Others say...

"This book changed the way I learn and teach"
I learned mind mapping using this book in 2002 and have been making them for learning, and for making decisions, ever since. Now I'm using them for teaching. There's just nothing like mind maps.

One thing I'd like to emphasize: if you think you can't make maps like the ones in the book because you "can't draw", you're in for a real surprise. The very act of drawing your map will draw out your creativity -- it's quite an amazing phenomenon! Your first maps will be timid -- expect that and keep on making them. Save those first maps to "map" your progress.

But if you feel more comfortable working at the computer, since the book came out a whole slew of mind mapping software has emerged and some good ones are free.

G. Bisaillon

"I've found it useful"
I don't remember how long ago I learned about mind maps, but it's been a while. And I have found them to be useful for organizing thoughts, taking notes on reading, and especially for lectures and even sermons in church.

This book is lavish with illustrations that quite honestly, would be hard for me to sit down and try to do to that quality. But I have found the color-friendly and picture-friendly technique of mind mapping to be useful for introducing the element of play into note taking -- and I've found that it can make an otherwise dull lecture a bit more interesting.

I think that sometimes you'll have to modify the techniques to fit your own personality and learning style. But over all, these techniques will help in a lot of learning and organizing situations.

"Great tool, but at times a bit elementary"
If you happen to use dry erase walls for your meetings, or other types of planning, or find yourself to be a bit of a doodler rather than a 'conventional' note-taker, you'll really find this book helpful. Designed, it seems, primarily for note taking in grade school, it translates very well into other sorts of more 'adult' model-building and planning. I've taken some great tid-bits from it, and used it, almost immediately, with some adroitness and success for a series of meetings. It's a great way to systematize and visualize ideas and opinions without losing track of the conversation through too much attention payed to e-v-e-r-y l-i-t-t-l-e w-o-r-d.

"Interesting, but quite long and frankly a little repetitious"
I'll recommend this book to people who already has some experience with mind mapping, but wants to get inspiration for new techniques.

I think it's best as a reference book, that you can browse for inspiration, for new mindmap-approaches to problemsolving. You learn about taking YES/NO decision with dyadic mindmapping. You learn to group mindmap, and lots of other stuff.

I wouldn't recommend it for mindmap-rookies. It's not a very pleasant book to read cover-to-cover. There's quite a lot of redundant information, and you spend a lot of time thinking, "haven't I read this before?" To get an introduction to mindmapping you should buy "How to mindmap", by Tony Buzan, instead.

Still worthwhile if you want some inspiration.

"A terrible book about a useful concept"
As an academic, whose job is to report research and organise research projects, I find mind mapping a useful tool for organising ideas, drafting outlines, monitoring progress, planning meetings, keeping minutes, etc.
So I bought the book from the guy who "invented" mind mapping to learn more about it. What did I learn? In a nutshell, DONT WASTE YOUR TIME AND MONEY, the book might even put you off for good from a quite useful tool.

Of course, if you have a special kind of humour, you can read it as a perfect parody of a "scientific" how-to book. This book is a wonderful mixture of unbearable hype, awful jargon and artful use of pseudo science. Not that the author wouldn't be clear about it: Tony Buzan (I guess Barry had his reasons for emphasising in the starting chapter that it was written by Tony ...) states right at the beginning that this book will basically solve all the problems you've ever had (in fact, not just you, !mankind!) by introducing you to "a new concept in the development of thought" and "a revolutionary new tool". It gets even better later on when you learn about mind mapping as "the next step in the evolution of the human mind".
To a certain extent, the whole thing works; it does stimulate your creativity - I'm writing my first ever book review on Amazon - and it helps you practice speed reading - there is so little information amidst all this breathless writing that you can easily finish it in an hour.
But let's be serious. The first couple of chapters teach you how your brain works, empty blah based on "scientific research" mostly dating back to the 1970s (of course, only material from sources of various quality exactly supporting a preconceived argument). That's a bit like James Watt explaining a fuel cell powered car to you - not completely off the mark, but, you know, a few things have happened in the meantime ...
Then you get to learn the principles, "the laws" (I would have liked commandments; it would fit the style). Common sense dressed up as wisdom and nothing turned into something through fancy relabelling. I really like the distinction between the Mini Mind Map (TM) and the full Mind Map (TM). "Power words" and "basic ordering ideas" for comprehensive categories is also pretty cool. From there, you move on to applications. Same story. I skipped the end; at last I heeded other reviews of the book.
But the thing that makes the book a real turn-off is the way it is written and typeset:
- We know that repeating important bits aid your memory, so you get LOTS of repetitions (especially mind mapping is SUPER, mind mapping is REALLY super, you get the idea ...).
- We know that metaphors help you memorise stuff, so you get LOTS of them (really hilarious stuff, I failed to note it down while reading).
- We know that using the odd adjective and slightly colourful language enhances readability, so you get LOTS of it. This is where the book scores 12 out of 10 points. It's littered with superlatives like infinite, enormous, gigantic, etc. and very large numbers (trillions, quadrillions, 1's and lots of 0's behind them). An example "... means that we are all magically and eerily different from each other. ... You who are now reading this sentence contain, in your brain, trillions of associations shared by no one else, past, present or future" (p. 72). Spooky would have been nice there!
- We know that highlighting text adds emphasis, so we get LOTS of HigHLIghTEd text.
- We know that using different fonts add visual clarity, so we get LOTS of different fonts.
- We know that boxes are useful for setting apart important points or illustrative material, so we get LOTS of them.
- We know that a good image says more than a thousand words, so we get LOTS of psychedelic mind maps, most of them unreadable, but very LOUD.
- We know that selling nothing as something can work if you dress it up well, so you get LOTS of it, e.g. "Intuition is a much-maligned mental skill which I and neuropsychologist Michael Gelb prefer to define as 'superlogic'" (p. 111) which then allows you to engage in "superthinking" (you know, my friend and expert-of-the-human-psyche Joe Abrahamovitch Miller and I like to call it the thing only our wives have ... Joe, by the way, is a the bartender in the local pub around the corner). You also get the "parabrain", the "paraconscious", you get the regular urban myth that we only use a fraction of our brain, and so on and so forth.

I could go on, but I guess you get the picture. By the way, if you're still reading, you stand a good chance of finishing the book ...
Here are a few suggestions for improvements in future editions (of which there will be many, I'm sure):
- don't be shy of large numbers, I missed the quintillions!
- referring to the Greek and the Romans as well as a lot of people with weired slavonic names is ok. But times are changing: These days you have to have some Indians and Chinese in there and Atlantis doesn't hurt. You could also refer to the wisdom of the animal kingdom and wisdom acquired in earlier lives.

To conclude, a comment by a colleague of mine: "Can you inject the stuff?"