Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #283636 in Books
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Customer Reviews

Experiments with your head
This book serves two purposes:

(1) It is a talking point. Leave it somewhere visible, say on your coffee table, and just wait for the reactions: incredulous, unbelieving, provoking fascinated expressions, engrossed furrowed foreheads and wry smiles.

(2) It is a book of practical experiments. There is something for everyone. Count to a thousand - seems simple? Try it. Its not the monotonous regular task simple mathmatics might suggest. It is more of a rollercoaster ride, with clickety click ups, exhilerating downs, mind numbing bends... And what do we learn? According to Pol Droit - that 1,000 is a very, very big number. And 1,000,000 is emotionally incomprehensible. He's right. Call to yourself, play the animal, imagine a pile of human organs, empty a word of its meaning, kill people in your head, take the tube without going anywhere specific. This is self-help without the Oprah factor, and with lashings of delicious humour. Pol Droit's experiments are designed to help committed experimenters see the world, and their experience of it, in a context slightly out of the ordinary. Freeze frame a moment, an action, a thought and, like watching someone dancing to music without the music, the fragile architecture on which our experience of the world rests is exposed.

Try it, you might even like it. Better (or worse) still, you might discover a dark corner of yourself you never wanted to know about.

Too pretentious
I saw this on the site with "This Book Will Change Your Life", which is a book I LOVE, but when I read through it, I was disappointed. It's less like Benrik and more like Dr. Phil, or Sarah Ban Breathnach. "Watch dust in the sun", "Inhabit the planet of small gestures", "Imagine a pile of human organs", and "Find the infinitesimal caress" are just a few of the cheesy "experiments" in this book. I especially despise number 47, which is "Weep at the cinema", which normally I'd be all for it. But the book suggests seeing something like a romantic comedy and FORCING yourself to care so much about the characters that you'll cry if they cross the street without holding their honey's hand. Caring about the character is supposed to be the film maker's first priority, ergo, this should be the easiest thing about one's moviegoing experience, ergo, it shouldn't be forced. You'll just end up frustrated, unless you're the type to cry whilst reading Hallmark cards or while watching movies on Lifetime. If so, this book is perfect for you.
For the rest of us, this book is crap. It only gets one star because Amazon won't let me give it zero.
"This Book Will Change Your Life" is a better read. It actually gets you OUT OF YOUR HOUSE AND HEAD in order to initiate change. "Astonish" does not. It is full of imaginings and innocuous make-believe you can do in the comfort of your own home. The point in changing your life is to escape comfort. Have courage, folks, and buy "This Book Will Change Your Life" instead. You won't regret it!!!

A smallish, slightly blemished gem...
If you liked "Be Here Now", "Einstein's Dreams", Alan Watts or the I Ching odds are you'll find this book quirkily compelling. Would have gotten 5 stars save for the too frequent gloomy bent of many of the thought exercises. Why not a joyful instead of a "dread"ful bus (exercise #23) or a flying flock rather than a dead bird (#35)? Not that everything requires the ubiquitous "(:" but life ain't really all that bad. This is, nonetheless a most creative book filled with "ah ha" moments and poetic turns of phrase, e.g. "there's no need to kill time. It dies by itself..." Enjoy but keep the Prozac handy if you trend toward depression...