“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” -Picasso

For those striving to create in any capacity of life, it is often helpful to track down a good book on the particular topic by someone experienced. I’ve blogged about books on creative writing, and underscored the fact that plenty of books on the topic retrace the same territory again and again, making the reading of an essential and exceptional book on the subject more of a necessity. But even after owning and reading a remarkable book on a creative subject, there is no substitute for sitting down and doing the work, or, as Annie Dillard says in The Writing Life, letting the blank page teach you.

Still, even when we are before the blank page, canvas, or even a business meeting yet to begin, much more is going on internally than we realize. Being a good steward of our own mental faculties and/or of those with whom we work during a project is crucial for creativity to take place. We can attempt to create all day long; and again, a book on our particular area of focus is often helpful, but such books rarely address the minutiae, details, and difficulties that take place in the work of creating. Jonah Lehrer’s Imagine: How Creativity Works fills this gap in terms of books about creativity.

Quite possibly my favorite book of 2012, Imagine is a book that reads so well I felt like I was watching a good documentary. Make no mistake about it: this book is for everyone. From the businessperson to the theater director, writer to computer programmer, Imagine weaves together what all of us have in common as people trying to do something original. Lehrer highlights the fact that there is no special creative gene, but that our creative capacity is something we are all born with and that many of us leave untapped.

In terms of our untapped potential, Imagine is a book on the neuroscience of creativity, but fear not laypeople, Lehrer is such a good writer and his prose so clean and lucid that the chapters on the brain are utterly fascinating. Alongside the parts about the brain, Lehrer interviews and researches a great number of people from all walks of the creative life: Bob Dylan, Yo-Yo Ma, surfer Clay Marzo, and the creative team of Pixar to name a few, making Imagine an expansive and encompassing look at the work of creativity.

One thing you will learn is the necessity of mental blocks, and how relaxation or focusing on another topic altogether allows for an insight. For me, if I am stuck on a story that just won’t work, I’ll break out my manual on auto repair and mess around with the tubes, valves, and belts on my car. When we are trying to create, working on something completely unrelated to our project allows us to make a connection that we otherwise would not have made when we stick close to the subject that is giving us a hard time.

Lehrer shows how some companies urge their employees to take breaks involving napping, ping-pong, or even a stint in another department unrelated to their own in order to give them space from their work. Doing this allows room for necessary connections and insights. For example, those employees struggling with computer programming would be moved to a department such as model trains. To encounter something so completely different from one’s area of expertise provides a different perspective. We see how model trains work, and so we apply those principles to our area of expertise, which often leads to a connection we did not see previously because the characteristics of our subject did not allow for such a window.

Lehrer covers a whole spectrum of matters in the work of creativity. I hope you will purchase this book and apply it to your own life. We are all here to build and to create, and Lehrer has provided a window by which to see our potential and to step into the necessary actions to cultivate our creative drives. I’m not sure I’ve read a better book this year.  -Ellis

Enjoy Jonah Lehrer’s book trailer on Imagine: How Creativity Works.

Read more. Check out Jonah’s website: www.jonahlehrer.com

Hello, my name is John–Phillips for those who might be confused. This being my first mark on the blog I wanted to introduce myself.  If you have been in the store the last month or so, I am the new beard on the block trying to learn the ropes. I have greatly enjoyed working here so far and can say that my short time here has been better than most any job I have had in the past. I only anticipate it getting better as I continue to learn about the store, the people that work here and all of the pages that fill the walls.

A week or so ago I finished reading The Genius in All of Us by David Shenk.  Because of the title, I was a bit suspect of the contents; but I was pleasantly surprised by the work once I got into it.  David Shenk is a journalist has published five other books before this one concerning everything from chess in The Imortal Game, to Alzheimer’s disease in The Forgetting, and information technology in Data Smog and The End of Patience. In this particular book he did a wonderful job of compiling the work of experts and articulating this work for our benefit, especially for a subject that involves a vast amount of opinions and beliefs. In just over a hundred pages, and a hundred more or so in evidence and citations, he is able to speak clearly concerning this highly complex subject of “genius.”

It has long been the belief of many since the days of Gregor Mendel and his peas that genius or “giftedness” in any area is a direct product of the genes of their parents DNA. After all that is the reason a six year-old can play Chopin or professional athletes can run fast and jump high, right? It is this very presumption that Shenk takes by the horns arguing that genes are a leaping pad not a ceiling. He discusses the myths and sidetracks that caused the majority of the public to believe that they can’t only because they do not have the “gift.” For every sidetrack and presumption he has solid research and experiments to prove otherwise. He does a decent enough job of not telling everybody they are going to be the next Einstein or Lance Armstrong. You may not personally agree with all of his conclusions in the book, I didn’t, but as far as the primary point that genes do not completely determine one’s ability, he is solid; and it is an argument worth reading.

Coming from a background in music and art, I can say that there is a group of people that never bought into “giftedness” as success in the arts. That would be the masters themselves because they know that they are good at what they do not because they were given graceful hands or fast fingers or some magic force that allows them to draw, but it is because they practice. Practice, Practice, Practice. This is the main conclusion that the author points towards with fine research and pleasant narrative, all except for a misuse of Leonardo Da Vinci’s  name every now and then; but hey, Dan Brown got away with it. This book is not an exhaustive study of genius or a complete explanation of why certain people do what they do; and Shenk does not say that everyone can be a master at everything, only that the majority of us are not living at the edge of our capabilities. Something I know is true in myself and something I wish to change. This book is a great spur to work hard at what you do, and not feel limited by what you believe are your “natural” limitations.

-John P.