This Is Not a Book

by Keri Smith

Book Overview

From the internationally bestselling creator of Wreck This Journal, a curious, engaging, and creative rethinking of all the different things a book can be.

In this uniquely skewed look at the purpose and function of a "book", Keri Smith offers an illustrated guide that challenges readers to creatively examine all the different ways This Is Not a Book can be used. With intriguing prompts, readers will...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0399535217
• ISBN13: 9780399535215
• Release Date: September 2009
• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.4" x 8.4"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Hilarious and creative

I liked this so much that I bought two more for Christmas presents this year. It's full of creative, interesting, often funny things you can do with This-Is-Not-a-Book (instead of reading it). It's not for everyone, but if you have a creative, slightly random streak, you'll love this is not a book!

This is not a book

This is a fun book with many different prompts that let you make use of your creativity. Has many excersises with some kind of "theme", that gives you the opportunity to come up with many different ideas on how to solve the challenge.

Freeing!

This Is Not A Book is much like its predecessor (Wreck This Journal), except that it pushes the boundaries of your comfort zone much further. A handful of exercises exhort you to put yourself forward publicly in one way or another, or to risk losing your copy of the book to the results of an exercise. For example, one exercise encourages you to leave This Is Not A Book someplace overnight and see what happens. Others have less of an element of social or fiscal risk to them. An "Idea Formulation Generator" has you make three separate lists of terms (things found in nature, objects you use every day, and words you like), combine one from each list randomly, and use to come up with an idea for a new concept or product. The pages are filled with images, frames, white space, thought bubbles, and anything else needed to leave room for your experiments. The only problem I found is that there were a few places where the layout neglected to leave a blank page in the right place, resulting in conflicting exercises. If you just can't get yourself to leave your comfort zone and try wacky things, then Keri Smith's publications (I can't really call this one a book, can I?) are not for you! Or maybe they're aimed particularly at you, because you'll need the most help loosening up. (In that case, try Wreck This Journal first, to get your feet wet.) This Is Not A Book is a great method for forcing yourself to think outside the box, color outside the lines, etc., and that's definitely a boost to creativity! [Review copy provided by publisher]