Mason Currey

'That word, "vacation," makes me sweat.' Coco Chanel on taking a break 'You must do it irregardless, or it will eat its way out of you.' Zora Neale Hurston on writing 'One has to choose between the Life and the Project.' Susan Sontag on choosing art Barbara Hepworth sculpted outdoors and Janet Frame wore earmuffs as she worked to block out noise. Kate Chopin wrote with her six children ‘swarming around her’ whereas the artist Rosa Bonheur filled her bedroom with the sixty birds that inspired her work. Louisa May Alcott wrote so vigorously – skipping sleep and meals – that she had to learn to write with her left hand to give her cramped right hand a break. From Isak Dinesen subsisting on oysters, champagne and amphetamines, to Isabel Allende's insistence that she begins each new book on 8 January, here are the working routines of over 140 brilliant female painters, composers, sculptors, writers, filmmakers and performers. Filled with details of the large and small choices these women made, Daily Rituals Women at Work is a source of fascination and inspiration. 'An admirably succinct portrait of some distinctly uncommon lives' - Meryle Secrest

How Great Women Make Time, Find Inspiration, and Get to Work

Daily Rituals Women at Work

From Beethoven and Kafka to George Sand, Picasso and Agatha Christie, this compilation of letters, diaries and interviews reveals the profound fusion of discipline and dissipation through which the artistic temperament is allowed to evolve, recharge and emerge. 20,000 first printing.

How Artists Work

Daily Rituals

Rina

"I'm always in a hurry to get going, though in general dislike starting the day" Beauvoir told The Paris Review in 1965. 

sina (she/her) 

Brandy

Got about 2/3 of the way through and didn't finish because it got repetitive & uninteresting. Would be an interesting book to pick up & leaf through on occasion. A good bathroom reader. But for reading straight through, which I had to do since I checked this out from the library, it was a slog. 

I had really high hopes for this book, as I loved the introduction (particularly the Kafka quote) but was not able to take much from the book. Other than, boy, it helps to be rich if you want to be a creative. Which I was well fucking aware of already.

Shaun Clark

Listened to this an Audiobook as recommended by Tim Ferriss, who's republished this through Audible.

Although it's a simple premise - a collection from the author's blog about the daily habits of various artists - it's well done, interesting and inspiring.

Even if you're a person - rather than a 'struggling artist' looking for inspiration - it can give you the proverbial 'kick up the asp' to get a bit of structure into your day. 

Whilst a lot of the subjects share similar routines, it never gets repetitive to hear them - in fact, it shows how much can be achieved in each working day (or night) in some cases.

Note - I try to avoid 5 star reviews, so this rating is the highest I would give for any book, so it's highly recommended :-)

Julien Sobczak

The devil is in the details, but the details are missing from this book.

Routines are key to many things in life, and I was more than happy to find an entire book dedicated to unveiling the routines behind the most brilliant human beings that Earth has ever known. But I was disappointed.

The book idea is really excellent. The main problem is the format of the book. The author chose to research the life of one famous artist (author, composer, painter, scientist) every day to find evidence about his or her daily habits. By choosing this path, the author had no other choice that to relate a very narrow view of their life, in one or two pages long. This is very problematic. The coverage is too short to gain practical insights. For example, several artists practiced meditation, and more suffered from an addiction (coffee, alcohol, sleep deprivation) but we cannot really understand the impact of these habits on their work in just a few paragraphs.

I would have preferred fewer artists (a few dozens instead of hundreds), and a bigger focus on the evolution of their habits over their life, showing correlation with their most popular achievements (maybe using timelines). What is really interesting about habits is how they contribute, favorably or unfavorably, in our accomplishments. I am conscious that it’s a daunting task if we consider routines are not the kind of information easily accessible – we often put too much focus on the result and not enough on the process behind the masterpieces of great artists. But less than two pages for personalities like Albert Einstein is not satisfactory, when several biographies were published about him.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy reading the book. But I was expecting so much from it that it explains in part my frustration. Why not a new edition with contemporary artists, available to answer questions about how famous artists are facing the challenges of our modern life full of distractions.

Sarah Vaughan

An interesting read. I didn't get through the entire compilation because it started to feel like I was being bombarded with information, but I liked the premise of this book: what time do most artists wake up and go to bed, how long do they work, how do they occupy their time when not working on their art,
Etc. I particularly enjoyed the pieces on writers. I have even been inspired to commit to rising earlier in order to be more productive, although that hasn't happened yet. We'll see how that goes.

Ricardo

Ozan tekin

Tari Rosario

'Utterly fascinating' Daisy Goodwin, Sunday Times

How Great Minds Make Time, Find Inspiration, and Get to Work

Zeynep Yağmur Bulut

Kevin Wammer

Samantha Plakun

Mt Tetzel

Nick Nikolov

From Marx to Murakami and Beethoven to Bacon, 'Daily Rituals' examines the working routines of more than a 160 of the greatest philosophers, writers, composers and artists ever to have lived. Filled with fascinating insights on the mechanics of genius and entertaining stories of the personalities behind it, it is irresistibly addictive and utterly inspiring

Daily Rituals Women at Work How Great Women Make Time, Find Inspiration, and Get to Work

Reviews

Highlights