Caitlin’s Creative Business Bookshelf - Episode 11: Other book bangers!
Today I'm sharing some books that I read during the making of this podcast that are absolute bangers, but didn't make the cut for entire podcast episodes this season! I hope you find some great recommendations here, and please share if there's any books on creativity and creative business running that you think I should check out.
(Please note that my podcast mic didn't pick up properly during the recording of this, so the quality isn't as good as usual!)
Episode transcript:
So the first book I wanted to talk about is one I actually think everyone should read, and it's incredible. It's called Rest Is Resistance by Tricia Hersey, who heads up a wonderful organisation called the Nap Ministry. I discovered the Nap Ministry on Instagram ages and ages and ages ago, and absolutely loved everything that Trisha was talking about. It's basically a look at rest primarily through the lens of black liberation and looking at how we rest in a society that is fueled by white supremacy and patriarchy and how to kind of combat it and how rest and making sure that we look after ourselves is actually one of the best tools that we can use in order to start fighting against those and to create a gentler, more equal, more fair society, I guess. But this book is absolutely incredible. I read this during a week I took off work recently, which was very good timing, actually.
Very, very good timing. And I really loved this book because obviously the book is looking at rest as a resistance tool against things like toxic productivity. And so it does go to great lengths to be like, this isn't going to be a top Ten Tips to Fix your relationship arrest. Here's how to rest in five easy steps or whatever. What I really loved about the book was actually it brought up some quite tricky questions, but also giving like plenty of gentle and reflective space to think about those questions and to think about things like how the context of slavery has made Napping harder and obviously it's quite heavily through a lens of black liberation. But this is an absolute must read for everybody. I absolutely loved this book and I thought it was just incredible. I hadn't really read anything like it. I read a lot of nonfiction, as you know, but I really loved there were no easy answers, but at the same time, there was a real gentle energy of encouragement and experimentation and really asking the reader to think. About rest in a more curious way and also remembering how powerful it is to rest as well, which is something that I think about a lot.
So I did read this book at the right time and obviously in my work I'm always talking about rest and things like that, but to have that more sociopolitical lens to it was something that I hadn't encountered before and something that I really needed to read. Actually, I think I'll be thinking about this book for a really, really long time. Go and read it. Basically, it's fantastic. There's a card deck that's just come out, actually, that goes along with I don't know if it's like a companion to the book or it's a separate thing, but I'll link to that in the show notes as well because I can't quite remember what's called off the top of my head. But I do really, really want to check it out because it sounds fantastic. But yeah, a challenging book, but also one that is so encouraging and so soothing to read. And yeah, it's just great. A similar book that I also read during my week off, clearly a theme here was an amazing tiny little book by Marlee Grace called how to Not Always Be Working. I think all of us as self employed people really, really need this reminder.
Molly Grace is an excellent human who does some really, really good stuff around creativity artistry. I mentioned Molly's work last week because I believe they're doing an Artist Way study group as part of their paid newsletter at the moment. Yeah, this book was really lovely. Similarly to Restaurants resistance, there was a lot of space for reflection here. It kind of works as like a workbook as well as a book. It's a very short read. I think it's only like 100 pages. And the only thing I wish, I wish it was longer, that would be the only thing I would change because I absolutely loved reading it. It was so interesting. I really enjoyed hearing Molly's reflections on work and obviously they're coming at it from the point of like a self employed human running a business, which, again, is a lens that is surprisingly difficult to find in a lot of mainstream books about business. Part of the reason I started this podcast really was because I've read a lot of nonfiction books. I read a lot of books on running a business. And obviously they're all about how to grow your business. And actually, the more I kind of go on this journey, the more I'm thinking about more sustainable ways of looking at businesses and running a business.
So this book was a really fantastic way to kind of start thinking about that and to also just really get to the heart of the question, what does work look like for you? We kind of get away from in the day to day workings of businesses. I was literally just saying to someone the other day that I feel like we tend to forget what we do in our businesses a lot, or why we started our businesses and things like that, because we're always doing doing, and it's a lot. So the reminder to really look at what is work, what isn't work, and looking at things like, how can we make work more fun, how can we relax outside of work, what boundaries can we set around? It was a really nice reset, and especially to read during a week off work, it was perfect timing. I actually managed to pick up this book in Hayon, Y. I was there for the Hay Festival the other weekend and, yeah, managed to pick this up in Hay, which was an absolute delight. For those of you who don't know who are outside of the UK. Hay on Y is like the best place in the world if you're into books, because it's literally just a tiny, tiny town full of bookshops.
It's fantastic. And they do a festival every year. And the festival is great, too. Anyway, speaking of slowing down, of not working, another book I read recently, which was wild but very interesting, was Catching the Big Fish by David Lynch. Love that I get to talk about David Lynch on this podcast. This is another little book that is quite short and quite easy to read. I think I read it in, like, an afternoon, essentially. It is a long advert, transcendental meditation, basically, which I don't have a problem with because obviously David Lynch is very into it, as well as making his films. That's I think a big part of what he does now. And, yeah, I mean, you know, it's clearly helped him a lot, and it's clearly helped him in his film and TV making as well. It was a really fascinating book. If you're a fan of his, I would definitely recommend reading it because it really lifts the hood on his creative process. And obviously, he's a very eccentric filmmaker. And I absolutely loved hearing about the fact that some of his most iconic films were inspired by dreams he had or like weird visions that dropped in during his meditations.
Yeah, I loved reading this. A lot of the book talks about how we get ideas and what we do with the ideas and how we bring creative projects to fruition. From visions and dreams and nudges we have. It's a really wild book. It's exactly the kind of book I expected him to have written, to be honest. But yeah, if you're a fan, definitely cheque it out. If you're interested in meditation, cheque it out as well, because I think there's a lot of interesting stuff in there. So we're going from film to music for our next book. And this is a really wonderful book that I think came out this year or last year, and that is The Creative Act a Way of Being by Rick Rubin. If you don't know who Rick Rubin is, he is an infamous music producer. He has been, well, producing music, I should say gosh, since like the Think. He's been doing it a really, really long time and he's produced music for pretty much everybody. I think he's absolutely wonderful. I listen to his podcast Broken Record a lot, where he interviews a lot of musicians and he's interviewed some of my absolute favourite musicians on it as well.
And I remember when this book came out, he did an interview and said that basically he actually doesn't know anything about music really. He does it all kind of on his own intuition and it's not fueled by technical knowledge whatsoever, which I thought was absolutely fascinating. It was really interesting to hear that. And if you're a fellow music neared by, like me, I would definitely recommend watching some of his interviews. There was one he did with Andre 3000 from Outcast, which was just incredible. One of my favourite things I've ever listened to in my life. I'll link that in the show notes as well, if you do want to cheque it out. I think he did one with Kendrick Lamar a while ago as well on his creative process. And yeah, he always asks really interesting, insightful questions. But yeah, basically the book is his kind of take on living a creative life and creating art and creating and being creative generally. Again, definitely worth a read if you're a fan, but also, I think, worth a read if you've never heard of him before. There's a lot of food for thought in here and a lot of it almost tips into kind of the more esoteric, abstract way of talking about creativity.
But I really like the way he writes and it was quite an unusual book. I think that if you're not into the more, like, woo woo side of creativity, you might actually hate this, but I found a lot of Food for Thought from it and it's a very nice coffee table book as well. It looks very aesthetically pleasing. Another book recommendation for my fellow music nerds out there. I don't know if any music nerds are listening to this as well. If you are, an amazing book I read last year was called Diller Time by Dan Charnas. It has a very long subtitle. The life and afterlife of Jay Diller, the hip hop producer who reinvented rhythm. I'm a massive fan of Jay Diller who was a, yeah, a hip hop producer in Detroit in the 2000s who passed away. And Dan Charles has written this amazing book about his life and also it's about the life of Jdella and the various musical movements he inspired. And also it's a lot about music theory as well. It's a lot about how the way he approached producing music and creating beats was really out there for the time and it was only like I think it was like the late ninety s like early 2000s ish and his impact was massive.
And it was all because he dared to do something, like, a little bit different, a little bit weird, like, a little bit like, off the beaten path. And I found it really fascinating because I'm a huge fan of Jay Diller and the kind of the music that he inspired, music he worked on, like he did loads of work with people like Erica Badoo, The Roots. So if you're into hip hop, neosol, electronic, like, adjacent music, you'll really get a lot out of this, I think. And yeah, this book, I loved it. It obviously helps if you know a little bit about the music and the time that it's being discussed, but I just love how the detail of context given, even the fact that J Dilla was living and working mainly. In Detroit. And the first chunk of the book is just massive, deep dive into how Detroit even came about as a city in the first place and contextualises all that. And it's a really chunky book and there's a lot of information in it, but even if you have a passing interest in it, to be honest, I don't know if anyone listening to this podcast will, but I'm putting it out there because I think it's absolutely fantastic and I think a real gold standard as far as nonfiction books about music go.
He has another book as well called Big Payback, which I think I'm going to cheque out as well. I think that's about the hip hop industry as a whole, I think. But yeah, definitely going to give that one a go as well. But that's fantastic. If you're even a little bit curious about it, I would cheque it out because it's very interesting. Any musicians out there should definitely read it as well, mainly for the music theory bits, which I actually found fascinating. The final book that I'm going to talk about today is another one that I think everyone should read. It's called 4000 Weeks by Oliver Burkman. And to give you if you haven't heard of it, the subtitle is Time Management for Mortals which gives you a little bit of a little bit of a look into what this one's about. I absolutely love this. It sounds like a really morbid concept for a book but basically it's the idea that we only have 4000 weeks on the planet so what are we going to do with them? How are we going to spend our time? Basically but not from the lens of being productive.
It's more about living in tune with your values and things like that. And even though like I said, it does sound incredibly morbid, it's been a really freeing book. It's very freeing to kind of realise that if we only have a limited time to do things, how are we going to spend our time? Again? With a few of the books I recommended at the start of the episode, I feel like this is a very reflective one. This is one I thought about for weeks after reading it and I've got loads of screenshots of it saved and quotes written down and stuff because it's really deep and meaningful and like I said, not in a way that's like morbid or doom and gloom. It's really optimistic and it's a really powerful book that really asks us how we look at our time. And I think especially for a self employed folk, it's a reminder that we all need actually it's the reminder that when we get tied up in busy work, when we get tied up in things like just the doing, like the to do lists all the time, how it's not actually it's taking us away from the stuff that actually matters.
And obviously we start businesses because we want to make an impact on the world. We want to help people, we want to make things that make a difference to other people's lives. And reading this book really reminded me of that and really reminded me that what matters is how we're spending our time. Basically. I don't want to go too into it because I don't want to spoil too much but I would really honestly, if you pick up one book actually I think you should probably pick up all. Most if not all. But if any of these books tickle your fancy, please cheque them out. I'll leave notes to all of them in the show notes as well for you so you can go and cheque them out from there. Yeah, like I said at the top of the episode, if there's any books that you think I should be reading at the moment, please let me know. I hope you got some good recommendations today if nothing else and hopefully it piqued your curiosity a bit. Yeah, I never thought I'd be talking about time management. David Lynch, J Diller and Black Liberation all in the same podcast episode.
But that's the lovely thing about doing a podcast to be quite honest with you. But, yeah, I'll leave notes to everything I've talked about in the show. Notes. I'll catch you next week for the final book in this series of Caitlin's creative business bookshelf. And that will be Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. Thank you so much for tuning in. This has been such a delight and I will chat to you next week.
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