Give Pink points for effort, if not execution. 'A Whole New Mind' seeks to not only diagnose the problems facing the Western World, but to propose a plan to combat them that involves nothing less than developing an entirely 'new mind'. He argues that the ages of Industry and Information have passed or are passing, and that they will soon be replaced by the 'Conceptual Age'. And that's fine- in fact, it's a very concise, well thought out way of explaining the current shifts in society and the jobs demanded by society. Equally well thought out is his diagnosis of the main ills confronting Western nations: Asia, Abundance, and Automation. Over simplified? Yes. But in a nutshell, it does account for a lot of the challenges American workers are facing currently.

Unfortunately, Pink falters when he attempts to provide solutions to these problems. He advocates a new kind of thinking- 'right brained' thinking, focused on something Americans have traditionally provided themselves on- innovation, creativity, etc. What do we do to develop this type of thinking? Hone new skills... empathy, a sense of design, playfulness, etc. Where he fails is in -a- recognizing that the ability to develop these traits does not rest solely with the West and -b- refusing to marry these traits to their grounding counterparts (logic, perseverance, etc). If he came up with an integrated theory, I'd say this book would be groundbreaking.

For now, it's interesting, but not essential.

I read this book during a long train journey on my way to an interview. Let me start by saying, it made me confident and more aware of my skills. The book has nothing to do with right-handed or left-handed people. It has nothing to do with size of one side of your brain being smaller than the other. It is simply a statement of fact saying - If you believe, it can happen. No, no matrix here but it is evident that the author wants us to believe and succeeds in doing so (atleast for me). The message is clear - It is good to be educated, to know things, to learn. But it is more important to be aware, to be able to rationalize, to think beyond the obvious and hence, make that giant leap which is necessary for doing anything great. Without spilling any more beans on this one, I would say go for it. The only thing against the book is the Teacher-like monotone of the book.

I paid half price for this and was glad I did. I've always found the brain, creativity and the right versus left debate to be a highly interesting subject. So, I thought this book would be fascinating. Instead, it was just boring. First, it tries to simplify the subject too much. While normally I would consider this to be a good thing, in this case it fails so miserably that it just doesn’t work. Second, it ignores left-brainers too much. Most people know that any good argument requires you to address the other side, but this book ignores the opposition. Third, it makes a relatively weak case as to why right-brainers will someday rule the world. The book does argue for the importance of right brain skills, but I think very few people truly believe that right brainers are worthless. Why are right brain skills more important than left brain skills? I still don’t know. To me, I still think both skill sets are equally important to success.

I didn't enjoy this book as much as I thought I would. I checked it out of the library (thank goodness I didn't pay for it!) because I am considered a "right brainer" and was trying to figure out if there was anything I could do as a stay-at-home mom to earn a little extra money, but really enjoy my work. It wasn't helpful for what I was looking for, but it did give an interesting theory as to how more creative people are going to be the ones who will excel. While it is true that most times there needs to be some kind of unique spin on ideas to get them noticed and to stand out, I am not 100% convinced that right brainers will necessarily be the only ones who will get ahead. I disagreed with a lot of the ideas, though the concept was interesting. You can get the gist of this whole book just from a quick skim through it, and don't need to waste your time relishing in the details as I did. I considered it interesting, but not worth the day I devoted to looking for some "aha!" moment of clarity...

My mom got me this book for Christmas one year. She is really into the whole left brain right brain stuff, so she wanted to share it with me through this book. Normally its a bit of a turn off to be guilted into reading something your mother likes, but this time I was intrigued.

A fault of this book is that it does not address all types of readers, mainly the upper class. It was simple and interesting, though I wouldn't consider it a "must read." The ideas could be found elsewhere from more original sources for broader audiences.

When I told my mom about the book, she sort of made a face and shrugged. Then she admitted she'd never really read the book herself. She then directed me to some other books she liked and thought I should try. the subject interested me enough to look these up, and I enjoyed many of them. The first I read was Left Brain, Right Brain: Perspectives From Cognitive Neuroscience by Sally P. Springer and Georg Deutsch. It is much better, in my opinion, so if you are looking for a brain book, I suggest starting there.