Penguin Author Elizabeth Gilbert discusses the double-edged sword of genius at TED Conference

From Wired.com:

"LONG BEACH, California -- Author Elizabeth Gilbert, famous for her bestseller Eat, Pray, Love, suggested Thursday that we kill geniuses by demanding super-human powers from them.

The problem, she says, lies in how we attribute the qualities of geniusness.

Instead of seeing the individual as a genius, we should view the brilliance as a gift from an unknowable outside source -- some might call it a muse, others a fairy or god force -- that visits us on occasion to participate in an act of creation, and then leaves to help someone else. Gilbert was referring primarily to those in the arts, but her talk applied to anyone who creates something sublime, whether it's a painting in the Sistine Chapel or a quantum equation."

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Click to read more about Eat, Pray, Love (or watch the book trailer here).

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Andrew Trees is our guest blogger during the week of February 9th. If you have any questions for Andrew Trees, add a comment to any of his posts. Here is some more information about Decoding Love: Why It Takes Twelve Frogs to Find a Prince, and Other Revelations from the Science of Attraction-

A smart, entertaining, and eye-opening look at the science of love.

Relationships should be so simple. You meet someone. You fall in love. If all goes well, that person falls in love with you. You live happily every after.

As Andrew Trees reveals in Decoding Love, this “romantic storyline” has shaped our thinking about relationships for centuries. But the fairy tale is deeply flawed. Researchers today are making shocking discoveries about how and why we choose the people we love.

Everyone's trying to save money these days! It's a tough proposition... It's just too easy to hemorrhage money on frivolous junk. So how do we baton down the hatches and enjoy the "the simple pleasures"; how do we have fun without breaking the bank? Here are some simple ideas:

• --Cook at home! This could save hundreds (thousands?) of dollars per year. Browse Penguin Cookbooks
  
• *Extra-thrifty tip: Cook double recipes and bring leftovers to work for lunch!
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• --Go to Free Local Events. Click here to search Penguin's author events in your area. 
• *Extra-thrifty tip: Many author events take place in a bookstore. Bring the kids and let them browse books with you! It's a fun, free way to keep kids entertained for hours (maybe just one hour) and increase their love of books at the same time.
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I went back to New Jersey for my 20th college reunion last spring, and toward the end of a day of thunderstorms and mud and Rolling Rock I found myself speaking with a classmate named John Zele. John said he'd heard me being interviewed by the sonorous Bob Edwards on XM Satellite Radio, and he thought I'd handled myself with a modicum of dignity. But he also felt compelled to tell me that I'd made a mistake.

He said I'd spent too much time gasbagging about Nirvana. "Nirvana was not a Gen X band," John said.

I might've been taken aback - I mean, huh, wasn't Nirvana the Gen X band? wasn't Kurt Cobain supposed to be our John Lennon? didn't everyone automatically know that? - except that John was echoing something that I wound up hearing over and over when X Saves the World came out in hardcover.