Book Review: Syllabus: Notes from an Accidental Professor by Lynda Barry

The inner mind of Lynda Barry is probably a labyrinth inhabited by creative mysterious creatures at every corner. She is currently an assistant professor of Interdisciplinary Creativity, Image Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Syllabus is her creative journal, a collection of thoughts, experiences, drawings and photos relating to the course she's teaching. Each page is filled with drawings and handwritten notes that feel like they are created spontaneously as inspiration hits her. It's like how sometimes your mind will wander and think about weird or nonsensical things, well, that's almost the case here except Lynda got down to visualising all that on paper. The book is a look at how she works, how she thinks about life, creativity and her students.

The book is designed like those blue-lined yellow-paged paperback with two staples on the side. Even the paper quality feels like those yellow paper.

There's a lot going on in the book, and with the handwritten notes, it's not easy to read at times so it's definitely not a book that can be read in one sitting. It's a book that can be read from any page at anytime if you want a creative jolt.

It's a fun read. Goofy and wacky would be two other keywords I would associate with this book.

Syllabus: Notes from an Accidental Professor is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN)

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