What It Is

By Lynda Barry,

Book cover of What It Is

Book description

"Deliciously drawn (with fragments of collage worked into each page), insightful and bubbling with delight in the process of artistic creation. A+" -Salon

How do objects summon memories? What do real images feel like? For decades, these types of questions have permeated the pages of Lynda Barry's compositions, with words…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked What It Is as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

All game designers struggle with what it means to be creative, and whether they are doing it properly. What It Is and its companion book, Picture This are very personal guides to what it means to be a creative person, and are full of inspirational stories and very practical tips to create your best work and not get in your own way. 

From Jesse's list on for game designers.

This extraordinary, and very LARGE, book is a simple guide on how to write and draw things. It is also a subtle and ambitious attempt to explain what it is to be creative. Chapters with suggestions for things to draw or write are interspersed with short stories from Barry’s own life. At first it feels a bit instructional, as one might expect from an art/writing teacher. But it really draws you in to see just how basic and wonderful any act of creation is, with no need to try to create important or original things - those features will all…

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Truth told, folks still ask if Saul Crabtree sold his soul for the perfect voice. If he sold it to angels or devils. A Bristol newspaper once asked: “Are his love songs closer to heaven than dying?” Others wonder how he wrote a song so sad, everyone who heard it…

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