Maira Kalman is a “graphic” essayist/memoirist–her form isn’t standard comics, but a mixture of painting and photos.  I adore her work, her use of color, her upbeat ways of making meaning.

And if you want to feel good about ways to move forward with our communities–even when it comes to sewage in New York City–your time reading her latest blog couldn’t be better spent.

A young friend told me I had to check out this book for a new take on recording life.  I can’t stop re-reading it.

Maira Kalman’s The Principles of Uncertainty.

You may not recognize her name, but I’m willing to bet you’d recognize some of Maira Kalman’s art if you checked out her website or her visual column “And The Pursuit of Happiness” on the New York Times blogsite (where I believe this book originally appeared in monthly segments).  Her Presidents’ Day piece on Abraham Lincoln takes a subject that many of us think of as a dull assignment for a listless middle school essay and makes it sing with beauty and meaning.  Which is what her book does as well with the things many of us take for granted.

Kalman opens this memoir of a year with, “How can I tell you everything that’s in my heart” next to a painting of a dodo and further musings on extinction.  It’s hilarious, touching, and true.  She shows how the stuff of everyday life contains magic.  Even if you feel that you have no drawing ability (like me, though I love to do it anyhow), this book will inspire you to look more carefully at life.  Plus you get the bonus of studying her art.

Great inspiration for journalers, memoirists, and folks who just want to look at their worlds with more curiosity and appreciation.

How did I miss this book for so long?  Have you missed it too?

It offers breath-taking wisdom on the meaning of life, choosing hope in the face of suffering, dignity, and humor.  It also offered great material for a writer considering how to enrich characterization.

Viktor E. Frankl’s tiny book, Man’s Search for Meaning, first appeared in 1946.  Though it tells the tale of his experiences in concentration camps (four!), it uses those experiences to call each of us more fully into ourselves and into the significance of our own lives.   Barely 150 pages, the book illuminates Frankl’s experiences and the theory of human psychology he developed as  a result of them.   These theories offer encouragement to all of us.  For instance, Frankl claims that often it is a ”difficult external situation which gives man the opportunity to grow spiritually beyond himself.”  He urges people to view life’s difficulties as calls to develop inner strength.  “One could make a victory of those experiences, turning life into an inner triumph.”

It might sound dull, to say this book is both memoir and treatise on psychology, but I found it anything but.   As a person interested in human spirit and spirituality, I resonated with the idea that all people must strive “to find a concrete meaning in personal existence.”  As a writer, it gave me oodles to think about in terms of character development.  Because I write mysteries that include a lot of social drama (even though might seem humorous to readers, it often isn’t to the characters!), my characters–Lonnie Squires especially–are often asking themselves how they are going to endure the painful circumstances of their lives.  Frankl helped me understand that for most people, it’s discovering a Why that helps them endure the How.  Good food for thought for everyone suffering social oppression.  Heck, good food for thought for everyone.