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Comment by CharlesW | Hacker News Reader

Related recommendation: The War of Art https://stevenpressfield.com/books/the-war-of-art/

I immediately thought of this book too. For the comment section readers: The War of Art is a book about Pressfields idea of 'resistance', a force the artist/maker must overcome in just about any important (to them) creative endeavour.

At the risk of being overly negative (but in the interest of possibly saving someone else some time), this may be one of the three worst books I've ever read. I am not exaggerating – I keep a list of every book I read, and it's at the bottom.

If all you need is a barely-sensible motivational speech, go for it. Otherwise, don't waste your time.

I don't use goodreads, but went looking for reviews to see if I was crazy, or if I was missing something, or if it really was as terrible as I thought. These selected reviews sum it up better than I could have:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/55761871

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/732294700

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/735909209

The reviews seem fairly polarized overall, so maybe the book really does help people. At the very least, I encourage you to read some of them before picking up the book.

If the positive reviews seem like they come from people you'd agree with, then by all means, go for it. Otherwise, stay away.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1319.The_War_of_Art

Those reviews are amazing! I wouldn’t have imagined such vitriolic responses to what I recall as a fairly lightweight work, and I’m glad you posted them. I guess I need it read it again, because I don’t remember the bits about Hitler and erections.

Yeah, when I found those reviews, I felt so validated. I had also missed those bits you mention, but even without noting them, I came away with a really negative impression of the book based on its (in my opinion) condescending tone and lack of substance.

I truly had mixed feelings about replying so negatively to your original comment, but I felt it was important to highlight that even though the book is the kick in the ass some people need to get motivated, it can just as easily be an irritating waste of time for others. To each their own, I suppose!

I agree. Because it is recommended so often I kept reading it through to the end in the hope that I would find something useful. I never did.

OP here, I've read this book a while back. Now I'm thinking that it might (among other things) have very well influenced this blog post :)

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