Book List of the Week

Just Sit Under a Tree and Read: Maira Kalman’s Book List

By Stephanie Salomon October 11, 2011

Maira Kalman

Graphic designer Maira Kalman: M&Co (New York)

Maira Kalman—graphic designer, illustrator, author of more than a dozen books for adults and children, and dedicated reader—sent us a book list that she introduces with, “Walk to a garden. Take a book with you, maybe a cup of coffee or tea. Just sit under a tree and read. That is the only answer to everything.”

So Designers & Books decided to ask her not about “everything” but about a few things: books (on her book list and off), reading, and writing.

Designers & Books: The comments on the titles you sent are a lot like lines of poetry—distillations—and you say that the fiction writers you prefer tend to be lyrical. Do you have any favorite poets?

Maira Kalman: I used to say e.e. cummings. Now I say Wallace Stevens—but that may not be true. I have a Lydia Davis poem on my wall— “Head, Heart”—about the head talking to the heart. That is my favorite poem right now.

Maira Kalman, Self-Portrait (with Pete), 2004–05

D&B: Are there contemporary works of fiction or nonfiction that you would take outside under that tree with you, along with Flaubert, Proust, Nabokov, Austen—the “classic” novelists you mention?

MK: I would take Nicole Krauss. Jhumpa Lahiri. Christopher Hitchens.

D&B: You also cite a couple of children’s books—Alice in Wonderland and Winnie the Pooh—children’s books that are as much appreciated by adults as children for their sense of the “absurd,” as you say. Did you first read these, or others, as a child, or as an adult?

MK: I read Pippi Longstocking when I was a child. And The Secret Garden. But everything else, I only have adult memories of.

D&B: Lists—we like lists at Designers & Books! I’m thinking of the typed list of the colors you found in Madame Bovary that you included in your recent exhibition, "Various Illuminations (of a Crazy World)"—what you call on your book list comment, Flaubert’s “tiny color phrases.” Do you make lists when you read?

From The Elements of Style (illustrated), 2005 (Penguin)

MK: Yes. Lists of words I don't understand from Beckett and Nabokov and Joyce. Lists of ideas in Lucretius.

D&B: Your own books are very popular with Designers & Books designers—from The Principles of Uncertainty to the illustrated Elements of Style. Are there any design books you’d recommend in general or in particular to designers?

MK: The Russian Avant-Garde Book, 1910-1934. And photography books by August Sander and Diane Arbus.

D&B: Type—that’s something you pay a lot of attention to in your work. Your daughter’s middle name is Bodoni (a classic typeface used on the watch faces made by your design company, M&Co). Do you have any other favorite typefaces?

MK: My son has Tibor as an official middle name and Onomatopoeia as an unofficial middle name. My handwriting was used for different M&Co clocks and watches. I like the ubiquitous Mrs. Eaves typeface.

D&B: What do you think of Twitter—you’ve blogged for the New York Times. Would you Tweet?

Maira Kalman: Various Illuminations (of a Crazy World) by Ingrid Schaffner, 2010 (Prestel)

MK: I have not blogged. I have illustrated and written an online column (And the Pursuit of Happiness, New York Times online, which became a book). That took weeks to research, write, and paint. That does not feel like a blog. And I get morose just hearing the word “Tweet”!

Note: Maira Kalman’s work was recently on view in the retrospective exhibition “Maira Kalman: Various Illuminations (of a Crazy World),” accompanied by a catalogue by curator Ingrid Schaffner. The exhibition originated at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, traveled to Los Angeles, and ended its run at The Jewish Museum in New York in July 2011.

(Interview by Stephanie Salomon)

Maira Kalman's Book List

Girls Standing on Lawns Maira Kalman

comments powered by Disqus

Announcements

Now is Better by Stefan Sagmeister

Now is Better

By Stefan Sagmeister
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: October 2023

Combining art, design, history, and quantitative analysis, transforms data sets into stunning artworks that underscore his positive view of human progress, inspiring us to think about the future with much-needed hope.

Order the book.

Design Emergency: Building a Better Future by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli

Design Emergency: Building a Better Future

By Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: May 2022

Rawsthorn and Antonelli tell the stories of the remarkable designers, architects, engineers, artists, scientists, and activists who are at the forefront of positive change worldwide. Focusing on four themes—Technology, Society, Communication, and Ecology—the authors present a unique portrait of how our great creative minds are developing new design solutions to the major challenges of our time, while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology.

Order the book.

Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People by Debbie Millman

Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World's Most Creative People

By Debbie Millman
Publisher: Harper Design
Published: February 22, 2022

Debbie Millman—author, educator, brand consultant, and host of the widely successful and award-winning podcast “Design Matters”—showcases dozens of her most exciting interviews, bringing together insights and reflections from today’s leading creative minds from across diverse fields.

Order the book.

Milton Glaser: POP by Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber

Milton Glaser: POP

By Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: March 2023

This collection of work from graphci design legend Milton Glaser’s Pop period features hundreds of examples of the designer’s work that have not been seen since their original publication, demonstrating the graphic revolution that transformed design and popular culture.

Order the book.

Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange

Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall

By Alexandra Lange
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: June 2022

Chronicles postwar architects’ and merchants’ invention of the shopping mall, revealing how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in their cultural ascent. Publishers Weekly writes, “Contending that malls answer ‘the basic human need’ of bringing people together, influential design critic Lange advocates for retrofitting abandoned shopping centers into college campuses, senior housing, and ‘ethnocentric marketplaces’ catering to immigrant communities. Lucid and well researched, this is an insightful study of an overlooked and undervalued architectural form.”

Order the book.

Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition) by Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller

Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition)

By Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
Publisher: Letterform Archives Books
Published: October 2023

This facsimile edition of Die Fläche, recreates every page of the formative design periodical in full color and at original size, accompanied by essays that contextualize the work, highlighting contributions by pathbreaking women, innovative lettering artists, and key practitioners of the new “surface art,” including Rudolf von Larisch, Alfred Roller, and Wiener Werkstätte founders Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann.

Order the book.