Flash of Genius: And Other True Stories of Invention

Flash of Genius: And Other True Stories of Invention

Flash of Genius And Other True Stories of Invention by John Seabrook, staff writer for The New Yorker , is a collection of true stories about where great ideas come from, and is the basis for the Major Motion Picture starring Greg Kinnear releasing October 2008. "John Seabrook is one of America's finest non-fiction writers….Fascinating, entertaining, beautifully written and often poignant…"―Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation Where Do Great Ideas Come From? In Flash of Genius , John Seabrook explores the moment when inspiration strikes in an otherwise average life, and what happens when that idea moves out into the larger culture and takes on a life―and commercial possibilities―of its own. The title piece in this collection is the David v. Goliath story of Bob Kearns, a professor and inventor who came up with something we all use every chance we get: the intermittent windshield wiper. When Kearns' patents were infringed, he fought General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler, and eventually prevailed in a classic American story of never giving up, never backing down. Seabrook has been fascinated by stories of invention and entrepreneurship since childhood, when he grew up with an uncle who invented something as ubiquitous as Bob Kearns' wipers: boil-in-bag vegetables. In Flash of Genius , Seabrook also writes about his family's invention and about thirteen other iconoclastic visions that turned into the stuff of every day. Although not all the stories in this book relate directly to inventors, as the title suggests,  they certainly all feature inventive individuals. The title story concerns Bob Kearns, who invented and patented the intermittent windshield wiper in the early 1960s only to have his idea stolen by Ford and every other major car manufacturer. Kearns spent the rest of his life suing Ford for infringing on his patents, and the story reveals as much about the nuances and flaws of the patent system as it does about the mind of the inventor. Seabrook takes the reader on a journey encompassing the evolution of video games, a “fruit detective” who seeks out the most exotic and flavorful varieties of fruits, a seed-bank expert, an ancient Greek “computer,” the mind-set of a gold miner, and the creation of the weather channel,  among others. By the time we get to the recombinant DNA of the Flavr Savr tomato, the sole inventor starts to look like a relic from the past; however, there is a common thread that runs through Seabrook’s narrative that keeps that spirit alive. --David Siegfried John Seabrook began his magazine career at Manhattan Inc. and Vanity Fair and has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1993. He is the author of Flash of Genius, Deeper: My Two-Year Odyssey in Cyberspace , and Nobrow: The Culture of Marketing, the Marketing of Culture . He lives in New York City.