I love buying art books. It sounds funny, but I’m a big believer in it. When I was in my 20’s and was eating Top Ramen as a budgeting tactic I made a goal to buy one a month. Quickly I had a really beautiful collection. Design-wise they add a layer in a living room that makes people happy to be there. I love when people come over to my house and thumb through the books we have on the coffee table, it sparks conversations. I even make my kids do “book reports” on them when they try to tell me they are bored. I thought I would start a feature here with some of my favorite books.

1. Lists: To-dos, Illustrated Inventories, Collected Thoughts, and Other Artists’ Enumerations from the Collections of the Smithsonian Museum

This book was recommended to me by my friend Eric Heywood (he always has the best book recommendations.) It is a compilation of lists from the Smithsonian archives of different artists. I’m a hardcore list maker, so I find this book so fascination. I love being able to see how someone’s thought process works.

2. Black Lives 1900: W.E.B. Du Bois at the Paris Exposition

This book shows the stunning hand-painted charts and graphs by the brilliant W.E.B. Du Bois showcasing the numbers Black Lives in America in 1900 (less than 40 years after Emancipation Proclamation.) They were originally on display at the Paris Exposition. This book is as beautiful as it is educational, it’s hard to convey how detailed and gorgeous each of the charts are.

3. Dorothea Lange: The Heart and Mind of a Photographer

Dorthea Lange is a Bay Area photographer. I love looking through all the old images. She was known for photographing poor or disenfranchised people. I loved this image taken at a San Francisco school just weeks before the US sent Japanese-Americans to internment camps.

We are trying new things here at Oh Happy Day. I would love to hear if you find this interesting (or not) or if you have a favorite art book to recommend.