Brainstorming Better
Now that you've read the "new year, new you" titles each January brings, you may be happy to find creativity books can also be a big help for the self. Not just for artists, creativity books are for anyone who wants to try out a new idea. Let the Library help stir your imagination anytime.
Creativity: The Perfect Crime by Philippe Petit
There are hordes of creativity books out there; this one is an outside-the box way to think outside the box. Beautifully designed, "Perfect Crime" is a work of art in itself, styled to make you feel that you're really in conversation with the author. Long before he walked a high wire between the Twin Towers of the original World Trade Center, Philippe Petit was also a rule-breaking, multi-talented magician, street juggler, visual artist, builder and writer. He's a rebel with a cause, tapping the techniques and habits you'll need to find solutions where nobody can see them... yet. Don't take our word for it: celebrity book-blurbers for this title include ballet performer Mikhail Baryshnikov; Julie Taymor, Broadway director of "The Lion King"; and Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Everything Is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.
The Make Good Art Speech by Neil Gaiman; designed by Chip Kidd. 
On Christmas night, Neil Gaiman (bestselling author of Coraline, The Sandman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane and many others) took to Twitter and posted "Goodnight everyone. Are we looking forward to Boxing Day? Remember to wear your Cardboard Box with pride." It's this version of lightly irreverent creativity Gaiman offers in "The Make Good Art Speech," a reprint of the commencement address he gave at Philadelphia's University of the Arts two years ago. His tip for dreamers of all kinds? Make "Fantastic Mistakes."
The Rise : creativity, the gift of failure, and the search for mastery by Sarah Lewis
Sarah Lewis, a museum curator and writer, was selected for Oprah Winfrey's Power List among many other accomplishments. Lewis offers a vision of creativity that includes science and business as well as the arts, chronicling the often astonishing ways that "the search for mastery" can be realized through "serendipity, failure, simple determination, and hard work."
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