SNAP: Seizing Your Aha! Moments

This book inspired me! How do people have "aha" moments? The author puts forth a treatise of the "how", and then shows many real-life examples of famous inventors who seized their "aha" moment. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and plan on giving this one as a gift to my family and friends.

I didnt really get much out of this book. The basic message can be summed us as "Find an area to work in that you are passionate amount and invest a lot of effort in it, and occasionally let your mind run free". The definition of "snap" seems to change in the course of the book and towards the end the book seems to drift off topic into a long discussion about the exploits of General Custer (in whose case, "snap" seems to equate to "impetuous action that by luck resulted in success") and to a discussion of the work of Stanley Milgram on obedience to authority ( I couldn't for the life of me see the relevance of this to the book at all.) According to the jacket blurb, the author has authored 40 books and more than 1000 articles and short stories which I would have thought gave her views some weight regarding the creative process (although I guess quantity doesnt necessarily equate with quality) however she barely mentions her own experience with "snaps", if at all. Im afraid this book won't find a permanent place in my library. I much prefer David Jones'  The Aha! Moment: A Scientist's Take on Creativity  which is more entertaining and in which the author draws on his own experience. The Aha! Moment: A Scientist's Take on Creativity

This book is an attempt to define what conditions lead to what the author calls "Snaps" - Eurekas, or Aha! insights. Her idea is that these just don't happen but are the result of certain conditions and that knowing these conditions will allow you to arrange your environment in such a way as to increase the likelihood of you having one.Overall the book was interesting and fairly persuasive. It's not terribly compelling. It's not an "I couldn't put it down" book. However, I think it does a decent job of laying out what is needed. This is done through a lot of anecdotal story telling. Often the stories are told past the point of illustrating the point and thus the text is unnecessarily cluttered with irrelevant details. Being already familiar with many of these stories, I was ready to get on with it.Despite that I think that this book will be useful to someone wanting to improve their creativity and ability to generate insights. I for one am better for having read it. If you are interested in the topic I think you will get something out of this book. Recommended.

The Eureka Moments is big right now, but no one has shown that you can create a way to have them on a regular basis. The author looks at research studies to show how it can be done.