A review by callienicole
The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield

2.0

I've decided to start a "did not finish" shelf - I didn't finish this one because it was due at the library. I stopped on page 55, and I may pick it up again sometime because the concept was interesting - he writes about "resistance", that thing that causes you to procrastinate and keeps you from doing creative work that you are meant to do. From the parts I read I thought he had good things to say, but some of it was just ridiculous. In one chapter he rants against organized religion and claims that "fundamentalism", I guess in the form of religion, cannot co-exist with real meaningful art or accomplishments. Which is absurd - he clearly does not know his history or art if he thinks that devout, orthodox religious people cannot create art. This chapter seemed to have no other purpose than to insult the majority of the world that does adhere to the three major religions, and he specifically lists Islam, Judaism, and Christianity as forms of destructive "fundamentalism". So yeah, I had to knock off a few stars for that. The chapter was neither accurate or helpful, just a poorly veiled anti-religious rant. Like I said, maybe I'll pick this up again at some point because the other chapters were interesting and I could see how this book had the potential to be motivating. We'll see.