I highly recommend the little gem of a brand-new book called, “The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis”- but be forewarned - this recommendation comes with a couple of significant reservations. I know that sounds like a very ambiguous way to begin a book review…but if you don’t like stories about animals, the ecology, or old people, Ms. Davis’s charming little book probably isn’t for you. It is, however, for me.
"The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis" is a seven-hundred and thirty-three page collection of all four books of her unique little short stories available to date: Break It Down (1986), Almost No Memory (1997), Samuel Jackson Is Indignant (2001), and Varieties of Disturbance (2007)

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As for me I have always been influenced by music, and the life stories of the people I admired in the arts, and now, more than 18 years since I started to paint, I realize that I'm a student.
It's never too late for learning. I focus on the things I want to know, and I'm open to whatever life brings me. I go to museums and galleries, I surf the web through art sites and forums, I read books and magazines, I go to lectures and watch tv and movies about the lives of artists. All that apart from trying to live my life in a way that suits me best, adventurous, challenging, and completely my own