The ImagineArts daily reader-journal

A Year with the Muses

365 voices on the arts and the well-lived life — Van Gogh and the Psalmists, Beethoven and Marcus Aurelius, Woolf and Rumi. One page a day: a verified quotation, the face and story behind it, one small practice, and one free door into the world's great art.

Get the book — R249 Try a month free
Apollo and the Muses on Parnassus — the cover artwork of A Year with the Muses
Apollo and the Muses on Parnassus (1784) — The Metropolitan Museum of Art, open access
Why this book is different

Most quote books are riddled with fakes.
This one makes four harder promises.

Verified, every voice

Every quotation was checked, verbatim, against its original public-domain source — the letter, the notebook, the treatise — and that source is printed on the page, down to the chapter. If a line could not be traced, it did not enter this book, however famous.

A doing book

Each day pairs its voice with one small practice from our Flourish Through the Arts course — two minutes with one painting, a three-track mood bridge, a line learned by heart. And the bottom of every page is yours: type straight into the PDF and save. A year from now the book is half ours, half yours.

Every voice in plain words

The Companion, at the back, gives every quotation's meaning in one or two plain modern sentences — tap In plain words on any page and jump straight there, then follow the link back. Older English opens like a door; a gift to every reader, and gold for non-native English speakers.

Doors included

Every page opens one free, checked door — the Met's open collection, free full operas, poets reading their own work, the Vatican's virtual Sistine Chapel. Real masterpieces open the twelve galleries, and 48 voices carry their real portraits.

One page, every day

This is what a morning looks like

DAY 3
LITERATURE
“I am larger, better than I thought, / I did not know I held so much goodness.”
— Walt Whitman
Leaves of Grass (1892 edition) · Song of the Open Road, section 5
In plain words » The Companion
MEET THE VOICE
American poet (1819–1892) whose Leaves of Grass sang the body, democracy and the open road. He believed reading is a gymnast's struggle — and the reader an athlete.
TODAY'S PRACTICE
Meet today's quote again this evening: read it twice, keep the line that stays, and write it a two-line reply of your own. Not analysis — a reply.
AN OPEN DOOR
Poetry Foundation — 40,000+ poems, poem-of-the-day. poetryfoundation.org — every door in the book is a live, clickable link
TODAY'S PAGE
The line I keep — the words from this page worth carrying:
What I noticed — a reflection, a practice report, or a reply to the voice:

411 pages · day-numbered and evergreen (begin any morning) · twelve gallery masterpieces · 48 verified portraits · The Companion: all 365 voices in plain words, linked both ways · every open door a live, clickable link · full sources & research references · fillable on screen, writable in print

Who this book is for. Written for readers of about sixteen and older. These are real writers, and many of them wrote about grief, doubt and mortality as honestly as they wrote about beauty — that is much of the book's worth. Younger readers get a great deal from it alongside a parent or teacher, and The Companion at the back is there to help.
Choose your door

The book, the Salon, or the Full House

A Year with the Muses

R249 once · ebook (PDF)

The complete 365-day reader-journal — with The Companion (every voice in plain words) and every door a live link — delivered to your inbox minutes after payment. Salon members pay R149 from their member area.

Secure card payment via PayFast. The charge appears as FlourishTalk, our parent company.

The Salon

R99 / month

Full membership: the Flourish Through the Arts course — all eight arts, 28 guided practice tools with audio guides, foundation notes and open doors — the ImagineArts community, and the Salon library of every verified quote with your own journal.

A subscription you can cancel anytime — you keep access to the end of what you've paid for. The Full House is the annual Salon with both editions of the daily reader included in your first year — the English and the Afrikaans (renews at R999).

Not sure yet?

R0 free month

Take the first thirty-one days of the book — a complete month of voices, practices and doors, fillable pages included — free, for your email address.

Get the free month
More to explore free: Voices of the Muses, Muse Match and the ArtSmart IQ Challenge.

Your free month with the Muses

Thirty-one days — Ruskin to Rumi, Whitman to the Psalmists — each with its practice, its live-linked door, its plain-words Companion entry, and your own page to write on. We'll email it to you now, and tell you when Volume Two arrives. No spam, ever; leave with one click.

Reading in Afrikaans? There is a whole companion edition — 'n Jaar met die Muse, drawn entirely from our own early literature.