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about personal canon personal canon subscribe sign in home notes archive about welcome personal canon is a newsletter about trying to live a meaningful intellectually engaged and self actualized life it s about how to take your intellectual artistic and literary aspirations seriously especially when you re no longer in school or academia but feel a strong desire to keep on learning making and growing it s also about the joy of reading widely and reading deeply whether that s fiction nonfiction poetry or philosophy every week or so i ll write posts about great contemporary literature poetry and essays i love writers like annie ernaux victoria chang ben lerner and olivia laing older canonical works by writers like hannah arendt or marcel proust architecture and design trends how to apply ideas from philosophy critical theory sociology and art history to everyday life i also write monthly roundups of books films and visual design inspiration everything i read in september 2025 celine nguyen october 5 2025 read full story personal canon has been featured by substack three times in substack reads june 2024 the weekender october 2024 and the weekender again june 2025 and in the weekly recommendations from lapham s quarterly and marginal revolution what does personal canon mean everyone has their own personal idiosyncratic highly subjective set of canonical works the works they ll return to for the rest of their lives that shaped who they are that reward renewed looking reading listening and experiencing i m always interested in how others define their own canon and writing a newsletter is one of the best ways to share the canonical works that have changed my life where should i start reading if you re interested in literature no one told me about proust celine nguyen may 31 2025 read full story how to expand the market for literature and literary criticism celine nguyen august 27 2025 read full story best books of 2024 celine nguyen december 30 2024 read full story falling in love with the short story form celine nguyen june 12 2024 read full story more real than real life celine nguyen july 20 2024 read full story if you want to read about architecture and design a softer gentler modernism on alvar aino aalto celine nguyen september 25 2024 read full story the humble egg in art literature design and theory celine nguyen january 10 2024 read full story if you re interested in art and technology the occasional art report celine nguyen november 5 2025 read full story how to speak to a computer celine nguyen october 20 2025 read full story good artists copy ai artists ____ celine nguyen august 26 2024 read full story seeing like a simulation celine nguyen october 9 2024 read full story and if you re an artist writer researcher or technologist who needs some words of encouragement in praise of writing on the internet celine nguyen december 9 2024 read full story how to change your life part 2 agnes callard s aspiration celine nguyen april 11 2024 read full story research as leisure activity celine nguyen may 27 2024 read full story exercises in style bill beckley s cake story celine nguyen july 25 2025 read full story who are you i m a software designer and writer living in london before this i lived in san francisco and wrote about the city s art and literary community here in defense of san francisco s art scene celine nguyen may 13 2025 read full story i have a very interdisciplinary background computer science and design in undergrad design history for my ma as a result personal canon covers a wide range of topics modernist literature book cover design web based art electronic music and amateur investigations into sociology and philosophy i also write literary and design criticism on the perils of design thinking for the atlantic on cultural stagnation in the 21st century for asterisk on conspiracy theories and the internet novel for the cleveland review of books on vietnamese modern architecture and climate change for the modernist 44 on sheila heti s alphabetical diaries for artreview and some other work 6 book recommendations for novels and memoirs with beautiful sensory language for the atlantic a roundtable discussion on museums and climate activism in the reiminagining museums for climate action book me and the love of my life my kindle on board the other love of my life public transit i m reading a library copy of stuart jeffries s grand hotel abyss the lives of the frankfurt school subscribe subscribe to personal canon finding meaning in life through literature art design and culture through weekly posts and enthusiastic conversations subscribe people 2026 celine nguyen privacy terms collection notice start your substack get the app substack is the home for great culture this site requires javascript to run correctly please turn on javascript or unblock scripts