1 out of 4 stars
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When I started reading Creative Intelligence is a part of inspiration (lack of capitalization per Amazon title) by Karnati Kiran I expected to come away with some new insight about creativity, intelligence and/or inspiration. The title is rather interesting on its own as I could easily imagine inspiration being a part of creative intelligence (inspiration is often cited as the basis of many creative creations), but I was intrigued by how the reverse could be as well. Ultimately, however, the book left me with far more questions than I ever could have started with. The most prominent question of all being, "What did I just read?"
In this book, Karnati Kiran tackles quite a few subjects including inspiration (using it in a way that I still don't quite grasp), the Hindu religion and other various high concepts like courage, living richly and divinity. The dedication mentions that when the author was in Madras he "proposed a method for literary work with a specific end goal to integrate my abstract and fragmented articulation." In hindsight, this one sentence sets the stage for the rest of the book. The actual book begins with a free verse poem that's made up of the first 10 sections of the book, which is really unique. Those next ten sections range from just over a page to as little as an 11-word single sentence and are as close as we get to inspiration being defined or applied. However, the author has a way of utilizing words in a way that just doesn't work. I used numerous web dictionaries repeatedly, scouring for a meaning that made sense in the context and often came up short.
The rest of the book is largely made up of lists of short sentences all themed around a single point. Several pages are dedicated to the creation of the universe, for example, and another compares science to philosophy. There are several pages beyond this focused on a temple - the Ashtalakshmi Temple - that's near the author, how it inspired him and helped make him who he is, information about a nearby hotel and how far it is from the airport.
Here lies my biggest complaint about the book: the "abstract and fragmented articulation" doesn't lead to a concise, coherent book. Despite weighing in at less than 65 pages in PDF form this book took me longer to read than books double or triple its size. The list format that leaves things far too open to interpretation and without definition meant that most of the book wasn't educational, it was merely there. The author did make some great points at times and was even poetic sometimes but the book felt like mining for gold or digging up fossils in that I really had to work to find the value.
Creative Intelligence is a part of inspiration seemed like it would be a short and sweet book about inspiration. However, upon finishing the book I'm left wanting for so much more detail that the book would have to bloat to triple the size or more, and even then a great deal of the book would have nothing to do with inspiration or creative intelligence. As such, I can't help but rate the book 1 out of 4 stars.
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Creative Intelligence is a part of inspiration
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and I am very glad I did. It was intelligent, clear, concise, and saved many people a great deal of frustration. Thank you for that - I just turned 54, last month, and am aging rapidly. I'd hate to spend my waning years entangled in something I might ultimately end up throwing at the wall. Plus, I'd have to get another Kindle. 
