Women Holding Things, Maira Kalman

This book feels profound, funny, and deeply human all at once. Maira Kalman takes the seemingly ordinary act of women carrying things—bags, children, groceries, grief, responsibility—and turns it into something quietly emotional and strangely universal. The paintings are loose and alive, the observations sharp in that very specific Maira Kalman way, and the whole book feels like sitting inside the beautifully cluttered mind of someone who notices everything.