The Gift: How the Creative Spirit Transforms the World (Canons) - Softcover

A masterpiece . . . THE GIFT is the best book I know of for the aspiring young, for talented but unacknowledged creators, or even for those who have achieved material success and are worried that this means they've sold out. It gets at the core of their dilemma: how to maintain yourself alive in a world of money, when the essential part of what you do cannot be bought or sold -- Margaret Atwood Reminds us of our cultural gifts and our responsibilities to them . . . a manifesto of sorts . . . In a climate where we know the price of everything and the value of nothing, Lewis Hyde offers us an account of those few, essential aspects of human experience that transcend commodity, or that will do so, if you let them -- Zadie Smith Helpful, beautiful and profound. It will change the way you look at everything * * Independent on Sunday * * Buy several copies for yourself and the rest of your friends interested in, well, anything . . . Hyde is far more than an astute cultural critic; he's an original and important thinker. Pass it on -- Geoff Dyer Few books are such life-changers as THE GIFT -- Jonathan Lethem Tiger balm for tired minds * * Sunday Times * * No one who is invested in any kind of art, in questions of what real art does and doesn't have to do with money, spirituality, ego, love, ugliness, sales, politics, morality, marketing, and whatever you call 'value', can read THE GIFT and remain unchanged -- David Foster Wallace Persuasive and fascinatingly illustrated, The Gift profits immensely from the modesty and unpretentiousness of Hyde's writing and the fascinated good nature with which he expounds his propositions * * Independent on Sunday * * Brilliant - by the time he is done he has folded language, culture and the very habit of being human into his ken * * New Yorker * * This wonderful, erudite and quirky book is a way of re-establishing a link with our imaginative life -- Jeanette Winterson

The Gift brilliantly argues for the importance of creativity in our increasingly money-driven society. Reaching deep into literature, anthropology and psychology Lewis Hyde's modern masterpiece has at its heart the simple and important idea that a 'gift' can inspire and change our lives.