Gift: How the Creative Spirit Transforms

First published in America in 1979, “The Gift” is a modern classic. This inspiring examination of the ‘gift economy’ is even more relevant now than when it originally appeared. It’s a brilliantly argued defence of the place of creativity in our increasingly market-orientated society.

Reviews of Gift: How the Creative Spirit Transforms

"Brilliant… by the time he is done he has folded language, culture and the very habit of being human into his ken." New Yorker "A masterpiece… The Gift is the best book I know of for the aspiring young, for talented but unacknowledged creators, or even for those who have achieved material success and are worried that this means they've sold out." Margaret Atwood "This timely British reissue reminds readers how urgent some of these questions remain, while also allowing them to measure the extent to which matters have changed." Bharat Tandon, TLS "Persuasive and fascinatingly illustrated, The Gift profits immensely from the modesty and unpretentiousness of Hyde's writing and the fascinated good nature with which he expounds his propositions." Tim Martin, Independent on Sunday "The Gift actually deserves the hyperbolic praise that in most blurbs is so empty. It is the sort of book that you remember where you were and even what you were wearing when you first picked it up. The sort that you hector friends about until they read it too. This is not just formulaic blurbspeak; it is the truth. No one who is invested in any kind of art, in questions of what real art does and doesn't have to do with money, spirituality, ego, love, ugliness, sales, politics, morality, marketing, and whatever you call 'value', can read The Gift and remain unchanged." David Foster Wallace"