Uncommon Genius: How Great Ideas are Born

"Everyone from the budding entrepreneur to the weekend writer is looking for a great idea. Even Fridrich Nietzsche said that 'ideas come when "they" want, not when "I" want.' But where do great ideas come from? In this searching look into the essence of creativity, forty winners of the coveted MacArthur Foundation Fellowship -- the so-called 'genius award' -- provide a glimpse inside their own experience of the creative process. Paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould, opera director Peter Sellars, poets Joseph Brodsky and Brad Leithauser, social scientists Robert Coles and Sara Lawrence Lightfoot, and others in fields as diverse as filmmaking, carpentry, and anthropology reveal how they work and how they sneak up on creativity. Blending conversation, theory, and examples from literature and life, this absorbing, thought-provoking book will also show you how to harness the creative spark in your own life."