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A review by bigbookslilreads
Imagine: How Creativity Works by Jonah Lehrer
3.0
This book was able to light-heatedly and simply summarise part of my PhD studies, and for that I really appreciate it.
Lehrer provides an overview of the things that matter for creativity and ultimately innovation. He does this by explaining key concepts (such as the strong ties/weak ties) from several disciplines (psychology, sociology, urban studies, innovation...), and gives real life examples of situations where people were able to boost their creativity or that of others in different ways.
All in all I found this good as light revision material that could actually entertain me! His voice is not so bad as an audiobook narrator either most of the times, so that helped.
Some things I didn't like include:
- his way of structuring the book. He kept jumping back and forth in each chapter between several examples, and that was kind of distracting. When I thought he was done with a story he would pull it back later on...
- he starts his stories exactly the same way. "Joe was hungry in the summer of 1979", "Lisa had a problem". He is quite good at telling a relatable story, but this was very noticeable for me and it just annoyed me more and more as the book progressed;
- Some things about his examples, quotes or his interpretation of them wasn't always to my liking. For example, his chapter on Shakespeare and his rant about "plagiarism but not plagiarism at the time" or "theft is good!"... He could almost have said it like that, I swear.
Other than that, quite enjoyable. I especially liked his emphasis on the social nature of innovation!
Recommend! Actually, I will recommend it to my colleagues :)
Lehrer provides an overview of the things that matter for creativity and ultimately innovation. He does this by explaining key concepts (such as the strong ties/weak ties) from several disciplines (psychology, sociology, urban studies, innovation...), and gives real life examples of situations where people were able to boost their creativity or that of others in different ways.
All in all I found this good as light revision material that could actually entertain me! His voice is not so bad as an audiobook narrator either most of the times, so that helped.
Some things I didn't like include:
- his way of structuring the book. He kept jumping back and forth in each chapter between several examples, and that was kind of distracting. When I thought he was done with a story he would pull it back later on...
- he starts his stories exactly the same way. "Joe was hungry in the summer of 1979", "Lisa had a problem". He is quite good at telling a relatable story, but this was very noticeable for me and it just annoyed me more and more as the book progressed;
- Some things about his examples, quotes or his interpretation of them wasn't always to my liking. For example, his chapter on Shakespeare and his rant about "plagiarism but not plagiarism at the time" or "theft is good!"... He could almost have said it like that, I swear.
Other than that, quite enjoyable. I especially liked his emphasis on the social nature of innovation!
Recommend! Actually, I will recommend it to my colleagues :)