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This book is an outstanding read and opens your mind to a ton of creative processes to spur creativity. It should be required reading for all teachers, engineers, marketing people--anybody that needs to understand creativity.
This book minus many of the author's ridiculous claims could be refined to a good magazine article. All that said, I have to admit I got something out of it. His descriptions of their thinking is trite and jaw droppingly oversimplified. While the vast majority of the exercises were pointless, one or two of them made me think. This author likes to reference creative people throughout history (Freud, da Vinci, Darwin, Einstein, Bohr, Feinman, Edison, Tesla, Picasso, and many others). These people would be turning in their graves if they read how the author described their thought processes. It forced me to sit still and put some ideas on paper and brainstorm.
Maybe I should read his new book "Thinker toys" for a fresh injection of creativity. Without an open mind which is receptive to unconventional ideas some of the greatest breakthroughs in the world would have not happened. This made the book a little repetitious and tedious to read. This can be an effective tool. This is unusual because I am not an avid reader at heart.
Now I am back to my predisposed, stodgy old personality. The best part of this book is that it emphasized the importance of keeping an open mind. The author presents many historical case studies of creativity and demonstrates how they apply to different problem solving situations. I really enjoyed reading this book. My only complaint about the book is that toward the end of the book he repeated his historical examples.
For several weeks after reading this book I found myself practicing the author suggested "keeping an open mind".
As an interior designer, I do not feel like this book has helped me in discovering any new approaches for thinking creatively. write some things on note cards, shuffle the cards around, pick cards at random, read cards, and volia. After finishing the book, I felt rather confused because all of the strategies seemed to mush together. I know many people will not agree with me, I'm not looking for that. Overall, I do think that there were some interesting observations made in the book.
I just wanted to say, in my opinion, if you feel you are already a creative person, such as an artist, designer, musician, whatever, I don't necessarily think that you will get much of anything out of this book. I felt like each strategy for coming up with creative ideas was the same. However, I continually had the feeling that I read this already. I had to read this book for a class called Creativity and Visual Communication. The author repeatedly used the same examples chapter after chapter.
Creative answer to problem.
Anyone who says Darwin was a genius, obviously does not know what they are talking about- a genius would not be wrong. The book celebritizes Darwin and others who are known for being anti-God and pro-evolution. If this kind of thing does not bother you, then take a chance and check it out, its only a little boring. This book on creativity has anti-God sentiment woven through it. I was offended by it and that very fact took away any usefulness from me that it may have had. The author is also obviously pagan.
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