Notebooks of the mind
In this revised edition of Notebooks of The Mind, Vera John-Steiner combines imaginative insight with scientific precision to produce a startling account of the human mind working at its highest potential. To approach her subject, John-Steiner goes directly to the source, assembling the thoughts of "experienced thinkers" - artists, philosophers, writers, and scientists able to reflect on their own imaginative patterns. More than fifty interviews (with figures ranging from Jessica Mitford to Aaron Copland), along with excerpts from the diaries, letters, and autobiographies of such gifted giants as Leo Tolstoy, Marie Curie, and Diego Rivera, among others, provide illuminating insights into creative activity. What emerges is an intriguing demonstration of how specific sociocultural circumstances interact with certain personality traits to encourage the creative mind. Now, with a new introduction, this award-winning book provides an uniquely broad-based study of the origins, development and fruits of human inspiration.
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- The classic book on this topic:
Notebooks of the Mind: Explorations of Thinking https://www.amazon.com/dp/0195108965
- Hey you had a really good post that was remarkably unpretentious and straightforward. Ugh I think of all the questions on Quora like “What books should I read to become a huge success / be the best digital marketer!”.
So first I would look at anything by Henry Petroski. The “Invention of Design” and “Pushing The Limits” are pretty inspiring.
A trend I notice is that a lot of great books are published before 1990, specifically in the years 1950-1990. I think this was because there was enough knowledge to make great material, but the bloodsucking consultants hadn’t descended on the publishing industry yet to fashion themselves into a “thought leader” by writing a book of extremely questionable value.
Some more titles are (only 1 published after 1990):
- A Clockwork Muse by Martindale - The Art of a Scientific Investigation by Beveridge - Consilience by Wilson - The Act of Creation by Koestler
Finally I would recommend “Notebooks of the Mind”. Don’t know why I just thought of it but it’s the best book of the bunch I recommended.
- What kind of books? I discover that I'm usually cherry picking chapters or section in technical or books where there is no strong interrelationship between the various elements or the topics. As already pointed previously, marking or taking notes inside those kind of books is useful to keep a trace and easy find back what you discovered or learned in a technical book.
There is a good reading about taking notes and especially the approach of thinking while relying on our current readings : Notebooks of the Mind, Exploration of Thinking, Vera John-Steiner (ISBN13 978-0195108965).
We are often learning at school to always finish a book even if we don't like it or we have some difficulties to read it. I tend to agree for the difficult books where sometime, you have to force yourself to finish it. But sometime, giving up is not so bad and relaxing your mind with more "easy to read" or "easy flowing" books is helping us to relax before reading more complex books. That's why I always keep around 4 or 5 books in my reading queue... and jumping back to some of them when my mind is more ready.
