great book -- the art of looking sideways

I received The art of looking sideways from amazon a couple of weeks ago, and I finally got some time this week to spend some time with it. The book is absolutely gorgeous, and contains 534 pages of inspirational stuff. It's a collection of designer Alan Fletcher's thoughts - various insights, quotes, images, doodles, optical illusions, etc. It's almost like he kept a journal for a few years and put it all into this book.



The book is not one to sit down and finish end-to-end like a novel or most all business books. The author states in the foreword that:

"Most books written on visual matters are authored by those who anlyse rather than experience. Many are hard work and littered with academic jargon... They are concerned with the mechanics rather than the thoughts, with the match rather than the fire.... This book has no thesis, is neither a whodunnit nor a how-to-do-it, has no beginning, middle or end. It's a journey without a destination."

I give it 5 stars, and it's just about the best $25 I've ever spent on a book. What a great source of inspiration for looking at the world differently.