A good book tells a great story. A great book tells a part of your own story. I think it is the search for that that determines my reading forays. Escapism is all well and good. And “junk food” reads, as I call them, have their much needed time and place. But the true journey is achieved in the insights you are given to your own tale, regardless of disparate locations, circumstances, and opportunities.
I’m well aware that a reading list from the depths of an active studio should be filled with tomes of design inspiration and manuals of technique. And, don’t worry. I have plenty of those. The list is dizzying. But while I spend most of any given day either pouring over those volumes or listening to audio books while I work, it seems to be a rare treat when I get to actually pick up and interact with a real story. Finger the pages. Cling to the cover. So I am delighted to just have finished the The Dressmaker of Khair Khana by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon. This beautiful true story tells the tale of a young woman and her family surviving the harrowing years of war and Taliban rule in Kabul. Their strength, wit, and courage inspire while the never failing can-do resiliency and adaptability resonates. From the safety of my American middle class upbringing, I have never confronted true hardship, but by the end of my reading of this book a basic tenant I hold dear was reaffirmed. The best business plan is simple and this: Believe in yourself and what you do. If you don’t, no one else will.