I do not finish a lot of creative projects during the busy summertime months, so today I want to talk about an ongoing real-time internet project. That is…I review books I’ve read in tweet-form.
Tweeting a book review is a short and simple way to keep track of what I’ve read, whether I liked it, and an overview of the book’s contents. This comes in handy when I need to recommend a book to someone or provide citations for a fact I’m recalling. I try to be humorous about it.
I didn’t write any of these books. I didn’t illustrate for any of these books. None of the books that I’ve read in the past few years have had any creative input from me, however all people, and artists especially, are an amalgamation of what we consume. What we produce is inevitably influenced by content absorbed, mindfully or otherwise. I try to read good books. Books about science, memoirs by interesting people, old monks with wisdom to share…
When it looked like Twitter was going to shut down and everyone was moving to other platforms, my twitter book catalog was one thing that I had built which I was really going to miss, so I started posting over on Bluesky as well, as a backup. Of course I still enjoy creating things–I am compelled, but the world is at such a saturation point of art and content that my creativity often gets a little constipated. There’s so much visual noise already out there that I really feel myself holding back with what I put my time into creating. As a result, I’ve been reading more, and spending a little time with words that other people have made.
If you want to know what I think of many more books, you can follow me on Twitter @ShaunaLeva or on Bluesky social @@shaunart.bsky.social
