Creativity: A Short and Cheerful Guide

by John Cleese

The legendary comedian, actor, and writer of Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, and A Fish Called Wanda fame shares his key ideas about creativity: that it’s a learnable, improvable skill.

“Many people have written about creativity, but although they were very, very clever, they weren't actually creative. I like to think I'm writing about it from the inside.”—John Cleese
 
You might think that creativity is some mysterious, rare gift—one that only a few possess. But you’d be wrong. As John Cleese shows in this short, practical, and often amusing guide, creativity is a skill that anyone can acquire. 
 
Drawing on his lifelong experience as a writer, Cleese shares his insights into the nature of creativity and offers advice on how to get your own inventive juices flowing. What do you need to do to get yourself in the right frame of mind? When do you know that you’ve come up with an idea that might be worth pursuing? What should you do if you think you’ve hit a brick wall?
 
We can all be more creative.
 
John Cleese shows us how.

• ISBN10: 0385348274
• ISBN13: 9780385348270
• Publish Date: 8 September 2020
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 112
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780385348270

Reviews

[annieb123]

Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

Creativity: A Short and Cheerful Guide is an examination of the creative process by the inimitable John Cleese. Due out 8th Sept 2020 from Crown Publishing, it's a concise 112 pages and will be available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats.

This is exactly as advertized. It's cheerfully humorous and lighthearted but at the same time, a fairly rigorous examination of writing and the creative process from the prodigious experience acquired by Mr. Cleese over his long (and illustrious) career.

The book is broken into shorter chapters (some of them are 1 page(ish) - very short indeed) which illuminate one or more points. Many of the larger ideas will be familiar to fanatical followers of the author from his series of lectures at Cornell as a professor-at-large. They're expanded upon in this book and there are some pretty profound ideas included for a humorous little book.

In the current culture of anti-intellectualism it's all too easy to become disillusioned and exhausted by all of the backlash against well spoken prose, language, literature, intelligence... This book (and Cleese) are erudite and unapologetically intelligent.

There's a lot of material here for fans of Monty Python and Cleese the Actor, but there's also a lot to love here for anyone who loves to read intelligent well spoken people talking about an interesting topic.

I enjoyed it hugely and recommend it to everyone.

Four stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.