How to Steal Fire: The Myths of Creativity Exposed, The Truths of Creativity Explained
About this audiobook
Random House presents the audiobook edition of How to Steal Fire, written and read by Stephen Bayley and Roger Mavity.
Creativity is a fundamental challenge that everyone faces in the modern world, be they in business, in education or a struggling artist or musician. Indeed it touches all our lives in hundreds of different ways, from the clothes we buy to the buildings we live in. But this book is not about how to knit an exciting jumper, it's about individuals reclaiming themselves from the anonymous dreariness of a data-driven, collectivised, faceless culture.
It's a human compulsion to be creative, to do and make new things. Without it, we'd still be mired in protoerozoic slime. Maurice Saatchi once said that creativity is the last legal way of getting an unfair advantage in business. But if creativity is legal, it is not always moral or ethical. In a signature act of creativity, Prometheus stole fire from the gods.
In The School of Genius, psychiatrist Anthony Storr convincingly argued that being alone with your own thoughts is the most reliable and productive method of generating ideas. But your own thoughts will be more productive when you have read this book, for it promotes the benefits of simplifying, thinking boldly and being undaunted by challenges.
About the author
Stephen Bayley (Author)
In the 1970s, Terence Conran plucked Stephen from the obscurity of provincial academe to do his good works. One result was The Boilerhouse Project, promoting design in London's V&A, which became the most successful gallery of the eighties. Another result was the influential Design Museum. Stephen has since become one of the world's best-known commentators on design and popular culture.
Roger Mavity (Author)
Roger had been hired by Terence many times, and fired nearly as often. First at the French Gold Abbott ad agency where Roger won the Habitat advertising account; then at two more agencies including Mavity Gilmore, his own business. In 2006 he became Chief Executive of Conran Holdings, Terence’s business empire, where he stayed for seven years. Roger also ran his own ad agency for ten years and was Chief Executive of Granada Group’s technology and leisure divisions for another ten years. He quit business to work as a writer and photographer.