This is a letter about books.

I am a creature of habit. You may be surprised by that, considering all of the turbans I wear. But I swear it’s true. I get up at 5am every morning. While a pot of coffee is brewing, I look over my day. I then curl up for an hour and a half in my cozy chair by the window with a book(s), I journal, I meditate, I stare into the void. No matter how much is pressing (and there is a lot pressing right now), this is my daily morning snapshot. It’s my reward for sobriety and it may sound like hyperbole, but I’d rank my habitual mornings as my number one reason for staying the path. There is nothing I would do to compromise my mornings.

I’ve been committed to books my whole life but I could never truthfully call myself a reader until I quit drinking. I couldn’t do both but because I romanticized the status of “reader” so hard, I pretended to be one. No matter where I lived, I always had shelves full of Very Important Books. It was Instagrammable before there was Instagram. Now I can say I’m in full integrity. I’m getting through all those books on my shelves. And my library cart. And my Amazon cart. And I rarely leave a local bookstore without a bag.

My recent obsessions are books about women artists and how they work. It started with Frida and Georgia and Diane and the most recent, a biography of Alice Neel. There’s a bonus if the artist’s life is set in a context that I’m also frothing over, like NYC in the 20s or 80s. I’ve also recently picked up every book the library has on Annie Leibovitz. As a photographer, you’d think I’d fallen down that hole before but I’d always put her work up on a high shelf that I felt I didn’t relate to. I fell when I watched her Masterclass during the Texas Ice Storm of ‘23 and learned that we actually share many of the same insecurities. I inhaled Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act the day it hit Audible and had to pick up the hardback so I can ink it up. I watched the Pamela Anderson doc while I had Covid last week. I’ve always had a soft spot for her since my years of working for a pin-up photographer in the 90s and her Audible book was as tender and smart as I thought it would be. More women artists, icons and iconoclasts on deck, set historically and geographically that’s on brand for me right now.

Yeah, no prescriptive self-help. Most I want to chuck across a room because I remembered I hate being told what to do (I’m letting you slide, Rick Rubin). Just live your life. Tell me about it. Make it interesting and maybe there’s something there I’d like to model.

On Books: Whatcha got? I may not read it but I’ll definitely let it languish in a cart for a while.