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Feb 10, 2011

Mindy rated it:

I'm not sure how to categorize this book, but it was such an awesome experience. Definitely not just a "read." I was "reading" it in the Barnes & Noble Starbucks, and this old man came up to me as he was leaving and said, "It was a joy to watch you reading that." I was smiling, and laughing, and almost crying. It was definitely an interaction beyond just consuming text.

:)

14 comments like (13 people liked it)

Apr 24, 2011

Karima rated it:

Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best of the Month, Octhober 2007: In 2005 Maira Kalman brought a fresh vision to Strunk and White's The Elements of Style, filling the pages of the reference classic with her whimsical illustrations. And much like its multi-talented creator--who has illustrated children's books and New Yorker covers and collaborated on fashion projects with Kate Spade and Isaac Mizrahi--her new book, The Principles of Uncertainty, defies easy classification. Is it philosophy? Art? M More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Sep 28, 2008

Valerie rated it:

The Principles of Uncertainty is a visual journal that Maira Kalman kept for a year. It's full of musings and questions, glimpses of her travels and simply things that moved her in some way. She talks and paints about her father-in-law, who collected insults by writing them down in a little book that he kept with him.... her suitcase (and other) collections... paints about a visit to the Deyrolles shop in Paris... the hangover of lingering bad dream malaise.

She records both big and More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Dec 12, 2007

David rated it:

i came across this last night at the enormous used bookstore. it was laying on its side and the spine immediately caught my eye. the dustjacket is a nice heavy paper. the weight of the book. i opened it to perfect drawings and photographs. i want to unstitch this book carefully, saving every thread in a ball jar and staple them to telephone poles in succession. or populate a bleak city wall with them so day workers, away from their babies and lovers and family and friends can slow their walk. bu More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Feb 11, 2011

Jimmy rated it:

How can anything be any more lovable than this little book? How can I not have loved it all along? How can I not have seen it, or read it, or perhaps just heard about it? How can such charm and sweetness and wit be unread for so long? This book is like Agnes Varda's later films in book form. But less something. And more something else. She has that same creative-no-boundaries-super-smart-but-not-academic kind of thing. How can I have just heard about it today, checked it out of the libra More...

9 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jan 03, 2009

Rachael rated it:

Sincere thoughts and observations nicely illustrated. I read through it two times, I think the narrative arrangement of the ideas is the best part.

Before I finally read up on the author, she seemed to be a sweet and curious peripatetic who was usually weighed down with a few too many questions about the meaning of life. I didn't realize she has illustrated some of my favorite New Yorker covers, AND designed for Kate Spade. Better to know her as a NY Times columnist first, and then en More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

May 24, 2008

Lanie rated it:

I just finished this book. To be fair, I put it down somewhere in the middle and didn't pick it up for a few weeks (bad habit), so maybe I lost the momentum of the flow of the book or something....

but I was generally un-impressed. I thought I would love it, because it just seemed like my kind of thing...constant journal-er and picture snapper that I tend to be.

But I was not blown away as I expected I would be. Most of the "profound thoughts" that the author More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 20, 2008

Kevin rated it:

No.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 27, 2008

Katelyn rated it:

I might have loved this most for Kalman's excellent illustrations (which maintain a rare child-like quality while still depicting complex images) than for her text. Her writing really is the least important element, to me - this is an easy book to pick up and read through in very little time, however the images require more exploration. I also feel that this book (novel? journal? artwork?) is an acknowledgement that "profound" is too often associated with complex and overwrought writi More...

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Feb 09, 2009

jess rated it:

Maira Kalman keeps an image journal blog for 1 year for the NY Times. She travels. She makes lists. She makes pictures. She illustrates collections. She misses people who have died. She celebrates people who are alive, especially their wonderful hats. It is very charming, a very good picture of someone's year.

The journal blog is made into a book, the principles of uncertainty, and eventually finds its way into my hands, courtesy of the glorious Olympia Public Library. I spend a day r More...

2 comments like

Feb 05, 2009

Bookmarks Magazine added it

Reviewers were not faint in their praise of The Principles of Uncertainty, even if they spent most of their energy attempting to describe it. And no wonder: the list of items that Maira Kalman describes in the book could almost fill a book itself, even without her illustrations. Readers who are unfamiliar with Kalman's work but respond to even a few items on that list should probably take a look at Principles. Those who know her children's books or illustrations will be excited to see her take o

More...

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Jan 30, 2009

Lars rated it:

I'd almost forgotten about this book, read in the nearly hallucinatory state caused by a flu bug on Christmas day at my parents house after everyone had left for the big meal at my cousin's. A silent, crisp Southern California day, flipping past Kalman's crisp colors and unsteady but sure lines that bridge naivete and sophistication. What brought it back to mind was Kalman's marvelous debut posting (about the inauguration) for her new blog in The New York Times, 'And the Pursuit of Happiness.' More...

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Dec 20, 2008

Amanda rated it:

This book really moved me. It inspired me to remember what I think is so important about life....which I think is finding the connections between things and then using them to create humor, conversation, feeling. This book draws on the train of thought kind of everything is connected kind of thing. It is a year in the life of a woman painting and writing and trying to figure out the whys of things. I photocopied some pages that touched me and with touch my penpals. Mine is: "And then a More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 17, 2011

Christina (Reading Thru The Night) rated it:

The Principals of Uncertainty is like no other graphic novel I have read. It is literary, political, philosophical, and artistic. Plus, it's very much stream of consciousness, which I love, and very rarely find.

I cannot remember how I stumbled upon this book; but I ended up checking it out of the library a couple of weeks ago. Whereas most graphic novels I breeze through (for good reasons, not because of any lesser than _______ reason) this one I wanted to savor. Kalman does a phenomen More...

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Dec 15, 2010

Diane rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

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Jul 11, 2010

Adam rated it:

I bought this book this morning at the Pea-Pickin' Flea Market in St. Croix Falls, WI, to complement "Nickle and Dimed" in my two-for-a-dollar set. Emily Houser, another summer volunteer at Community Homestead, recommended it, saying she'd bought it for her mother once.

It is a book made of a journal by a painter. It's very artsy and pseudo-philosophical in its tone, and left me feeling very pseudo-philosophical and artsy myself. The pictures are all very nice, the auth More...

1 comment like

Oct 11, 2011

Patty rated it:

When I encountered this title in a Shelf Awareness column, the author did not sound familiar. But once I got the book and started to look through it, I knew exactly who the author is and why I wanted to read it.

This doesn't take long to read, but Kalman left images in my head that may be with me for a long time. She apparently takes pictures and then paints images from them - this gives her some very interesting paintings to write about. Kalman is telling us something about her life More...

0 comments like

Apr 02, 2008

Elisabeth rated it:

A thick book that's a quick read, since most of it is paintings. An enjoyable look into the artist/authors thoughts and musings. It touches on art, science, history, cooking, and travel. I finished it in one subway ride and a few hours. It was good enough and revisitable enough that I might buy it.

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Sep 08, 2011

Allison rated it:

This is a wonderful book. Maira Kalman paints her musings, which are always funny and insightful. To give you a taste, I'm adding my favorite quote from the book, but I have to reassure you that not all of the book is so pseudo-intellectually annoying.

"We could speak about the meaning of life vis-a-vis non-consequential/deontological theories, apodictic transformation schemata, the incoherence of exemplification, metaphysical realism, Cartesian interactive dualism, revised non re More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 04, 2010

Vy rated it:

I was introduced to Maira Kalman through the Pursuit of Happiness blog, and so I was already familiar with her style. This is a similar collection of paintings, photos, and musings. Reading it is like having tea with an erudite, philosophical, well-traveled, loquacious friend who may have spiked her own tea just a bit! The text itself is very quick to read, but of course, you want to take time to really savor the thoughts and explore the pictures. My friend got this as a library book and loaned More...

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Sep 20, 2009

Aly rated it:

This book cost me about 30 cents at Barnes and Noble and took me less than an hour to read... but what an enjoyable way to spend 30 cents and an hour! In this humorous, illustrated memoir of sorts, Maira Kalman intertwines the minutia of her life (pages dedicated to her empty box collection, candy collection, and unusual hats) with philosophical questions about LIFE and HUMANITY. The effect is quirky and thought-provoking, rather than pretentious. I particularly liked her freehand embroideries o More...

5 comments like (3 people liked it)

Aug 12, 2009

Lynne rated it:

This is the visual journal made by the author, an illustrator who lives in New York City, over the course of a year. In addition to charming little paintings of historical figures, authors, the subway, Jerusalem, and spectacular cakes, she muses over the uncertainty of life and the ambiguity of circumstances that one finds oneself in time and time again. Sometimes she's melancholy, other times full of joy. I found this little book to be utterly charming.

(I especially loved the capti More...

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Jun 14, 2011

Mark rated it:

Maira Kalman’s illustrated memoir, despite being whimsical and colorful enough for any child to enjoy, is a sweetly melancholy book for adults, an artist’s day book whose musings take the long view of life. Kalman enjoys and draws life’s little pleasures, directing our attention to the charmingly dilapidated furniture in a friend’s apartment or to the towering pastry displays in a Paris restaurant; but while celebrating the sheer delight of everyday curiosities, Kalman never loses sight of their More...

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Jan 12, 2009

Alisa rated it:

I hated this when I started it. When I got to the bit where she says she follows after old people on the street and imitates their walks I thought, "No you don't, you're justsaying that you do." Then I thought, "And if you do, that's really mean."

But, you know, the book had a lot of pictures, so it was easy to keep turning the pages. After I had turned most of them, I felt kind of.... good. Kind of...hopeful. Once I would have been too cool for that. But not anymore More...

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Jul 13, 2009

iohokie rated it:

This is a wonderful little book that is hard to classify. I came across it at the public library while browsing through the graphic novels section. While the book contains a large number of painting and pictures, I certainly wouldn't classify it as graphic novel. The author's painting and accompanying musing on a year in her life range from the mundane to the profound. I absorbed (I say absorbed because you don't really read this book in the traditional sense of the word; rather, you allow yours More...

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May 29, 2011

Vasha7 rated it:

This book consists of twelve chapters each of which is a short rambling record of thoughts and actions, though not without thematic organization. They are handwritten words and rough, naive (deliberately so?) paintings. Kalman throws onto the page thoughts about things she reads and sees, family, New York City, encounters, shopping, doubts and fretting... How enjoyable this kind of thing is largely depends on whether the author makes good company, and I would say that Kalman pretty much does. So More...

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Mar 19, 2011

Chris rated it:

Maira Kalman is an illustrator, writer, consumer and hoarder. She writes about and illustrates her consumption and her collections. In this way she reflects on culture. The Principles of Uncertainty reaches for objects and people and places and ,in the present and from the past, to capture the culture of humanity at this moment.
I say "at this moment" because while Kalman's perspectives on her subjects can be both wittily offbeat and thought-provoking, it seems ephemeral, perha More...

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Jul 08, 2009

Esme Pie rated it:

Lovely, lovely, lovely. I've been such a fan of Kalman's children's books and illustrations and just discovered her NYT blog "The Pursuit of Happiness." It's difficult to write about this book because I didn't "read" it as much as "experience" it.

This book reminds me of my favorite type of movie: small, whimsical and a slice of ordinary life. How the ordinary moment can be transcendent--Kalman examines this on every page.

A memoir of a ye More...

1 comment like

Sep 09, 2011

JoAnn rated it:

This is a lovely little book of whimsy which can be read in half an hour. Or, you could take more time to look at the charming illustrations and contemplate all of the famous names she drops along the way. A year of weather forecasts, which are for the most part calling for pleasant temps, divide the chapters which are full of original observations on everyday life. Kalman's unusual collections are also featured. I especially liked her unusual candy collection which features The Henry VIII a More...

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Jan 15, 2010

bistra rated it:

книгата въобще не ми хареса, досади ми и дори ме ядоса! не знам какво си мислех и защо въобще я поръчах. майра рисува наистина страхотно, но се справя далеч по-добре с това да илюстрира чужди текстове, отколкото да пише свои. а вече от години чета блога й в ню йорк таймс, откъдето всъщност са взети "историите" за тази книга, и те не ми харесват! не знам защо ми отне толкова време да си го призная.

не разбирам достатъчно от история на изкуството, за да твърдя, че има такова More...

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