101 Creativity & Innovation Books – Your Creativity Library

This is the first post of Creativity Extravaganza Week at “Abundance Blog at Marelisa Online” and in it you’ll find books on creativity galore.

Here are 101 Creativity and Innovation Books for your creativity library:

101 Creative Problem Solving Techniques

In “101 Creative Problem Solving Techniques: The Handbook of New Ideas for Business”, James M. Higgins has collected problem-solving techniques from organizations and individuals from around the world. Each technique is carefully explained so that the reader can immediately start applying them to solve problems creatively and generate ideas.

Roger von Oech- Creativity Whacks to the Head

The following three books by Roger von Oech–an internationally-recognized creativity consultant–will give your creativity the jolt it needs:

• A Whack on the Side of the Head: How You Can Be More Creative (this is a classic in the field of creativity and innovation and is now on its 25th edition)
• A Kick in the Seat of the Pants (take on the roles of the Explorer, the Artist, the Judge, and the Warrior)
• Expect the Unexpected (or You Won’t Find It): A Creativity Tool Based on the Ancient Wisdom of Heraclitus (Heraclitus was the first creativity teacher; his epigrams are jewels of insight)

Eric Maisel – Psychotherapist and Creativity Consultant

Eric Maisel is a psychotherapist and creativity consultant. In his book, “The Creativity Book: A Year’s Worth of Inspiration and Guidance”, Maisel presents a complete one-year plan for unleashing your creativity. It includes two discussions/exercises per week, and culminates in a guided project of your choice–from working on your current novel to putting together a business plan for your new home business. Here are three more excellent creativity books by Maisel:

• Creativity for Life: Practical Advice on the Artist’s Personality, and Career from America’s Foremost Creativity Coach
• Affirmations for Artists
• Fearless Creating: A Step-by-Step Guide To Starting and Completing Your Work of Art

Jack Foster – Play and Humor are the Keys to Creativity

“I know the answer, the answer lies within the heart of all mankind! What, the answer is twelve? I think I’m in the wrong building.” — Charles Schultz

“How to Get Ideas” provides a five-step procedure for solving problems and getting ideas, and will show you how to become idea-prone and let your inner child and humor work for you. In “Ideaship: How to Get Ideas Flowing in Your Workplace”, Jack writes about creating an idea-prone workforce.

Twyla Tharp – Art Is Work, It Is Not Inspiration

In “The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life”, Twyla Tharp, one of America’s greatest choreographers, explains that creativity is hard work, and the product of preparation and effort.

Sam Harrison – Ideaspotting and Zing!

In “IdeaSpotting: How to Find Your Next Great Idea”, Sam Harrison encourages you to:

• Listen and observe
• Step outside your daily routine
• Explore through travel
• Find ideas in nature
• Break out of ruts
• Learn from mistakes
• Get past the surface
• Connect existing ideas

He also has another fabulous creative book titled, “Zing!: Five Steps and 101 Tips for Creativity On Command”.

Michael Michalko – Cracking Creativity

Michael Michalko is a world acclaimed creativity expert. As an officer in the US army, Michael organized a team of NATO intelligence specialists and international academics to collect and categorize all known creative-thinking methods. His team applied those methods to many different situations and produced a variety of breakthrough ideas. After leaving the military, Michael facilitated CIA think tanks using his creative thinking techniques. Here are two books by him:

• Cracking Creativity: The Secrets of Creative Genius
• Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques

Julia Cameron – The Artist’s Way

Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, suggests that once a week, for at least an hour, you take yourself on some small festive adventure. Explore something new, try something you’ve always wondered about.  The second pivotal tool she suggests are morning pages.

Here are more books by Julia:

• Walking in this World: The Practical Art of Creativity
• Finding Water: The Art of Perseverance
• The Artist’s Way Workbook
• The Artist’s Way at Work: Riding the Dragon
• The Complete Artist’s Way: Creativity as a Spiritual Practice includes “The Artist’s Way”, “Walking in This World”, and “Finding Water”.

Danny Gregory – An Illustrated Life

Learn how to create beautiful illustrated journals with Danny Gregory, even if you think you can’t draw:

• An Illustrated Life: Drawing Inspiration from the Private Sketchbooks of Artists, Illustrators and Designers
• Creative License, The: Giving Yourself Permission to Be The Artist You Truly Are

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi – Flow

One of the greatest benefits of the flow state is that it’s the most creative state to be in.   Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi has written several books on the flow state, but the two that are most connected to creativity are the following:

• Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
  
• Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention

Sark – Juicy Pens, Thirsty Paper

I’ve written about SARK frequently on this blog because I absolutely love her books. Look through one of her whimsical, inspiring books and you’ll see why.

• Creative Companion: How to Free Your Creative Spirit
• Sark’s New Creative Companion
• Make Your Creative Dreams Real
• The Bodacious Book of Succulence
• Succulent Wild Woman
• Living Juicy: Daily Morsels for Your Creative Soul
• Inspiration Sandwich: Stories to Inspire Our Creative Freedom
• Juicy Pens, Thirsty Paper

Edward de Bono – Lateral Thinking

Edward de Bono is one of the giants in the world of creativity.  He’s authored over 50 books teaching others how to solve problems creatively.  Here are some of his best books:

• Six Thinking Hats
• Lateral Thinking: Creativity Step by Step
• Creativity Workout: 62 Exercises to Unlock Your Most Creative Ideas
• I Am Right You Are Wrong
• Serious Creativity: Using the Power of Lateral Thinking to Create New Ideas

Writer’s Corner

These are five of the best books for writers:

• Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
• Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within
• If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit
• On Writing (by Stephen King)
• Becoming a Writer

Jill Badonsky – Nine Modern Muses

Jill Badonsky is a creative coach and has authored two must-read creativity books. The Nine Modern Day Muses (and a Bodyguard): 10 Guides to Creative Inspiration for Artists, Poets, Lovers and Other Mortals Wanting to Live a Dazzling Existence introduces you to ten characters that will guide you along the road to creativity.  Meet three of the muses:

• Aha-phrodite, the Muse of paying attention, possibilities, and new ideas will remind you that there is no shortage of ideas.
• Albert, the Muse of imagination and innovation will encourage you to break the rules, think something different, and see things from a different perspective.
• Bea Silly, the Muse of play, laughter and dance will push you to lighten up, have fun, dance, play with it, be free and do it despite your rigid inner critic.

The Awe-manac: A Daily Dose of Wonder provides daily forecasts, irreverent astrological advice, metaphorical planting instructions, and other directives to help readers make life more creative, amusing, gratifying, and extraordinary – every day of the year. It’s almost guaranteed to make anyone more creative or at the very least bring more joy into their lives.

Walt Disney – Learn How The Imagineers Make the Magic Come Alive

With a combination of imagination and engineering skill, the Disney Imagineers create all the elements of the Disney theme parks: the rides, attractions, landscaping, shops and restaurants, and even the small details such as the signs and the light fixtures. Here are three books that will show you how the Imagineers make the magic come alive:

• Walt Disney Imagineering: A Behnid-The-Dreams Look at Making the Magic Real
• The Imagineering Way
• The Imagineering Workout

IDEO – The World’s Leading Design Firm

In the The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America’s Leading Design Firm, Tom Kelley—brother of founder David Kelley–shares IDEO’s five-step methodology:

• Understand the market, the client, the technology, and the perceived constraints on the given problem;
• Observe real people in real-life situations;
• Visualize new-to-the-world concepts  and the customers who will use them;
• Evaluate and refine the prototypes in a series of quick iterations; and
• Implement the new concept for commercialization.

In The Ten Faces of Innovation: IDEO’s Strategies for Defeating the Devil’s Advocate and Driving Creativity Throughout Your Organization Kelley focuses on the type of worker and team-building that is required to have a creative, dynamic work place.

Creativity Books for Women

• The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women: A Portable Mentor
• Taking Flight: Inspiration And Techniques To Give Your Creative Spirit Wings

49 More Creativity Books

• Caffeine for the Creative Mind: 250 Exercises to Wake Up Your Brain
• Jack’s Notebook: A business novel about creative problem solving
• Stimulated!: Habits to Spark Your Creative Genius at Work
• The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles
• The Zen of Creativity: Cultivating Your Artistic Life
• Kaleidoscope: Ideas & Projects to Spark Your Creativity
• The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures
• 1,000 Artist Journal Pages: Personal Pages and Inspirations (1000 Series)
• A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future
• The Care and Feeding of Ideas: A Guide to Encouraging Creativity
• A Technique for Producing Ideas
• Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
• The Houdini Solution (here’s a Squidoo lens by Ernie Schenck, author of “The Houdini Solution”, in which he talks about his book)
• Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool’s Guide to Surviving with Grace
• Aha! 10 Ways to Free Your Creative Spirit and Find Your Great Ideas
• How to Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Everyday
• Innovate Like Edison: The Success System of America’s Greatest Inventor
• Medici Effect: What Elephants and Epidemics Can Teach Us About Innovation
• The Grace of Great Things: Creativity and Innovation
• Instant Creativity: Simple Techniques to Ignite Innovation & Problem Solving
• Creativity Revealed: Discovering the Source of Inspiration
• The Artist Within: A Guide to Becoming Creatively Fit
• How to Make a Journal of Your Life
• Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind: How Intelligence Increases When You Think Less
• The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
• Awake at the Wheel: Getting Your Great Ideas Rolling (in an Uphill World)
• Leonardo’s Ink Bottle: The Artist’s Way of Seeing
• Making Room for Making Art: A Thoughtful and Practical Guide to Bringing the Pleasure of Artistic Expression Back into Your Life
• How to Mind Map: The Ultimate Thinking Tool That Will Change Your Life
• Mindmapping: Your Personal Guide to Exploring Creativity and Problem-Solving
• Celebrate Your Creative Self
• Fingerpainting on the Moon: Writing and Creativity as a Path to Freedom
• Broken Crayons: Break Your Crayons and Draw Outside the Lines
• Handbook of Creativity
• Creativity: From Potential to Realization
• Conceptual Blockbusting: A Guide to Better Ideas
• The Care and Feeding of Ideas: A Guide to Encouraging Creativity
• Unlock Your Creative Genius
• The Courage to Create
• Art Journals and Creative Healing: Restoring the Spirit Through Self-Expression
• What It Is
• Think Better: An Innovator’s Guide to Productive Thinking
• Innovation to the Core: A Blueprint for Transforming the Way Your Company Innovates
• The Innovator’s Toolkit: 50+ Techniques for Predictable and Sustainable Organic Growth
• Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable
• Free Prize Inside!: The Next Big Marketing Idea
• Living the Creative Life: Ideas and Inspiration from Working Artists
• Creative Problem Solver’s Toolbox: A Complete Course in the Art of Creating Solutions to Problems of Any Kind
• How to Have Kick-Ass Ideas: Shake Up Your Business, Shake Up Your Life

Conclusion

What are your favorite creativity books?  Please share in the comments below.  Here are the five posts which I published during “Creativity Extravangaza Week”:

• 101 Creativity & Innovation Books – Your Creativity Library
• 75 Creativity Quotes
• 20 Creative Thinking Techniques
• Awesome Creativity Blogs
• 25 Audacious Creativity Tools

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photo credit: gadl

I Recommend:

My ebook “How to Be More Creative – A Handbook for Alchemists” explains that creativity is not the sole domain of the arts but is important in any field. Whatever you do, creativity helps you do it better. Discover practical advice on how to be more creative in every life endeavor by reading my ebook.

The Sedona Method is a simple, powerful, easy-to-learn technique that shows you how to let go of any negative, unwanted or painful feelings you may be experiencing at any particular moment. It consists of a series of questions you ask yourself that lead your awareness to focus on what you’re feeling in the moment and gently guide you toward letting it go. Read my review of the Sedona Method here.