Sudden Genius?

This must be one of the most wide-ranging and interesting books to be published this year. Subtitled 'the gradual path to creative breakthroughs' it is structured in three parts: ingredients of creativity, 10 breakthroughs in art and science, and patterns of genius. The author's previous work prepares him perfectly for this Herculean task. He analyses the various components of creativity, showing how gradual evolution is typical of creative breakthroughs - there is a necessary period of hard graft lasting 10 years or more, so that the soil is well prepared in advance. There are many different scientific disciplines now involved in the study of creativity including neuroscience and the psychology of unconscious processing, sometimes expressed in dreams.

The central section provides fascinating case studies of 10 exceptional individuals in relation to a key work or discovery. So we have Leonardo da Vinci and his Last Supper, Sir Christopher Wren and St Paul's, Mozart and the Marriage of Figaro, Jean-Francois Champollion on hieroglyphics, Darwin and natural selection, Marie Curie and radium, Einstein on special relativity, Virginia Woolf and Mrs Dalloway, and finally the photographer Henri Cartier Bresson and the filmmaker Satyajit Ray. Robinson's treatment of each of these cases shows extraordinary breadth and depth of learning and is full of fascinating background details. The last part brings the analysis together asking if there are any factors common to all breakthroughs. One interesting conclusion is the industriousness associated with genius - Edison is a good example - and one learns that Bach wrote up to 20 pages of completed music a day. As the saying goes, perspiration precedes inspiration. It turns out that genius is not a myth, but sudden genius is. Definitely a book to pack for holiday reading.