Elastic thinking, says theoretical physicist Leonard Mlodinow, isn’t about following but inventing rules, trading analytic for elastic thought, in order to adapt in an endlessly dynamic world, with non-linear approaches to life and work together. On this episode of Open Stacks, we pave new roads not taken, trajectories informed by social practice, social pressure, and the self at one remove, in conversations with Mlodinow on Elastic; art critic and historian Martin Patrick on books that stretched his notion of performance and identity in Across the Art/Life Divide; and booksellers on Canadian writer Sheila Heti's life-changing novel, Motherhood.