page.
I have had a similar experience with Sabrina Ward Harrison’s books. There is something about the organized chaos of her work, and her mentor SARK’s work, that I find completely inspiring and comforting. Perhaps it is because the collage and handwritten element of it makes it seem more “alive” as Barry might argue. Handwriting itself is an image that works to give form to a larger image and there is something about the individuality of Barry, Harrison, and SARK’s work that feels more personable, and because of that, more alive. Perhaps this is why journaling, particularly handwritten journaling, can be so therapeutic and why reading others’ journals is so interesting; we feel like we are being let into a private universe that is made public via our reading of it.
"What It Is" borders the line between a public and private document in that we are given pages that are purposefully rendered, such as the narrative sequences, yet we are also given pages at the end from Barry’s “actual” journal, which she kept while making the book. These pages are rougher and seemingly more spontaneous. Thus, by including these initial journal pages, Barry points to a layering here of initial artistic inspiration later molded by craft and thoughtful editing. I again found this comforting and inspiring because it calls attention to the journal as a place for beginnings, a place to be ugly, spontaneous, associative, nonsensical, sentimental, and a little crazy. As a writing teacher once told me, you have to let yourself be stupid in the composing process and to trust where your writing, or I would argue any artistic medium, is taking you. Otherwise, you may think yourself out of something fabulous.
I think this is what Barry is trying to get at when she instructs the reader to keep moving their pen or brush whenever they are blocked and can’t keep writing, drawing, or painting. Why not just enjoy the movement of your pen, pencil, or paintbrush and see what happens? This is scary because it requires a letting go of sorts and a trusting of the self that thinking does not allow. That’s why I love what Barry says on one of her initial journal pages at the end of the book. She says, “The thinking part of you / is not the doing part of you / or the experiencing part of you / The thinking part of you can / tell you that a decision has / been made but it’s not the / part of you which decides things / This is why thinking is not / the same as creating though / The thinking part of us seems / completely unaware of this” (207).
Although one might argue that Barry’s book is illogical or seemingly random, I think that it accomplishes far more than the typical journal. It forces us to question the difference of forms made by images and words, and it allows us to see what can be accomplished by combining them. Furthermore, Barry’s journal inspired me to continue really looking at things, even the most mundane old letters, stamps, and postcards for inspiration in order to shape how I see the world and what I find to be beautiful, ugly, upsetting, and exciting. I suppose in this way, I have already been keeping a journal similar to Barry’s, yet not quite as structured.
For example, over the summer, I received a lot of mail at my job, and I never saw so much interesting postage! I began to tear off the upper right hand corner of every envelope I received, and I collected them in my journal. I’m not quite sure why I initially did this, but I thought each stamp was so strange and unique, and it just made me happy to look at them in between my words as I flipped through the pages. These stamps were able to give form to a certain aspect of my summer that I didn’t think could be expressed any better in words, and in fact, I thought was better left alone. Perhaps this is why Barry’s seemingly random use of artifacts from others’ lives and its manipulation of those artifacts in order to make a page more interesting and beautiful is what I appreciate about it the most.
The image-word correspondence is not quite as obvious on the other pages of "What It Is", but I found them fascinating nonetheless. I liked how they forced my brain to work harder than I do when just reading text as I was trying to find associations between the images and the words. I enjoyed this type of reading because it refuses linearity. My eye wandered around the page, completely stimulated, looking for order and understanding, yet I didn’t find it frustrating. Rather, I found it inspiring because it felt somewhat more organic, personal, and intuitive. In the end, I didn’t find it necessary to make sense of it; rather I enjoyed processing the image-word layers of each page.
I have had a similar experience with Sabrina Ward Harrison’s books. There is something about the organized chaos of her work, and her mentor SARK’s work, that I find completely inspiring and comforting. Perhaps it is because the collage and handwritten element of it makes it seem more “alive” as Barry might argue. Handwriting itself is an image that works to give form to a larger image and there is something about the individuality of Barry, Harrison, and SARK’s work that feels more personable, and because of that, more alive. Perhaps this is why journaling, particularly handwritten journaling, can be so therapeutic and why reading others’ journals is so interesting; we feel like we are being let into a private universe that is made public via our reading of it.
"What It Is" borders the line between a public and private document in that we are given pages that are purposefully rendered, such as the narrative sequences, yet we are also given pages at the end from Barry’s “actual” journal, which she kept while making the book. These pages are rougher and seemingly more spontaneous. Thus, by including these initial journal pages, Barry points to a layering here of initial artistic inspiration later molded by craft and thoughtful editing. I again found this comforting and inspiring because it calls attention to the journal as a place for beginnings, a place to be ugly, spontaneous, associative, nonsensical, sentimental, and a little crazy. As a writing teacher once told me, you have to let yourself be stupid in the composing process and to trust where your writing, or I would argue any artistic medium, is taking you. Otherwise, you may think yourself out of something fabulous.
I think this is what Barry is trying to get at when she instructs the reader to keep moving their pen or brush whenever they are blocked and can’t keep writing, drawing, or painting. Why not just enjoy the movement of your pen, pencil, or paintbrush and see what happens? This is scary because it requires a letting go of sorts and a trusting of the self that thinking does not allow. That’s why I love what Barry says on one of her initial journal pages at the end of the book. She says, “The thinking part of you / is not the doing part of you / or the experiencing part of you / The thinking part of you can / tell you that a decision has / been made but it’s not the / part of you which decides things / This is why thinking is not / the same as creating though / The thinking part of us seems / completely unaware of this” (207).
Although one might argue that Barry’s book is illogical or seemingly random, I think that it accomplishes far more than the typical journal. It forces us to question the difference of forms made by images and words, and it allows us to see what can be accomplished by combining them. Furthermore, Barry’s journal inspired me to continue really looking at things, even the most mundane old letters, stamps, and postcards for inspiration in order to shape how I see the world and what I find to be beautiful, ugly, upsetting, and exciting. I suppose in this way, I have already been keeping a journal similar to Barry’s, yet not quite as structured.
For example, over the summer, I received a lot of mail at my job, and I never saw so much interesting postage! I began to tear off the upper right hand corner of every envelope I received, and I collected them in my journal. I’m not quite sure why I initially did this, but I thought each stamp was so strange and unique, and it just made me happy to look at them in between my words as I flipped through the pages. These stamps were able to give form to a certain aspect of my summer that I didn’t think could be expressed any better in words, and in fact, I thought was better left alone. Perhaps this is why Barry’s seemingly random use of artifacts from others’ lives and its manipulation of those artifacts in order to make a page more interesting and beautiful is what I appreciate about it the most.
January 7, 2018
Very good book about how to get started writing, presented in Lynda Barry's inimitable style of illustration. This older book covers some of the same ground as Syllabus: Notes from an Accidental Professor, but with less drawing involved. If I had to pick just one, I would definitely go for Syllabus: Notes from an Accidental Professor. (Even though Syllabus: Notes from an Accidental Professor doesn't have the helpful Magic and Creative Cephalopod.)
December 24, 2021
Some books defy classification...this is one. Part memoir, part fantasy, part lessons in creativity. Barry has created a masterpiece here of...strangeness and beauty and hope. We CAN overcome crummy childhoods. We can overcome self-doubt. We can, with the right circumstances, grow into the artists we were meant to be. And we are ALL artists.
Every page is SEVERAL works of art...collage, original illustrations. Cut-outs of old letters and class assignments. They all serve her thesis...everything is art and everyone is an artist.
Reading about her own slow journey to her current self will inspire other young people who have lost that confidence in their creativity.
And the writing lessons at the back? They are fascinating...solid ideas on how to brainstorm and draft, to get all the ideas, all the IMAGES, all the emotions, onto the paper. I tried it with something I want to write. Now, I'm going to do the whole thing again...but start with the IMAGE...
Another book I'd love to teach...and share. It's visually stunning. Heavy paper, colorful images. I know it's the kind of book that would be well-loved in a classroom. By 'well loved' I mean it would be lovingly destroyed. Not out of malice, but out of use. Turning the pages, tracing the words and images...
What a book!!
Every page is SEVERAL works of art...collage, original illustrations. Cut-outs of old letters and class assignments. They all serve her thesis...everything is art and everyone is an artist.
Reading about her own slow journey to her current self will inspire other young people who have lost that confidence in their creativity.
And the writing lessons at the back? They are fascinating...solid ideas on how to brainstorm and draft, to get all the ideas, all the IMAGES, all the emotions, onto the paper. I tried it with something I want to write. Now, I'm going to do the whole thing again...but start with the IMAGE...
Another book I'd love to teach...and share. It's visually stunning. Heavy paper, colorful images. I know it's the kind of book that would be well-loved in a classroom. By 'well loved' I mean it would be lovingly destroyed. Not out of malice, but out of use. Turning the pages, tracing the words and images...
What a book!!
November 14, 2008
This is a fascinating book. I picked it up and could not put it down. It was shelved with YA in my library. I usually only read and comment on books up to MG, and that's really all I feel qualified to discuss, but I have to say, if you know a teen-ager who is highly creative OR OR OR a teen-ager who feels they are highly un-creative, put this book in their hands. Heck, put it in the hands of ANY teen-ager or older person (and even more mature middle-schoolers). It is a fascinating study of the creative process, it is inspirational (as in inspiring to create, not religious-inspirational) and it will help anyone become a better writer. It is filled with prompts for writing and ideas and concepts and new ways of thinking about anything and everything and is just overall the coolest book I've ever seen. I wish I had read a book like this when I was in school- I might have been a life-long writer instead of an after-35-years-old writer. Most highly recommended.
September 2, 2015
Is there something obnoxious about that feeling of exquisite particularity that pours over you like you are a delicious warm salty chicken and it a gravy silken and restorative when someone whose the whole stem to stern nature and beingness of their lovely odd imperfect striving gorgeous difficult self seems designed to cradle bolster reflect and calm your own? Of course there is and yet it happens to us all at some point, at some point if you're lucky, and here is mine, it is Lynda Barry, I have found a nest to be its egg, a nest of blue straw, a star for glimpsing by accident from the cold old lonely old ground where I am and will die alone, all alone, like you, like you are, and yet, and yet. And yet it is summer now and we are young. It's the best.
July 8, 2010
I teach with this book. Students' first response is usually quite wild: look at my textbook! I can't believe I get to have a textbook that looks like this! Sometimes their parents and others make similar comments, but to opposite effect--you call THAT serious work?! Yes. I call that serious work. Serious as anything can be. It's a subversive, brilliant, heart-rending, tricky kind of book, full of wisdom about creativity and writing and image making--and living and being. Much of the insight of a Winnicott or Bollas, but in a more thrilling package. But every bit as insightful and important. Best of all, you can GET to those serious texts FROM this one.
July 11, 2019
Lynda Barry has great suggestions for creativity, insight into what happens to creativity in childhood, and some memories from childhood that will sound familiar to a lot of people (weird things kids do! Sad/true/real/weird/relatable). I read this because Austin Kleon talks about Barry a lot, and I can see why. She seems to be the embodiment of "Keep Going." I would not confuse the two, but I was reminded of Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear in many ways.
March 28, 2016
Wow! This book is as fun to look at as a great example of art journalling as it is to soak in all the wisdom about writing and art making from the multi-talented Lynda Barry. I found it really inspiring and am going to try many of the exercises for writing which are so different than the ones that you usually encounter in "how to write" books. Terrific, unusual and inspiring, all in one book.
June 3, 2008
This is absolutely one of the most beautiful things I own. It also is very wise, and I feel like kissing Ms. Barry's feet for gifting the world with it.
December 29, 2021
Literati READ LIKE AN ARTIST Book Club pick for December.
This is a unique graphic novel that is crammed jammed and overflowing with collages and images and writings and exercises and prompts to think about.
The goal is to unleash your inner creative self. The same self who used to sing and dance and write without worrying “what people think” or “how good am I”. But besides that, it’s just full of stuff that makes you stop and wonder: “Keep in mind as you read these words that you are paying no attention at all to the alphabet.”
I had a lot of fun reading this and making sure I didn’t miss anything.
Here are a few (of the many) things I want to remember:
P81
What do
Drawing
Singing
Dancing
Music making
Handwriting
Playing
Story writing
Acting
Remembering
and even
Dreaming
all have in common?
They come about when a certain person in a certain place in a certain time arranges certain uncertainties into certain form.
❤️❤️❤️
When we remember something, do we use our imagination?
When we imagine something, do we use our memory?
P163-169
The Dog section. Wow. Just wow. This alone is worth the book. It defies explanation, but anyone who has had dogs in their life will relate.
And one last quote:
I read: the book is brought alive.
I stop reading and the book maintains its potential for aliveness.
This is a unique graphic novel that is crammed jammed and overflowing with collages and images and writings and exercises and prompts to think about.
The goal is to unleash your inner creative self. The same self who used to sing and dance and write without worrying “what people think” or “how good am I”. But besides that, it’s just full of stuff that makes you stop and wonder: “Keep in mind as you read these words that you are paying no attention at all to the alphabet.”
I had a lot of fun reading this and making sure I didn’t miss anything.
Here are a few (of the many) things I want to remember:
P81
What do
Drawing
Singing
Dancing
Music making
Handwriting
Playing
Story writing
Acting
Remembering
and even
Dreaming
all have in common?
They come about when a certain person in a certain place in a certain time arranges certain uncertainties into certain form.
❤️❤️❤️
When we remember something, do we use our imagination?
When we imagine something, do we use our memory?
P163-169
The Dog section. Wow. Just wow. This alone is worth the book. It defies explanation, but anyone who has had dogs in their life will relate.
And one last quote:
I read: the book is brought alive.
I stop reading and the book maintains its potential for aliveness.
August 18, 2020
On the front of the book, it says "How to Write." I write books and I look books about writing.
I'm not sure what I expected, and at first my reaction was this wasn't it. In the beginning there's a lot of interesting questions interspersed with doodles and collages. In between there are stories about Lynda's childhood, which was difficult to say the least.
The last section does have a lot of writing prompts.
But when I take a step back and look at it as a whole, the book was deep and moving. It was about the true nature of art, not paint by numbers, but something deep and almost indescribable.
So while it wasn't the book I expected, it was so much more.
I'm not sure what I expected, and at first my reaction was this wasn't it. In the beginning there's a lot of interesting questions interspersed with doodles and collages. In between there are stories about Lynda's childhood, which was difficult to say the least.
The last section does have a lot of writing prompts.
But when I take a step back and look at it as a whole, the book was deep and moving. It was about the true nature of art, not paint by numbers, but something deep and almost indescribable.
So while it wasn't the book I expected, it was so much more.
September 25, 2019
(3.75 stars) This is not my favorite Lynda Barry book, but I'm not a wannabe writer and that is the target audience. The writing exercises seem like they would be very helpful to beginners and Lynda's wacky illustrations are themselves idea generators.
November 26, 2020
Lynda Barry is a singular weirdo genius. This is an uncategorizable object - graphic memoir? creative writing class? manifesto for living? activity book? standalone autotelic visual artwork?
I don't know what it is, but "What It is" rules.
I don't know what it is, but "What It is" rules.
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