Sleeping Beauties is a master class in how not to be blind to the next great thing. The next great book for everyone who loved The Creative Act.

A 'Sleeping Beauty' is a brilliant idea that is ahead of its time.

So many breakthroughs in arts or science were like this, lost on their initial audience and only later revived and acknowledged to be great.

This book asks, why do some ideas fall asleep? And how do they wake up?

The next great book for everyone who loved The Creative Act.

From incomparable creative force David Byrne, a brilliant and inspiring reckoning with how breakthroughs across the arts and sciences get forgotten, and how they get rediscovered

It's nice to believe in a meritocracy of ideas-genius is always recognized, innovation always seized upon and rewarded. In fact, so many of the people we now acknowledge as the world's great creators initially got little traction for their work. It faded out, and only later-often much later-did it somehow came roaring back to life.

Discoveries as diverse as dark matter, lichen, and continental drift . . . technologies from solar panels to the steam engine . . . artists from Bach to Bruegel, Vermeer to Melville . . . all, David Byrne shows us, were sleeping beauties. Why did they fall asleep? How did they wake back up? Ranging across centuries and the full scope of human endeavor, Byrne arrives at important conclusions that serve as a lens for bringing to light new seeds for our future breakthroughs.

Sleeping Beauties is a master class in how not to be blind to the next great thing. Several times throughout history, the shock of the new landed like a blow on vested interests and entrenched views, putting innovation on hold. Suppression emerged from pushback, the absence of key supporters, or simply a lack of complementary economic conditions.

But more important even than why ideas go dormant is why they reawaken. Again and again, Byrne shows, someone from a different discipline breaks into the silo. Frequently it's someone open to metaphorical thinking, to the counterintuitive. Hierarchies and taxonomies have their place, but they can reward insiders and punish outsiders. Oftentimes, it is the winds of change that blow away the sand that has buried momentous ideas.

Sleeping Beauties is humbling but it is also remarkably hopeful. These stories add up to a compass that leads us to the courage to try new things and the wisdom to embrace them. In a time that can seem all too dark, it's a powerful source of freely available light, delightful in itself and fit for all our human endeavors.

Beautiful cloth bound hardcover with illustrations, in the vein of The Creative Act.

Details

ISBN13: 9781805300540
Format: Hardback
Number of Pages: 400
Edition: Main
Publication Date: 24 Nov 2026
Publisher: Canongate Books
Publication City, Country: Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Dimensions (cm): 15.9(H)x24(L)x3.3(W)586
Weight (gm): 586

Author Biography

David Byrne is a Scottish-born Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and co-founder of Talking Heads. He has been the recipient of many awards, including an Oscar, a GRAMMY and a Tony. The author of How Music Works, Arboretum, Bicycle Diaries and The New Sins, Byrne lives in New York City.

@DBtodomundo | @davidbyrneofficial

Reviews

Fascinating, unexpected and wonderful. I loved it. -- DAVID SHRIGLEY
Part intellectual history and part treasure hunt, as well as a manifesto for keeping curiosity alive . . . Beneath Byrne's restless eclecticism is a consistent argument: that our sense of what matters is never fixed. -- Johanna Thomas-Corr * * The Times * *
There's an international curriculum here that schools and universities would do well to champion: engage with science and with art, be open to play and to metaphor, consider all that is counterintuitive. * * The Guardian * *
Praise for How Music Works: 'Can alter how we look at ourselves and the world' * * Independent * *
Brilliantly original * * New York Times * *
It was wildly ambitious to try and turn this galaxy of theory into a readable work of scholarship but Byrne has done it, and done it with style. Brian Eno might as well cancel that book deal now * * Observer * *
An entertaining and erudite book . . . this is a serious, straight-forward account of an art from that also manages to be inspiring * * Financial Times * *
Given the vastness of the subject, calling a treatise How Music Works seems intellectually arrogant, but it could also be seen as disarmingly frank, a fresh perspective from a down-to-earth mind. David Byrne's book, although a self-conscious art object (backwards pagination, upholstered cover and so on) contains plenty of plain-spoken, sensible observations: a dichotomy typical of the man * * Guardian * *
Uplifting . . . A gorgeous exploration of ideas, art, invention and discoveries . . . He does it with such open-minded and infectious enthusiasm that it makes reading the book feel like you are taking part in the most wonderful conversation. * * Scotland on Sunday * *