Francesco Gola: Books to Improve Imagination & Creativity

I’d love to consider myself solely a photographer. Unfortunately, the truth is that the bills are also paid by my bachelor in electrical engineering.

At the moment I’m reading Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing. This book recounts the failed expedition in the Antartic of Sir. Ernest Shackleton, describing in detail all the efforts to survive two years in an inhospitable land. The most amazing thing is that is a real story that happened exactly 100 years ago, when things like the internet, GPS and other modern devices considered the basis in the modern explorations had not even been conceived.

No doubt my childhood was marked by Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. The adventure, a distant era, pirates; reading this book by the light of a candle, tucked up in bed, made me feel like a real buccaneer!

I realised quite soon that all my desires were related to travel and exploration, and I found inspiration in everything that surrounded me. I remember when I wanted to become an astronaut after watching some documentaries on Apollo missions, but when I was at high school my idea was to become an airplane pilot. Yes, something went wrong!

I think I would probably be happy to see that today I’m still the dreamer I was many years ago. Albert Einstein once said that “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere”, and as engineer I couldn’t be more agree.

It would no doubt be Beach of Dreams by Sergio Bambaren. It’s the story of a guy that can be considered a ship wrecked in the sea of life. He’s a successful man, but he has lost his happiness. This book helped me a lot; not by giving me answers to life’s questions, but by allowing me to ask to myself the right questions.

Even if I love reading, I have no a special routine. I don’t often read something during the evening before sleeping for example, because for me it is something more related to travel without moving from your home. In other words, reading is really influenced by my mood and the desire to escape from reality.

I think they are two things that let you travel with your mind. A picture can bring you anywhere in this world, giving you not just feeling but emotions. I believe that a book can do exactly the same, but with words instead of images.

As a landscape photographer and engineer, I always thought that a technical book was the answer. Despite of that, the biggest impact on my career was from The Photographer’s Eye by Michael Freeman. It’s a visual approach to photography that allows you to develop your own vision with a deep study of the composition. For me it was really a game changer.

I was reading The Key to Rebecca by Ken Follett when I met the greatest love of my life. I love WWII stories! Unfortunately this book had a better ending than my love story.

Lately the book that I mostly recommend is Free Fall by Nicolai Lilin. The author was a Russian sniper during the Second Chechen War and he describes the horrors of the war with first person stories in harrowing detail. We are almost the same age, so it is terrifying thinking that I could have lived those experiences too.

Probably fiction as it helps my mind overcoming limits and dogmas. But I’m really passionate about historical stories, where perseverance and human ingenuity emerge. That’s why I love reading stories of past adventurous expeditions so much.

I think that there are endless reasons why reading is important, from the benefits in concentration to developing verbal abilities; but the most important one in my opinion is that reading improves our imagination and creativity.

Unfortunately in my childhood I was not a great reader, and every time I was forced to read a book, I didn’t. So I missed a lot of books that are considered “classics” and so I’m trying to recover the lost time now. The best one of the past six months is one of those: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea by Jules Verne. It’s incredible the way he describes the desire of discovery and knowledge through the voyage.

No way: real books! I am a technology lover, I read every article about the latest tech product, I love controlling my camera with my smartphone, I become crazy while watching any space exploration documentaries on Discovery Channel; but there is something that I like to enjoy like in it’s old form. The feeling of a book in your hands and the smell of the paper is something that technology will never be able to replace.

Moby Dick by Herman Melville. A story about the determination to follow our dreams.

When I read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, I started believing that every achievement in life is possible. It’s a story that teaches you how to pursue your dreams.

An amazing book that I would suggest to aviation enthusiasts is Baa Baa Black Sheep by Gregory Boyington. The book is a sort of autobiography of Gregory “Pappy” Boyington, one of the greatest aces of WWII that fought in the Pacific theatre leading the Black Sheep squadron, a group of rejected pilots. The perfect demonstration that our skills cannot be affected by the judgment of closed-minded people.

Actually I’m really fascinated by my current reading, Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing. For that reason I’m looking for similar incredible adventures that really happened. Unfortunately I have not yet found any interesting title…suggestions are welcome!

Letters from a Dreamer.