Zinsser's
On Writing Well. (i.e. on writing non-fiction)
The first half of To The Finland Station (1940) was absolutely fascinating (the second half is the story of Marx, Lenin etc which I know more about so didn't read) - about 19th C French historians, and the origins of socialism. I had no idea that 'socialisms' was the name given to those experimental farms/communities all over the US in the early-mid 19th C - that's what the word meant at the time - there's a lot on the history of those. Brilliantly written.
Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics - the history, science and philosophy of comics. Plus it's a comic.
Crucial Conversations - I added this to You Just Don't Understand on my 'Essential Guides for Anyone in a Relationship' list. Equally important for other areas of life.
Deep Work on different ways people like/need to work.
On Not Being Able To Paint (1950) by Joanna Field (Marion Milner). I read her A Life Of One's Own and An Experiment in Leisure (both from the 1930s) 25+ years ago, and loved them dearly. A Life Of One's Own is about her using her diary to learn about herself, something I'd started doing at the time. I owned a copy of On Not Being Able To Paint for many years, but never read it through until very recently. It's surprisingly great. It's about her learning to paint, or rather, learning what painting is, and I found she learns pretty much exactly the things I learnt when I spent 5 years writing orchestral music. (after having been a pianist and painter for many years) Well, maybe I was too young to appreciate it before.
Books I'd read before, but read at least twice more this year: the Zanders' Art of Possibility, Austin Kleon's Steal Like an Artist and Share Your Work!. Various essays of G.K. Chesterton and Robert Louis Stevenson.
