The Premise:
A half scientific/half anecdotal look at how the creative
process works.
The Good:
From the title, you can tell that Mr. Lehrer has ambition. Creativity
can mean any number of things and he explores an impressive array of factors
that may or may not contribute to the creative process. Conventional things,
like brainstorming and the use of drugs, to unconventional approaches, like the
color of a wall or centralized bathrooms—Mr. Lehrer explores each in a light,
sometimes, humorous manner and peppers in the science behind a good number of
the phenomena. Throughout the book, he shares relevant anecdotes about persons,
artists or entrepreneurs who had an “ah-ha” moment about a problem they were
working on, or the creative process itself.
The Bad:
As someone who works in a creative field, a lot of the
insights were things I already had discovered on my own. For example: Coffee
makes me more creative. But learning why coffee, or rather caffeine, has that
effect and why, is pretty fascinating. I just wish the scientific examples were
applied more consistently throughout. Also, I’m not a Bob Dylan fan, so when the
author cites Dylan’s creation of the song, “Like a Rolling Stone”, as an
example of a song writing breakthrough, I just kind of shrug.
Plus, there is a startling amount of contradiction
throughout. So much so that the book feels a bit unfocused at times. Part of
the problem is that Mr. Lehrer doesn’t seem to want to focus on any one type of
“creativity”. Songwriting stands next to surfing next to scientific research; these
are vastly different skill sets requiring vastly different resources. He does try
to break the process down into individual vs. collective pursuits, but the
results are oftentimes unclear.
For a book that claims to know “how creativity works”, the
answer provided seems to be “it does … sort of”.
The Verdict:
Read it. Maybe buy it. Pass it along. As an exhaustive
treatise on creativity, it’s uneven. But as a means of sparking creativity when
you’re in a rut, it works extremely well. There were many times when the book
sparked an exciting moment of clarity as well as inspiration. As anyone
interested in expanding their perception of creativity, it’s certainly worth a
quick read-through.