The Art of Routine: How Great Minds Create. The Game of Inspiration, Obsessions, and Daily Habits by Mason Currey.

How do you produce significant creative work while also needing to earn a living? Is it better to dedicate yourself to one project or to work on it a little every day? Is comfort incompatible with creativity, or is it the opposite?

From Marx to Warhol and from Mozart to Murakami, The Art of Routine examines the daily rituals of the lives of the greatest intellectual figures of the last 400 years. Balzac drank 50 cups of coffee a day, and Beethoven required his coffee to have sixty beans per cup – he often counted them himself to be sure. Voltaire spent 20 hours a day at his desk. Gertrude Stein barely managed 30 minutes, while Kafka always wrote after 10:30 in the evening.

Filled with fascinating insights into the mechanics of genius and tantalizing stories of the personalities behind it, The Art of Routine is irresistible, addictive, and utterly enlightening.