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Summary: Flow Is Fun!
Review: If you are in any competitive sports, read this book. If you play golf, tennis, or any other such sport as a hobby and you want to do better, read this book. Flow refers to a state where you are totally absorbed in what you are doing. You lose self-consciousness. The one sure way to fail at a competitve endeavor is to be concerned with how you appear to others or how you are being evaluated. Your mental energy is drawn away from the competitive endeavor and what you need to be focused upon. You want to be in the flow. Not worried about your ego. (all competitor mind games essentially try to throw you out of a flow experience) As Csikszentmihalyi says if you are playing a game of tennis and suddenly you start thinking about how you are doing overall, your concentration is broken. It will become really hard to win. You want to only focus upon each serve or return shot as you are making it. Not the one before or the next one. Not how great or how poorly you are doing. You want this to happen naturally. You don't want to be saying to yourself, "I want to concentrate on each shot. I want to concentrate on each shot." You just want it to happen. The experience becomes, as Csikszentmihalyi calls it, an autotelic experience. What you are doing becomes an end in itself. And the best part of being in flow is that when you are in it, you will be enjoying yourself. "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience" is one of the best books ever if you want to understand human performance and what separates those who win from those who lose...
Rating: 
Summary: Worthwhile
Review: Not an easy read, it may require a committment to finish, but well worth the effort. If you have wondered why playing a mediocre game of golf is more personally rewarding than watching mutli-millionaires slap bellies on TV (football), Mihaly has the answer.
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Summary: Pete and repeat went fishing. Pete fell out. Who was left?
Review: I've not read a library worth of books, but I've read enough to know that books are supposed to move forward. They have beginnings and endings, and while the ideas at these two places should certainly be related, reading would be a terribly disappointing experience if the beginning and ending are the same exact idea. That is the case with the terribly disappointing book "Flow."
The author repeats his theory on the happiness found in a mediocre life as if he's trying to convince himself of the worth of having published his less-than mediocre book. The idea he has is actually good, but the delivery is one of the worst experiences I've ever had. Want to know what it's all about? Set a goal, work towards it, and that will be a rewarding experience. Even if your goal is to stuff 129 TV's into boxes during your regular 8-hour shift at the Zenith factory, if you work towards that goal, "Flow" can be yours, and you don't even have to read 900 pages of dribble.
Rating:
Summary: Better than "good"; worse than "excellent"
Review: This book is a very good source for people who like to think deeply about the issues of life. It is especially useful due to the fact that almost everthing in the book is research-based. The facts are based on research conducted for more than 30 years. In addition, the research was multi-cultural; therefore, most North Americans can see what people from other cultures are doing that makes them feel good and fulfilled.
Although the book is based on research, it is quite easy to read and follow the explanations. You don't have to have a PhD in social sciences to grasp the main theme (however, some background in social sciences could be beneficial).
I consider this book "not excellent," because after you're finished reading, you feel that what the author wanted to do was to say: "OK. This is an assortment of my research. I showed you what other people do. Now it's up to you to figure out everything for yourself." Although this is logical in the sense that every life is unique and the fixes should also be unique, some main "guidelines" would not hurt at all.
The author is very well-respected in his field, and he does a pretty good job at assuring no-one who read this book would say: "So what?"
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Summary: Bears Re-discovery
Review: With the recent scientific investigations into the psycho-physiological roots of religious experience, this ten-year-old book bears re-discovery. While not overtly spiritual in nature, this book could perhaps become the basis for a new spirituality -- one where personal happiness is the highest goal, and optimal experience is the means by which it is achieved. Anyone who is interested in spirituality (even non-supernaturalist spirituality) and psychology will find this author's work worth investigating.
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Summary: Self-help for the thinking person
Review: Instead of attempting to offer the reader a condescending, simplistic recipe for success and happiness (par for the self-help course, it seems), Csikszentminalyi illuminates the processes of happiness in all their heady complexity. The difference between the conventional style and that of Flow is as that of a shoddy set of directions and a detailed road map. This said, the book is still very accessible, replete with relavent and engaging antecdotes, careful exposition, and a thoughtful writing style. The best thing that can be said about Flow is that it excites the pleasurable experiences that it describes!
Rating: 
Summary: important but badly written
Review: Csikszentmihalyi has some very important and enlightening ideas here, but it could have all been condensed into 10 pages. Instead, he goes into endless vague generalizations about the state of the world and how the Industrial Revolution destroyed people's lives. He's awfully pessimistic for a psychologist of happiness. He also doesn't seem to know how to write for a lay audience, because he assumes we're stupid enough to enjoy the meaningless generalities that make up the huge majority of the book. Read it at the library, try not to let his pessimism get you down, and stop after about page 80.
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Summary: Happiness in Simple Terms
Review: Flow is a concept Csikszentmihalyi developed to describe his observations of human's happiest states. Flow he says is more or less being heavily involved in an activity - be it work, a hobby, sex, music etc. - in which you've tuned out to everything else. I saw this as sort of zen-like living in the present through immersion in an action. I immediately identified with this concept, and he did an excellent job of showing the connection between flow and happiness in all areas of life. This is a very clear writer with an easy style. However I was left feeling that I can now identify past flow experiences I've had but can't exactly find in this book the key to increasing either the frequency or quality of those experiences in the future. That seems to be the trick. But maybe true happiness doesn't come easily. I would certainly recommend this to any thoughtful reader.
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Summary: Classic Positive Psychology Text. It'll make you smile.
Review: First, the name is pronounced chick-sent-mih-high. And it is worth remembering because this is one book that will probably be around in 100 or 200 years. It is that important. Certainly, it is one of, if not the most important books in the positive psychology field. The author has spent his life researching the Flow state, and in the process, has inspired hundreds, if not thousands of other researchers to further pursue this profound, yet simple concept. Flow is a state that artists experience when they are feeling in the groove, when time seems to just fly and the "work" seems to soar. One key ingredient of flow is a challenge that can be reasonably responded to with existing resources. That tells us that it is important, if we are going to achieve Flow States, to challenge ourselves regularly. The book walks the reader through some of the basic research and then, to conclusions about how this amazing concept affects us all, and how it affects people who insist on finding the flow in their lives. I discovered MC's work about 12 years ago, and while working on a book titled THE HAPPINESS RESPONSE, had my first conversation with him. He's one man who walks the talk-- kind, accessible. His book opens a door to a new way of thinking about living, about psychology, and it has had a major role in the development of the field of positive psychology. Matter of fact, if you are interested in positive psychology you absolutely must have this book. If you want to get a handle on some concrete aspects of finding more meaning in your life, on specific strategies for feeling more alive, then read this book. In my lectures and workshops, I present the Anatomy of Positive Experience. One key element is the optimization of the moment-- Once you realize you are having a positive experience, there are many strategies you can use to make the experience longer, stronger, deeper, more meaningful, shared with someone you love, etc. This book gives you many specific ideas on how to do just these things. In the annual meeting I organize, The Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology Meeting, it is common for trainers and researchers to describe how winners stay in the moment to perform their best. Flow is about the same phenomenon. But not just about winning, it's also about the little moments too. You don't have to paint a masterpiece or climb a mountain to find flow. Just stretch a little. And this book and MC's other works help you learn HOW to stretch so you feel the FLOW. This is one of those books I've recommended to hundreds of people. Try it. You won't go wrong.
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Summary: Go with Flow
Review: What is 'flow'? Simply put you know you're having a flow experience when the adage "time flies when you're having fun" is operative. Applied to life I guess this means not getting locked into a job or a career or way of life that bores you. Do what you can't have enough of, whether that's tennis, driving buses, playing the equities market, healing, writing, .... If you want to have a happy life then get into the flow experience. Incidentally here's a pronunciation guide to (University of Chicago professor of psychology) Dr. Cziksentmihalyi's most daunting name: chick-SENT-me-hi
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