Eighty Pages, Large Print

If you have an hour to kill, I'd recommending picking up "Three Uses of the Knife" by David Mamet. This book is catergorized as Drama, but it's more like philosophy. David Mamet sure has a way with words. I don't know what entertained me more, the way he writes, the brevity of the read, or the actual content.

I can sum up my recommendation of this book with the following statement: I would consider the knowledge herein as essential to the animator/filmaker/playwright as Sun Tzu's, "The Art of War", is considered essential to most businessmen/lawyers/etc. It certainly grounds you, and while you don't have to agree with all of it, it is nonetheless an interesting perspective. I'm glad I read it. Here's an excerpt that hit home:

"...Joseph Campbell calls this period in the belly of the beast - the time which is not the beginning and not the end, the time in which the artist and the protagonist doubt themselves and wish the journey had never begun. This is the staging ground for the final assault on the final goal - the time in which the beginning goal is tansmuted into a higher goal, in which the true nature of the struggle aserts itself."