Sean Dietrich: The book on my coffee table

Whenever I am feeling sad and blue, I visit my living room coffee table. I sit on my sofa, which is adorned with chew toys, claw marks, canine hair, exposed couch stuffing, and various upholstery springs, and petrified trails of dog drool that resemble evidence of past slug races.

There, I consult a book that sits on my coffee table. I open this book and almost always feel better.

I consult this book whenever life starts to feel heavy. Whenever people in the world seem particularly bat-excrement insane. Whenever my fellow Americans become uncharitable, arrogant, selfish, or worse, political.

That’s where this book comes in handy.

Inside this book are famous paintings. Most of these paintings were originally covers for the “Saturday Evening Post” magazine.

The first painting in this bo