Imagine: How Creativity Works

Did you know that the most creative companies have centralized bathrooms? That brainstorming meetings are a terrible idea? That the cities with the fastest walkers come up with the most new ideas?     From the bestselling author of How We Decide comes a sparkling and revelatory look at the new science of creativity. Jonah Lehrer lifts the veil on a process that has always been inscrutable. Shattering the myth of muses, higher powers, even creative "types," Lehrer shows how new research is deepening our understanding of the human imagination. In Lehrer’s hands, creativity is not a single "gift" that only some of us possess. It’s a catch-all term for a variety of distinct thought processes that we can all learn to use more effectively. Some acts of imagination are best done sipping espresso in a crowded café, while others require long walks in a quiet park. Lehrer helps us fit our creative strategies to the task at hand. Then he lifts us out of our own heads, showing how this new science can also make neighborhoods more vibrant, companies more productive, and schools more effective. We’ll learn about Bob Dylan’s writing habits and the drug addiction of poets. We’ll spend time with a bartender who thinks like a chemist, and an autistic surfer who invented an entirely new surfing move. We’ll see why Elizabethan England experienced a creative explosion, and how Pixar designed its office space to get the most out of its talent. Collapsing the layers separating the neuron from the finished symphony, Imagine reveals the deep inventiveness of the human mind, and its essential role in our increasingly complex world. About The Author: Jonah Lehrer is a Contributing Editor at Wired and a frequent contributor to The New Yorker . He writes the Head Case column for The Wall Street Journal and regularly appears on WNYC’s Radiolab . His writing has also appeared in Nature , The New York Times Magazine , Scie