The Genius Myth
You can tell what a society values by who it labels as a genius. You can also tell who it excludes, who it enables, and what it will tolerate.
Taking us from the Renaissance Florence of Leonardo da Vinci to the Floridian rocket launches of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Helen Lewis unravels a word that we all use ― without really questioning what it means.
Along the way, she uncovers the secret of the Beatles’ success, asks how biographers should solve the Austen Problem, and reveals why Stephen Hawking thought IQ tests were for losers (before taking one herself). And she asks if the modern idea of genius ― a class of special people ― is distorting our view of the world.
Published in the US (order here) and the UK (order here).
Reaction to The Genius Myth
“This book comes highly recommended . . . In tight, crisp prose, Lewis is consistently clear-eyed. She is in the business of throwing cold water over overheated self-perceptions and piercing overinflated egos, showing her derision with understated irony that’s often very funny.” — Irish Independent
“Brilliant, timely and compulsively readable. Helen Lewis shows how the idea of genius has warped our understanding of human creativity – and why people of vast accomplishment in one domain can prove so destructively clueless in others.” — Oliver Burkeman, author of Four Thousand Weeks
“A fascinating account of how we define brilliance, worth and intelligence, and why that can be dangerous.” — Stephen Bush, associate editor, Financial Times
“Lewis does not take a hard stance against the very existence of genius; she grants that Shakespeare might have been one. Her issue is more with the license given to genius, and the resulting admiration of traits that are not all that admirable.” — New Yorker
“The Genius Myth offers a fascinating insight into how our conceptions of brilliance are profoundly flawed. In politics, it’s often said that the winners are the ones with the best story. Lewis proves the same with our elevation of so many flawed and dysfunctional people into the rank of genius. It’s a beautifully written, profoundly erudite work.” — John Yorke, author of Into The Woods
“Lucid, funny and fascinating” — Adam Buxton, author of I Love You, Byeee
“Being a genius, Helen Lewis argues in her lively book, is as much about the society that has given the label as it is about the person themselves.” — Mail on Sunday
“Lewis issues an effective call for a more carefully tempered understanding of genius in our precarious times, one that celebrates creativity, innovation, and achievement rather than idolizing a maker’s rarity and eccentricity. By degrees unsettling, amusing, and prescient; a much-needed audit of a consuming idea.” ― Kirkus Reviews
“An indispensable companion to our times” — Caroline Criado Perez, author of Invisible Women
“Captivant et très fouillé” — L’Express
“Lewis strives for the easy, conversational style of a Ted Talk, but her attempt at a pally register comes off stilted and ingratiating . . . A striking feature of this book is its tone of ambient philistinism” — The Guardian
“Helen Lewis argues that ‘genius’ lies in the eye of the beholder. Well, my own eyes saw genius when they read this book.” — Lucy Worsley
“Books about geniuses tend to fall into predictable categories. There is hagiography, along the lines of “How Picasso revolutionised art”. There are takedowns (“Picasso was a monster”). And there are how-to manuals (“How you can become the new Picasso”). “The Genius Myth” by Helen Lewis is more original and painfully timely … [a] spiky, clarifying book ” — The Economist