Book Review: Imagine by Jonah Lehrer

Title: Imagine: How Creativity Works
Author: Jonah Lehrer
Enjoyment Rating: ****
Source: Audible for iPhone
Books I've read this year: 61

When I was in college, my roommate Leslie and I had a plan. We would graduate, get jobs, get married, and then somehow convince our husbands to settle not just in the same city, but in a communal living situation. Then we'd invite our friends to buy the houses around ours, and we'd all live in a happy state of shared domesticity. The idea wasn't that weird to me; when I was a kid my parents and their best friends shared a condo for several years, but we've never been able to convince the husbands to make a go of it. However, when we get together, Leslie and I always get a glimpse of what our lives would be like if we lived together. Our boys play, my middle daughter makes plans to marry her son, and we get involved in some kind of creative pursuit. Sometimes we paint (she's an artist), sometimes we come up with ideas for essays, sometimes we delve into a decorating project or put together a feast. Whatever we do, I feel like there's some kind of synergy at work-- together the two of us are more-- more interesting, more creative, just more than we are by ourselves.

In his book Imagine, Lehrer talks about how creativity often comes in surprising ways, and he validates the idea that Leslie and I may have been onto something. His chapters focus on how inspiration can come when the mind takes a rest (why those Silicon Valley companies have ping pong tables, for example), how some of the best ideas come from novices, how collaboration works (and brainstorming doesn't)-- this chapter has a fascinating view of Pixar, why cities produce more patents and more good ideas than more rural locations, and how to live a creative life, not just experience spurts of creativity.

I have a weakness for Jonah Lehrer. I've read his other books, and when Jad and Robert say that they'll be speaking with Jonah Lehrer on Radiolab, it always gets my heart beating. Dare I say I have a literary crush on Lehrer, whose work makes neuroscience accessible to the masses? Imagine was no different. I listened to it eagerly, and I was sad when Lehrer came to the end of the story.