A blend of old and newand sometimes originalinforms this pop-science piece on creativity and its discontents. Grant (Wharton Business School; Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success, 2013) has a flair for the novel and the outwardly puzzling, though the writing is merely capable and the book likely to have "negligible impact" against leviathans such as Daniel Kahneman and Malcolm Gladwell. Unkind words, but Grant sets them up, observing that negative book reviews sound 14 percent smarter than positive ones, so we're being self-serving in our negativity. Self-service is to the point, since, by Grant's account, institutions that are friendly to innovation are also generous of spirit, creating "strong cultures of commitment" and building an atmosphere of love and collegiality, even familiarity. Along the way to discussing how creativity flourishesand it does indeed hinge on nonconformity, as the subtitle promises, which is by way of saying that it requires riskGrant lands on such things as how parents encourage children just the right amount: a parent who successfully encourages a child to be independent, an explorer of the world, has to step back and allow that child to find greater models than himself or herself. As Grant puts it, provocatively, "Parents aren't the best role models." Interestingly, the author turns back to the old birth-order hypothesis, in which firstborns and later-borns have different approaches to risk and thus different creative abilities; he finds it to have validity, "a better predictor of personality and behavior than I had expected." Grant sometimes gets tangled in jargon, but he turns up some fascinating tidbits, including the observation that "our intuitions are only accurate in domains where we have a lot of experience"an insight worth the cover price alone. A mixed bag but of interest to readers looking to jump-start their creative powers and raise quick-witted children. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

BACK IN THE '70s, Scott Burnham was a technician working for a company that made guitar cables and accessories. While soldering parts one day, he accidentally attached the wrong resistor to a circuit board. It was a fortunate error, because the circuit suddenly produced a haunting moan - so lovely and eerie that Burnham realized it would make a fantastic guitar-pedal sound. He created the Rat, a pedal that quickly sold tens of thousands of units. Bands from Nirvana to Radiohead used it, and musicians I know today still swear by it. This is the type of story that crops up a lot in Pagan Kennedy's new book, "Inventology: How We Dream Up Things That Change the World." After talking to dozens of inventors, she finds that their breakthroughs frequently involve an element of luck - though, as Louis Pasteur observed, luck favors the prepared mind. Burnham, after all, was an expert in his field, and had been planning for some time to create a new distortion pedal. His expertise and passion helped him recognize the happiness in the happy accident. You or I might have winced at the circuit's weird sound; Burnham heard the future of rock guitar. How precisely does one become more creative? This is a perpetual anxiety in the C Suite, where executives lunge at advice that promises to open up their Steve Jobsian third eye. Kennedy's book and Adam Grant's latest, "Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World," try to demystify creativity, via the genre's now traditional counterpoint of inspirational stories and counterintuitive social science. If clumsily constructed, this type of book can become self-parodic, a PowerPoint slog through the Five Things You Need to Do to Become More Dynamic and Creative. Kennedy largely avoids this trap, with a boost from elegant prose and excellent reporting, including material from her former contributions to The New York Times Magazine's "Who Made That?" column. She generally avoids the pundit's temptation to coin trademark phrases, though she comes up with one terrific one: "Martian jet lag," to describe the case of inventors who suffer from a problem years before other people do - and spy an opportunity. For example, Jack Dorsey, one of Twitter's co-founders, became fascinated by taxi-dispatch systems in the early 2000s. He cobbled together a crude method to send text alerts to his friends. But none owned a phone that would let them participate. Dorsey, in essence, wanted to tweet long before anyone else did, so he was able to identify an urge that would one day become mainstream. Kennedy also argues that inventors are often polymathic connectors "who - by luck, design or some quirk of personality - are able to bring together knowledge from several fields." In her most surprising chapter she examines InnoCentive, a website where companies post problems they cannot solve, listing a financial reward for anyone who helps out. It turns out that the people most likely to solve problems on InnoCentive are outsiders to the problem's field. For example, a food company was struggling to make a health shake but found its formula kept producing a revolting color. The person who devised a solution wasn't in the area of food at all: He was a marine scientist, who had seen the same thing happen in ocean water and suspected (correctly) that the color was caused by iron. He spent a single weekend writing up a solution and won InnoCentive's $25,000 prize for it. Why would outsiders be the ones to grasp the answer? Because when we're insiders, we suffer from déformation professionnelle - the gorgeous French phrase Kennedy unearths that describes industrial groupthink. You get stuck in your discipline's intellectual ruts. The inventors whom Kennedy profiles invariably have fingers in many pies: The person who brought us the sippy cup understood both the physics of nozzles and the messiness of toddlers. Adam Grant, a contributing Op-Ed writer for The Times, also finds that the world's most original thinkers expose themselves to influences far outside their official arena of expertise. Nobel Prize winners are "dramatically more likely to be involved in the arts than less accomplished scientists," he notes. Indeed, a recent study found that playing an instrument made them two times more likely than their "typical" peers to snag a Nobel, and being an amateur performer - in dance, acting or magic - made them 22 times more likely. (A similar pattern obtains in the success rates of entrepreneurs.) This section left me, a part-time musician, aquiver with the joy of confirmation bias. Part of the fun of Grant's book is that he redeems behaviors we typically regard with puritan disdain. Procrastination, he argues, has an upside. In one study in which participants were asked to imagine new businesses to put in a vacant space on a university campus, "the proposals from the procrastinators were 28 percent more creative." A single study is hardly decisive, but Grant discovers that famous creators were also often epic procrastinators: Michelangelo put off painting the Sistine Chapel for years, and Martin Luther King Jr. didn't sit down to write the final version of his historic I Have a Dream speech until 10 p.m. the night before he was slated to deliver it. Procrastination, Grant notes, gives ideas time to bake - and if you're an entrepreneur, it gives you the time to watch others in your field make mistakes from which you can learn. The iPhone, after all, was a very late entry to the mobile-phone game. Moving slowly, and coming to conclusions slowly, is often a virtue. We often assume that the most successful inventors are the ones who go all in, quitting their jobs and mortgaging their homes to start a business the second inspiration strikes. As Grant finds, however, the most effective entrepreneurs tend to be risk-averse. Phil Knight, he points out, kept his day job while cofounding Nike, so did Steve Wozniak while cofounding Apple - and, for good measure, T.S. Eliot after publishing "The Waste Land." Hedging risk and moving cautiously means you're attentive to reality, which in turn makes you more likely to succeed. This is some of the most thought-provoking material in Grant's book because it so sharply deviates from corporate orthodoxy - the word "entrepreneur" means "bearer of risk." Both books have several such moments, and by the time I had finished reading, I had underlined many intriguing ideas: Laterborns are more willing to take risks; overconfidence is the real danger of groupthink; creative types can be quite negative thinkers; taking LSD might inspire some rad ideas (Kennedy considers this one at length). It's all stimulating stuff, though it sometimes leads to a slightly grab-bag-like feeling. "Inventology" and "Originals" both offer many provocations, but as the very diversity of their findings attests, there's no single route to creativity. Breakthroughs often involve luck - though luck favors the prepared mind. CLIVE THOMPSON is the author of "Smarter Than You Think: How Technology Is Changing Our Minds for the Better."

The television show Seinfeld was a flop with its pilot episode. It didn't conform to the standard family situation comedy that provided some meaningful message. It was a show about nothing. That nothing turned into a ratings success. Grant (Wharton) describes successful and unsuccessful unconventional behavior in entrepreneurial, scientific, and other ventures. He cites failures such as Segway and successes such as Disney, Apple, Skype, Bridgewater Associates, the Central Intelligence Agency, Martin Luther King Jr., baseball players who steal bases, and Polaroid. Innovators often take a new rather than a familiar perspective. The perspective is nurtured by investing time, balancing risk, and listening to creatively divergent points of view. Grant cites professionals, colleagues, and top-tier research. Some classic creativity related terms, such as groupthink and devil's advocate are given new insight. The section labeled "Actions for Impact" at the end of the book describes suggestions readers and companies can take to unleash productive nonconformity. Shawn Hunter's Out Think: How Innovative Leaders Drive Exceptional Outcomes (CH, Mar'14, 51-3942) includes similar content. Summing Up: Recommended. Undergraduates through professionals. --Gundars E. Kaupins, Boise State University

In this thought-provoking attempt to redefine the concept of originality, the author of Give and Take (2013) challenges the assumption that people who strive for originality are necessarily risk-takers. He asks us to consider, for example, Scott Adams and Brian May, each of whom kept on with their ordinary jobs Adams at Pacific Bell while he was drawing Dilbert, and May playing lead guitar for Queen while studying astrophysics until they were comfortable turning their attention full-time to their dream pursuits. Oh, and Henry Ford? He kept working for Thomas Edison even while he was revolutionizing the automobile industry. Originality, the author argues, isn't risk-taking; it's finding a new idea and developing it, often while minimizing personal risk. To be original, we must question defaults (which appears to be the author's way of saying, Think outside the box), develop a new idea slowly and carefully, and hold off on taking the big, no-turning-back leap until we are confident of success. The message here should comfort the timid nonconformist in us all: you can be original, but you don't have to be reckless about it.--Pitt, David Copyright 2015 Booklist

Wharton professor Grant (Give and Take) considers himself a huge fan of innovation-yet, as he confides in this solid business guide, he passed up the opportunity to invest in eyeglass brand Warby Parker in its infancy, the "worst decision" he ever made. He goes on to propose that the trouble with how innovation is currently viewed in contemporary society is that both consumers and investors undervalue anything that is less of a game-changer than the new iPhone. In fact, inventors don't need to be cliff diving risk takers, and originality is far more common than is generally thought. Emphasizing the human tendency to take the default action, the book shows that it takes real verve to overcome that inertia and seek out the better option. Grant's topics include the need for patience while publicizing an idea, the disadvantage of being the first in with a new idea, and the importance of creating and supporting fans and evangelists. He also discusses nurturing originality in young people and avoiding the pitfalls of close-knit corporate cultures. His approach is mainly descriptive, but does include some concrete steps for would-be innovators to develop their ideas, and for business leaders to support them. With a foreword by Sheryl Sandberg, Grant's second book should attract as much attention as his bestselling first. Agent: Richard Pine, InkWell Management Literary. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Originals are people with creative ideas that defy the traditional, but when their visions are made reality the world is improved. Grant (Class of 1965 Wharton Professor of Management, Wharton Sch., Univ. of Pennsylvania; Give and Take) thoroughly outlines his goals for the book, including at the beginning of each chapter a statement of purpose so readers have clear expectations. The author cites research and studies in a wide variety of fields to emphasize points and presents information in an entertaining and readable manner. According to Grant, the factors that lead to success include volume of work, birth order, coalition formation, fighting Groupthink, and the difference in strategy between a young genius and an old master. Even procrastination plays a role, as being a "first mover" can have definite disadvantages. While originals may have a battle to make the world a better place, Grant includes many examples, ideas, and encouragements for those who wish to try. He concludes the book with 30 practical actions to unleash originality. VERDICT No matter whether the reader is an original or a wannabe, this book is enjoyable and full of useful information. [See Prepub Alert, 8/24/15.]-Bonnie A. Tollefson, Rogue Valley Manor Lib., Medford, OR © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.