An Absorbing Errand uses stories of artists’ lives, personal anecdotes, and insights from the author’s work as a psychotherapist to examine the psychological obstacles that prevent people from staying with, and relishing, the process of art-making. Each chapter is devoted to a problem intrinsic to the creative process and illustrates how these very obstacles, once understood, can become prime sources of the energy that actually fuels the mastery of art-making.Many people carry within their hearts an aching sense that they have something they want to express through art; or that they will not feel complete until they’ve brought out some hidden part of themselves. Yet they cannot begin to do the work of bringing their creative idea into the world. Or, maybe they’ve begun over and over, but they can’t stay with their labor long enough to finish it. Ultimately, An Absorbing Errand provides a philosophical, historical, and analytical look at the creative impulse and how certain artists from a wide field mastered their craft. From Julia Child to Charlie Chaplin, Lady Gaga to Michael Jackson, famous painters to established writers, Smith shows us how each overcame the obstacles they faced in the pursuit of their creative visions.

Product Description: Bernard Malamud was one of the most accomplished American novelists of the postwar years. From the Pulitzer Prize winner The Fixer as well as The Assistant, named one of the best "100 All-Time Novels" by Time Magazine—to mention only two of the more than a dozen published books—he not only established himself in the first rank of American writers but also took the country's literature in new and important directions...read more

A psychotherapist explores the significant impact of the fear of child loss on mothers throughout history, revealing how such feelings affect mothers' lives at home, in the workplace, and in the social hierarchy. Reprint.

Product Description: Today we enjoy more privacy than ever before, yet the encroachment of the media, computer data gathering, and electronic surveillance in our lives undermines our sense that we have privacy at all. Although privacy is essential to our capacity to love and create and think, it can be used for the wrong reasons...read more