Reviews for The Runaway Species
“A lively exploration of the software our brains run in search of the mother lode of invention… The Runaway Species is beautifully produced, illustrated and written. It sweeps the reader through examples from engineering, science, product design, music and the visual arts to trace the roots of creative thinking to three key mental skills: bending, breaking and blending.”
Kirkus Reviews (Starred):
“A book astonishing for its simplicity in explaining the threads that link creativity in the arts, sciences, and technology… the book offers surprises and insights at every turn, and the authors argue convincingly that basic strategies inform most creative behavior… Essential—and highly pleasurable—reading for anyone who cares about ideas and innovation.”
Booklist:
“Art and science converge in this beautiful collaboration. . . . Divided into three parts, this inquiry covers a complicated set of connected topics in an engaging and surprisingly accessible way. . . . Packed with vivid images, countless examples, and fun facts that will leave readers eager to discuss it with friends, this is a refreshing and thought-provoking book that captures both the wonder of science and the beauty of the human spirit.”
“The Runaway Species: How Creativity Remakes the World is an intriguing and riveting mélange of perspectives that successfully delineates what creativity and innovation are about. It is an outstanding and inspirational volume that will have a broad and global appeal. It will categorically transport the reader into the past and the future fusing them together as one scientific structure, constituting an electrifying and enlightening scholarly reading.”
“A paean to the ingenuity of the human species, a description of the anatomy of creativity and a rallying cry to cultivate our skills for the benefit of our collective future.”
“Brandt and Eagleman have written an exuberant book about creativity. If you were a fan of James Burke’s brilliant Connections, or perhaps of Don Norman’s ruminations on design, there’s a similarly sumptuous buffet of brain candy here on which to pig out.”
” It’s a belter of a book for anyone with an interest in neuroscience, creativity or education…Understanding ourselves and our creativity is a journey that also helps us to understand what makes us human. The Runaway Species not only makes the complex readable, but also opens a fascinating world that exists between predictability and surprise.”
"A popularizer of impressive gusto...[Eagleman] aims, grandly, to do for the study of the mind what Copernicus did for the study of the stars."
- New York Observer
"David Eagleman is the kind of guy who really does make being a neuroscientist look like fun."
- New York Times
"David Eagleman may be the best combination of scientist and fiction-writer alive."
- Stewart Brand
"Eagleman has a talent for testing the untestable, for taking seemingly sophomoric notions and using them to nail down the slippery stuff of consciousness."
- The New Yorker
"What Eagleman seems to be calling for is a new Enlightenment."
- Sunday Herald
"[A] neuroscientist and polymath."
- Wall Street Journal
"David Eagleman offers startling lessons.... His method is to ask us to cast off our lazy commonplace assumptions.
- The Guardian
