American magazine and newspaper editor Adam Moss stepped back from the corporate life and, among other things, started to learn to paint. Then he grew curious about the very act of creativity and embarked on a fascinating journey, interviewing over forty creators. The result is the sumptuously designed semi-coffee-table-book-sized The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing. Unlike most such books, Moss was not satisfied with the myths spun by many creators and dug in deep. He also scanned broadly, including not only writers, artists, poets, and filmmakers, but also crossword puzzlers, sand castle builders, designers, and comic creators. The result is the most revelatory and engrossing book of this type I have ever come across. Laid out on the page almost like a magazine, we get in-depth explorations of specific books/poems/sculptures/plays/etc., using fascinating heaps and notebooks of retained early draft materials. Every one of the forty-three chapters can be reread endlessly with profit, but check out in particular choreographer Twyla Sharp, Veep showrunner David Mandel, legendary nonfiction writer Gay Talese, author Michael Cunningham, and David Simon re The Wire. Throughout, the author writes fluidly and with affection, weaving in his own creative efforts and personal reflections on what he and the reader might be concluding about the magic and toil of creativity. The Work of Art will not only be prescribed reading for many courses, it is, indeed, a work of art in its own right, and a rollicking fine read at that.
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