11 comments

  1. First, best of luck with the event on May 22 – I see that the main package is already sold out.
    Now, I often find some of the best creative thinking comes from TED – and since the launch of TED Books, I’ve had the pleasure of reading different ideas.
    In addition to a few of TED Books, I’m currently reading a lot of Biographies. Although not directly connected to “creativity” it’s amazing to “see” how some of the most innovative people in our generation (and other generations) found their creativity, and persevered through struggles.
    Thanks for the list Mitch, I’ll have to check out a few as I too am trying the Julien Smith challenge (although I won’t come close)

  2. Thanks for the post Mitch, even if you don’t consider yourself creative I think it’s important to get inspired occasionally, go to concerts, hear good music, experience new things, it definitely broadens your mind. I appreciate the list, I’m just adding these to my reading list today!

  3. These posts about books are getting costly for me! Just ordered several from your list. I loved “Imagine” and blogged about it. I’d add “Ignore Everyone” by Hugh MacLeod.

  4. For most of us, creativity is a habit for getting out in our comfort zone. The books listed here provides opportunities to unleash our individual creativity. I’m interested in the In-Genius – A crash course on creativity book. After I watched the related video from Amazon.com, I’m enthusiastic on what this book has to offer and how creativity could be useful in our everyday lives.

  5. Mitch, I was absolutely in need of this post. I’ve been following a couple of creative sites that have book lists (Chuck Palahniuk’s ‘The Cult’ and Brain Pickings) which both discuss new books on the creative process but have not found as good a list as you have here.
    Will have to get my Kindle app fired up! 😉

  6. My favorite, by far, is Orbiting the Giant Hairball by Gordon MacKenzie. No other book captures the un-capturableness (to coin a term) of creativity quite like this one. It’s an honest look at the challenge of being creative within a corporation. Worth reading more than once.

  7. I love Advantage Play by David Ben. It uses professional or stage magic as a means to describe creative problem solving. It’s not a flashy book but I’ve found lots of great insights from reading it.

  8. Although overly-simplistic, I unleash my inner child when I want to be creative. After all, it’s been said the creative adult is a child that survived.

  9. Usually I am pretty skeptical of books about creativity especially when crossing paths with pop science. Describing how creativity has been done in the past and further developing the mythology around the practice has become an all too common narrative. And not sure what it really achieves? So glad to see Austin Kleon’s Steal like an Artist on the list (Art school in less than 20 mins) and totally blown away by Mark Levy’s practical free-writing tips… looks like I just may be going through this whole list now!

  10. I would like to know if creativity means not reading books and instead designing/playing/constructing? I think the schoolbook writers and publishers should design their books to suit a creative learning style instead of the other way around. Take this book for instance: http://constructingkids.wordpress.com/2012/11/05/book-review-how-machines-work-build-your-own-working-models/ It’s 50% book 50% constructing kit that teaches kids about mechanics and machines. Thats how I would like school-books to be! Totally Seymore Papert!

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