Biblioracle: Where does art come from and can I be a genius? Adam Moss has written the gift book of the year.

I understand that we are just barely past the midpoint of the year, nonetheless, I’m ready to declare the gift book of the year, a volume that should both have broad appeal and deliver many hours of pleasure to the recipient. The book is “The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing” by Adam Moss. Moss, a longtime magazine editor and dedicated amateur painter, is on a quest to capture the essence of artistic creation, and manages to bring back 44 individual case studies on how people pull art from the ether.

The subjects range — writers (Sheila Heti, George Saunders), visual artists (Kara Walker, John Derian) musicians, playwrights (Suzan-Lori Parks, Tony Kushner) designers, a crossword puzzle master (Will Shortz) and a radio producer (Ira Glass), among others. Moss’ method is established from the opening example, architect Frank Gehry’s design for the iconic Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. We are shown a literal two-page ink-line scribble that looks like it could have been done by a child, captioned with “How does this.

..?” It leads us to flip the page, revealing a photo spread of the finished museum taken from the Bilbao waterfront, captioned with, “Become this?” I alternated between the scribble and the photo multiple times, my wonder increasing as it became clear that Gehry’s crude, but also flowing and beautiful sketch captured the inciting moment of inspiration for what would become the finished building.

Moss’ fascination becomes ours a.