A short, fascinating, and witty roadmap to finding inventive solutions.
A quick guide to developing ingenious problem-solving skills.
Bhargava and duPont present their Space, Insight, Focus, Twist framework to help readers improve both their mental agility and ingenuity. Step one is a “warmup stretch that makes limber, non-obvious thinking possible” using activities like mindful breathing and taking (small) risks. The next step involves learning how to insightfully navigate the world, including asking “storytelling questions” that can provide more in-depth information about someone, as well as focusing on the “afterthought”—or the seemingly insignificant detail people often add to the end of an anecdote that reveal more about them than the story’s apparent takeaway. The authors also introduce the concept of “nunchi,” the Korean term for “understanding what others think and feel without asking them directly,” which emphasizes the practice of paying close attention to others. In the third step, the guide encourages using a streamlined approach for managing obstacles, making the distinction between being a “satisficer,” or someone who accepts when an idea is “good enough,” and a “maximizer,” one who endlessly searches for “the best,” wasting valuable time and resources. The final step “is where the magic happens”; readers are expected to put their own spin on all they have learned so far and start seeing things a bit differently. The slim manual includes advice for mining the gray areas in the midst of “black or white” thinking for profitable ideas, as well as using “intersection thinking,” which combines two ostensibly dissimilar ideas into one brilliant new one. Each chapter opens with an anecdote about a historical figure or situation that bolsters the authors’ particular point and includes some personal stories, as well.
From the whimsical whiteboard illustration that acts as the table of contents to its wry tone (“If a rebuttal is, at its best, a thoughtful response refuting an argument someone makes, then a prebuttal is its far less intelligent cousin.”), Bhargava and duPont’s self-help guide goes beyond just being helpful to is downright fun to read. Clearly written and thoroughly researched, the book provides interesting, relevant stories and actionable suggestions (make a list of 10 things you never noticed before while on a nature walk, or change the order of things you do in the first hour after waking up). Basic illustrations, as well as important points highlighted in a bigger font, help visually break up the information. A few tips, like walking a trail backward to “offer a unique perspective,” can come across as a bit trite, and some abstract concepts may prove more challenging to put into action. But most of the advice here, such as letting your frustration “be a source of inspiration” to guide your brainstorming sessions, are ones that will likely push readers out of their comfort zones and produce real, measurable results. Sometimes eye-opening, sometimes challenging, Bhargava and duPont illustrate that reconsidering one’s approach to problem solving (and life in general) can be a lively—and even enjoyable—process. Another helpful guide from the wide-ranging Non-Obvious series.
A short, fascinating, and witty roadmap to finding inventive solutions.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: July 10, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A frank and funny but uneven essay collection about neurodiversity.
An experimental, illustrated essay collection that questions neurotypical definitions of what is normal.
From a young age, writer and comedian Myers has been different. In addition to coping with obsessive compulsive disorder and panic attacks, she struggled to read basic social cues. During a round of seven minutes in heaven—a game in which two players spend seven minutes in a closet and are expected to kiss—Myers misread the romantic advances of her best friend and longtime crush, Marley. In Paris, she accidentally invited a sex worker to join her friends for “board games and beer,” thinking he was simply a random stranger who happened to be hitting on her. In community college, a stranger’s request for a pen spiraled her into a panic attack but resulted in a tentative friendship. When the author moved to Australia, she began taking notes on her colleagues in an effort to know them better. As the author says to her co-worker, Tabitha, “there are unspoken social contracts within a workplace that—by some miracle—everyone else already understands, and I don’t….When things Go Without Saying, they Never Get Said, and sometimes people need you to Say Those Things So They Understand What The Hell Is Going On.” At its best, Myers’ prose is vulnerable and humorous, capturing characterization in small but consequential life moments, and her illustrations beautifully complement the text. Unfortunately, the author’s tendency toward unnecessary capitalization and experimental forms is often unsuccessful, breaking the book’s otherwise steady rhythm.
A frank and funny but uneven essay collection about neurodiversity.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780063381308
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2025
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
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