Started in 2017 is a new body of work by South African artist and illustrator, Karlien de Villiers, that features her visual interpretations of her favorite books and book covers. The hand-drawn renderings of carefully curated books, characters, and cover designs offer an intimate assemblage of the artist's love of reading and allow the viewer to peek into the titles that line her bookshelves. It is also an ode to the books, the authors and characters that have shaped the artist's world.

 

In the article How the books we read shape our lives (The Independent, UK) David John Taylor asks: "What’s the most important book you’ve ever read? The question strikes at the heart of our sense of self. He describes the provocative and profound influence that reading can have on shifting one's world-views and perspectives: "Tantalisingly and incrementally, like some lost, sub-tropical island emerging out of a weed-strewn lagoon, a whole new world had begun to take shape – a world that, like most inner literary landscapes, is all the more enticing for being self-fashioned and, as such, a fundamental part of the experience that makes us who we are".

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