Imagine: How Creativity Works

This is not a programming book or related to the Android platform in any way -- it's a book about creativity. And as such, I've enjoyed reading it very much from the perspective of a programmer. After all, programming, which is a creative enterprise, has the same joys and frustrations as painting, drawing, and inventing new products. 

Several times I had to put the book down, inspired, to return to my computer to write some more code. While the book may fall short in scientific rigor describing some of the studies the author shares, the anecdotes and quotes were inspiring enough to get me actively thinking about the creative process in general and how it relates to programming in particular. 

The author quotes Beethoven, saying, "I make many changes and reject and try again, until I am satisfied." Not unlike Beethoven, and many other artists, I program, I code, I make artwork for my app, I select sound effects, I reject some ideas, I rewrite code, and I keep trying again until I am satisfied. The author asserts that creation... creativity... is a universal ability of all humans and I fully believe that. It's just that the expression of creativity is different for everyone.