Imagination Muscle

For some, the imagination is a luxury in the modern age; something which is by turns elusive, difficult to employ and better left to others. But what is it to imagine exactly? How do we go about it, and why is it so important that we imagine for ourselves?

In this insightful and life-affirming book, Albert Read puts the imagination back at the forefront of our lives. Not merely a nebulous concept reserved for artists and creatives, it is a muscle - an essential faculty of the mind to be trained and developed over a lifetime. It is boundless in its potential, infinitely rewarding and central to human achievement.

Spanning pre-historic times through to the twenty-first century, The Imagination Muscle explores the genesis of ideas - from Thomas Edison's serial embracing of failure to Jane Jacobs' vision of how we should build cities together; from Steve Jobs' approach to office design to the Japanese concept of Ma. Touching on art, music, film, literature, science and entrepreneurship, this book examines how the imagination has evolved - in shape, power and pace - through the millennia.

Albert Read reveals how we can harness the imagination in our day-to-day lives and why, in the new Age of Technology, it is more pressing than ever that we do so. Discover where to find ideas, how to foster skill in observation and connection, and how to be more attentive to the fluxes of our own minds.

After all, as Read expertly outlines, the imagination is our supreme gift, our biggest opportunity, our greatest source of fulfilment and our most vital asset for the future.

Beautiful, moving, profoundly imaginative in itself - this book is as entertaining as it is relevant and practical -- Alain de Botton
Anyone who has an imagination - that is, everyone - should read this book -- Edward Enninful
A sparkling romp through all the sunniest and most positive-feeling corners of the mind. A guidebook to free-thinking . . . A hymn to the capacity for delight -- Adam Nicolson
Buoyant, beautifully distilled . . . Consistently entertaining The Times
Super sharp ... brimming with big ideas. An extraordinary book Spectator
What a great book . . . amazing -- Chris Evans
The perfect book for your weekend . . . in [Read's] fascinating new book, he explores how ideas have developed over thousands of years, across art, science, film, and literature, and explains how you can start find more of them Independent
A moving hymn to creativity Economist

Albert Read was born in 1970 and educated at Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School, Ampleforth College and New College, Oxford. Along with a journalistic career writing for the Spectator, Evening Standard and the Telegraph, he was also Literary Editor and Features Editor of the Express newspaper. At 29, he left journalism to do an MBA from INSEAD. He then joined Conde Nast International where he was instrumental in launching magazines in China and India. In 2018, he was appointed Managing Director of Conde Nast in Britain where he currently oversees a number of titles, including British Vogue, GQ, Wired, Conde Nast Traveller and the World of Interiors. He lives in London with his wife, the writer Catherine Ostler, and their three children.

The Imagination Muscle is the story of ideas and their making, from pre-history to the modern age. Expansive in its range of themes - from art, science and business, to music, fashion and gardening - and forensic in its study of the common weave, this book's sweep reveals a resounding optimism about humanity.It is also an indirect manifesto for a more rigorous approach to building the imaginative function in our lives, through our approach to education and society at what is, with the rise of technology, a critical inflection point in humanity's long march. The imagination is our most vital asset, our currency and our competitive edge.

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