Books that you can listen to in less than 3-4 hours I think are ideal. When a book looks interesting and I find out it is 20+ hours long, it feels daunting, and often I will skip it unless it is very well written and expertly and enjoyably narrated. Sometimes while listening to long books I get the feeling that they could have been made shorter. But I have never written a book so who knows how long mine would be. Some of them are worth an extended time. The short ones do add up faster, and that feels good.

Find Your Artistic Voice by Lisa Congdon is a good short length, around 4 hours, and when you listen at 1.3x or 1.4x it goes even faster. I’ve found when I put books on normal speed after getting used to the faster progress, it sounds like it has been slowed down to a slow-mo pace.

Some of the advice that Lisa shares is common sense, and things I have heard before. Not surprising since I have a podcast interviewing artists. The great thing about this book though is having all of those ideas and thoughts condensed into one place where they can be read and heard in a short amount of time. For me, the best part of the book is the short interviews with specific artists, about their work and artistic voices. For the new artist, it could be a great guide and for the seasoned artist, it could be a nice reminder with a few new ideas thrown in.

It’s definitely worth a listen or grab a physical copy to peruse at your leisure. The benefit of a physical copy is all of Lisa’s fun artwork throughout the book and the very satisfying graphic design of the layout.

Here is also a short interview with Lisa talking about artistic voice and a link to more info about her and other podcast appearances.