An Instant New York Times Bestseller

'A captivating quest to understand how we come to remember forgotten ideas, inventions and technologies . . . Sleeping Beauties belongs on the bookshelf of anyone who cares about creativity or culture' -Adam Grant, New York Times

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?

We love to believe in a meritocracy of ideas - that greatness is always recognised, innovation always seized upon and rewarded. Yet so many of the people we now recognise as the world's great creators initially got little traction for their work. It was only later, often much later, that their work came roaring back to life and made a lasting impact.

Discoveries as diverse as dark matter to continental drift, technologies from solar panels to the steam engine, artists from Brueghel to Vermeer to Melville all created 'sleeping beauties'. Ranging across many centuries and the full scope of human endeavour, David Byrne explores their stories and gives us a lens for identifying future breakthroughs.

Humbling yet hopeful, these stories celebrate the courage to try new things and the wisdom to embrace them.

"Byrne guides us on a captivating quest to understand how we come to remember forgotten ideas, inventions and technologies. With striking dexterity and range, he explores how advocates reawakened Bach's compositions and Vermeer's paintings after one and two centuries of slumber; how technological advances rekindled theories of continental drift and black holes; how accidents resuscitated hand-washing and genetics; and how war renewed interest in the submarine and The Great Gatsby . . . He is acutely aware that there is no surefire formula for making ideas last or bringing them back to life. What he presents is far more valuable: a deeply researched, stimulating inspection of how the marketplace of ideas shifts, and what steps we can take to shift it. Sleeping Beauties belongs on the bookshelf of anyone who cares about creativity or culture" - * New York Times *

"A fascinating look at the way concepts from the worlds of art and science and philosophy can be forgotten for decades, centuries, even millenniums before being rediscovered through pure luck or the vagaries of a changing zeitgeist . . . Meticulously written and researched, and Byrne's passion for it is infectious" - * Irish Times *

"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" - * 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 *

"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 *

"From Botticelli's paintings to The Great Gatsby to handwashing, some of humanity's most important achievements in culture, science, and technology were abandoned and then re-embraced years or sometimes centuries later, explains musician and artist Byrne in this delightful survey of rediscovered art and ideas. . . . It's a wonderful and humbling celebration of the lost and found" - * Publishers Weekly *