Fixed: The Fine Art of Problem Solving by Amy E. Herman ~ a Review

by Donna Huber

Fixed was the last book I read in 2021. It would be an excellent read if you made any New Year's resolutions about improving workplace or personal relationships. If perception, situational awareness, and problem-solving are part of your job or as a volunteer, then you will want to pick up this book as well.

Amazon affiliate links are used on this site. A free book was provided for an honest review.

December 2021; Harper Wave; 978-0063004849
audio, ebook, print (336); nonfiction

Amy Herman was the guest speaker at a professional development seminar I attended at work this past fall. She is an awesome speaker. It was one of the most entertaining professional development seminars I've attended. It's actually more of a workshop as there is a lot of audience participation. If you ever get to opportunity to hear her speak do it. Here's her TED Talk from 2018.

If you don't have the opportunity to hear her in person, then Fixed is a great alternative. I recognized some of the artwork and even the same phrasing in the book from what I saw and heard during the presentation.

The book is all about changing the way you think about and see a situation. We often get boxed in by how we do things and in doing so we miss things or make incorrect assumptions. Herman uses works of art to help the reader see their own biases and hopefully teach us to expand our thinking so that we might arrive at different solutions for problems and improve our relationships.

In the book, Herman walks the reader through a series of steps and asks a lot of questions to get the reader thinking and to practice articulating our thoughts. I would recommend having a notebook with you when you read this book so that you can do the exercises. These questions aren't always easy to answer and you might uncover biases that you didn't realize you had. Herman uses artwork to allow a safe place to explore touchy subjects like race, gender, politics, history, etc. She uses art in the same way many of us bookworms use books - they are a safe way to explore subjects that are difficult to talk about.

If you have a professional development type book club, this would be an awesome book for discussion. If you need to flip your thinking, then this is the book to read. 

Just a note about the ebook: There are a lot of full-color pictures of artwork in this book and to get the most out of the book you will need to be able to view the images. You will not want to read it on a black & white eReader like the Kindle Paperwhite. I read a digital ARC on my Chromebook tablet using Adobe Digital Editions. I say that because I had trouble with some of the images loading.  The problem I experienced may have been because it was an ARC or that my tablet wasn't powerful enough (some images would only partially load but if I swiped to the next page and then came back the full image would be there). 

Buy Fixed at Amazon

Donna Huber is an avid reader and natural encourager. She is the founder of Girl Who Reads and the author of how-to marketing book Secrets to a Successful Blog Tour.

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