The Icarus Deception: How High Will You Fly?

Marketing guru and best-selling author Godin first announced this book as a Kickstarter project. Promising backers a variety of "bonuses" for pledging their support, he easily (and quickly) reached his goal. Sadly, the book itself is not as successful as Godin's publishing experiment; it reads like a collection of blog entries (his blog at sethgodin.typepad.com is massively popular) on the theme of "creating art" in a job market with increasing demands on making connections as well as working outside of your comfort zone. Perhaps the disjointedness of the narrative is part of Godin's point: "the opposite of coherent is interesting." Above all, Godin urges his readers not to fall prey to the Icarus deception by remembering the risk Icarus took when he flew too close to the sun, while forgetting that flying too low was just as dangerous. Godin attempts to soar, exhorting people to create art, then to create better art, and be inspired by other artists. Unfortunately, this loose collection of thoughts doesn't quite get off the ground.