An enthusiastic examination of the creative process.
A Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist explores creativity.
In his latest investigation, New York Times reporter Richtel does not limit himself to artistic or scientific inspiration, emphasizing that creativity is an inborn human trait as natural as reproduction. “Creativity is…part of our more primitive physiology,” he writes. “It comes from the cellular level, part of our most essential survival machinery. We are creativity machines.” The result may not be a work of genius, but it is always characterized by originality, novelty, and meaning. As Richtel shows, it can also be disruptive, not always in a good way, and it invariably changes how we relate to the world. It’s common knowledge that children possess open minds with creative imaginations, “generating random thoughts, concepts logical and mad.” Unfortunately, according to pioneering studies, education, peer pressure, and parenting often quash this inborn creativity, resulting in the popular label “Fourth Grade Slump.” Not every expert agrees, but it’s a catchy phrase that undoubtedly contains an element of truth. “The number one enemy of creativity is perfectionism,” writes Richtel. “There isn’t even a close second-place enemy.” In that vein, the author stresses the importance of permission. Research reveals a surprisingly laissez faire attitude in parents of creative children who raise them with far fewer rules. Studies also show that creativity doesn’t necessarily follow along with IQ, but openness and curiosity are critical. Richtel presents a host of illuminating interviews with gifted individuals happy to reveal their insights. He pays closest attention to singer Rhiannon Giddens and cellist Yo-Yo Ma, but he also includes an entertaining chapter on Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr, who is “exceedingly open in a jock culture that can be very closed.” There is no shortage of inspiring advice, as Richtel’s definition of creativity broadens as the narrative proceeds. Eventually, it includes a vast swath of human behavior. Despite the author’s warning that this is not a self-help book, readers will learn more about achieving personal fulfillment than the secrets of pure genius.
An enthusiastic examination of the creative process.Pub Date: April 19, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-063-02553-0
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Mariner Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 18, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.
Helping liberals get out of their own way.
Klein, a New York Times columnist, and Thompson, an Atlantic staffer, lean to the left, but they aren’t interrogating the usual suspects. Aware that many conservatives have no interest in their opinions, the authors target their own side’s “pathologies.” Why do red states greenlight the kind of renewable energy projects that often languish in blue states? Why does liberal California have the nation’s most severe homelessness and housing affordability crises? One big reason: Liberal leadership has ensnared itself in a web of well-intentioned yet often onerous “goals, standards, and rules.” This “procedural kludge,” partially shaped by lawyers who pioneered a “democracy by lawsuit” strategy in the 1960s, threatens to stymie key breakthroughs. Consider the anti-pollution laws passed after World War II. In the decades since, homeowners’ groups in liberal locales have cited such statutes in lawsuits meant to stop new affordable housing. Today, these laws “block the clean energy projects” required to tackle climate change. Nuclear energy is “inarguably safer” than the fossil fuel variety, but because Washington doesn’t always “properly weigh risk,” it almost never builds new reactors. Meanwhile, technologies that may cure disease or slash the carbon footprint of cement production benefit from government support, but too often the grant process “rewards caution and punishes outsider thinking.” The authors call this style of governing “everything-bagel liberalism,” so named because of its many government mandates. Instead, they envision “a politics of abundance” that would remake travel, work, and health. This won’t happen without “changing the processes that make building and inventing so hard.” It’s time, then, to scrutinize everything from municipal zoning regulations to the paperwork requirements for scientists getting federal funding. The authors’ debut as a duo is very smart and eminently useful.
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781668023488
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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