Jonah Lehrer Scandal

Several months ago Richard gave me some books for my birthday.  One of them was "Imagine" by Jonah Lehrer.  I really enjoyed that book and have been thinking about recommending it to my two readers.  (Actually, my blog just passed the 700 hits mark yesterday.)  It's a fascinating book about how creativity works.  So this topic was simmering somewhere in the dark recesses of my mind, when I had to dash to Ralph's to buy some Liquid Plummer yesterday. (High ho the glamorous life.)  I didn't catch the first part of the piece, since my emergencies aren't ever timed very precisely, but they were talking about a big publishing scandal.  After a moment they mentioned the name of Jonah Lehrer.  It caught my interest right away, since the dark recesses of my mind aren't really ever that far away.  "That's the guy," I thought.  So I'm driving and trying to imagine what kind of dreadful thing he could've done.  Did he fake his memoir?  (Memory being what it is, who doesn't?)  But no... it was more insidious than that.  He misquoted Bob Dylan in his book "Imagine".  Since Bob Dylan is still alive, this is a bit of a problem.  You can click here to see what the NY Times had to say about it.

Mr. Lehrer had to resign from his job and has lost his credibility in the publishing world.  I still think it's a really good book.

Last night while my son and I were drinking champagne and painting (his paintings are more realist, mine are more abstract, especially when I'm drinking champagne) I mentioned this debacle to him.  In the course of our conversation I told him that it was too bad because there were some really good Dylan quotes in that book and that if Dylan didn't say those things, he should have.  Based on that, Hamad thought I should go ahead and recommend the book anyway.  I hereby recommend this book, complete with Dylan misquotes.

Too bad for you that you can't go out and buy a copy.  The books have been pulled from shelves and a "corrected" version will come out at a later date.  I think they should just reprint the dust jackets with things like, "Unedited Edition complete with fake Dylan quotes!"

As for Mr. Lehrer, I think the writing gig will still work for him.  Scandals come and go and we all have to keep moving forward.