My Top 5 Books on Creativity
Over the last 24 years, I’ve spent much time immersed in the literature of creativity.
I’ve read about creative problem-solving, idea-generation techniques, creativity tests, what makes people creative, how creativity is fostered, recovered, unleashed, sustained, and applied.
I’ve read about innovation, open innovation, theories of innovation & human evolution, how innovation happens, disruptive innovation, social innovation, and innovation through design thinking.
While teaching Creativity and Innovation, and Creative Thinking Skills at Murdoch and Edith Cowan Universities in Western Australia, I led students in the practical application of many of these creative tools and processes, especially for complex problem-solving.
And as an applied theatre practitioner, I used creativity for community & organisational development and social transformation. It was from this work that I took case studies for my doctoral research.
I can say with confidence that since about 2001, I’ve been looking at creativity from many sides & read widely and deeply, and continue to do so.
But it’s from my personal creative expression writing poems, plays, novels, choreographing dance routines, and creating 2 businesses from scratch, that I find value in books about creativity.
Below are five of the top books I go back to again and again for inspiration, reminders, and practical exercises.
1. The Artist’s Way - Julia Cameron
Memorable quotes:
“Creativity - like human life itself - begins in darkness.”
“Serious art is born from serious play.”
“Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace, and power in it.”
This book changed my life.
I guarantee thousands of people around the world would say the same.
I first came across Julia Cameron’s 1999 and knew I would return to it, with intention and commitment.
I finally did in 2002.
It was the first book that I’d ever read of its kind.
If you’re curious about your creativity and self-expression and want to commit to seeing what might be waiting to emerge through you, your painting, writing, dance, business, sculpture, then this book is a great step in that direction.
Cameron, is a warm and nurturing. She guides us through a 12-week creative recovery program designed to help readers unlock their creativity and rediscover their passion for life.
There are exercises to help dig deeper, to reflect, to discover / unconver / recover ourselves.
If you follow it, work it, and are open to it, it will bear results.
It did for me.
2. The Element - Sir Ken Robinson
If you are one of the 80 million people who’s watched the late Robinson’s TED talk ‘Do Schools Kill Creativity?’ you know this wonderful human was a true champion for the diversity of human intelligence, individual expression of a unique and authentic human quality.
According to Robinson, our element is ‘…the meeting point between natural aptitude and passion’, it’s a place from where we find wellness and purpose.
Creativity is not a linear process and everyone is distinctly different.
Full of inspiring stories, humour and insight, this book shows how personal fulfilment and success, can come from discovering and nurturing our unique talents.
Robinson, full of compassion and through engaging stories, challenges us to rethink the way we approach education, work, and creativity.
Memorable quotes:
“The Element is about discovering yourself, and you can't do this if you're trapped in a compulsion to conform. You can't be yourself in a swarm.”
“One of the enemies of creativity and innovation, especially in relation to our own development, is common sense.”
“All that matters is that you are making something you love, to the best of your ability, here and now.”
3. The Creative Act - Rick Rubin
Although I only read this five years ago, it went straight to one of my favourites. One of Rubin’s key ideas is that our creativity is a practice, we can choose to do it or not. It’s not about being good, it’s about the way we live our lives.
Music producer, Rick Rubin, is compelling in his call to let the creative force move through us because it is our natural state.
We are all creative. It is our nature to create.
Paying attention to all that is around us, with an open mind and heart, we must ‘cultivate an openness’ to perceive and receive.
Memorable quotes:
“All that matters is that you are making something you love, to the best of your ability, here and now.”
“Of all the great works that we can experience, nature is the most absolute and enduring. We can witness it change through the seasons. We can see it in the mountains, the oceans, the deserts, and the forest. We can watch the changes of the moon each night, and the relationship between the moon and the stars.”
4. The Gifts of Imperfection- Brené Brown
This is not a book explicitly on creativity but because shame and perfectionism are often a barrier to creative self-expression, it is a truly worthwhile read.
Brown explains the key to meaningful connections, creativity, and fulfilment in life is authenticity.
Wholehearted living is possible through embracing vulnerability and imperfection.
Drawing from her research on shame and resilience, Brown encourages cultivating authenticity, self-compassion, and resilience, while letting go of society’s expectations.
Her stories are engaging, warm, authentic & her advice actionable.
She asserts that vulnerability is a sign of strength, not weakness, and essential for authentic creativity & self-expression.
Shame, fear and mitigated through self-compassion and gratitude.
Memorable quotes:
“Staying vulnerable is a risk we have to take if we want to experience connection.”
“Healthy striving is self-focused: "How can I improve?" Perfectionism is other-focused: "What will they think?”
“Perfectionism is a self destructive and addictive …it fuels this primary thought: If I look perfect, and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimise the painful feelings of shame, judgment, and blame.”
“Here's what is truly at the heart of wholeheartedness: Worthy now. Not if, not when, we're worthy of love and belonging now. Right this minute. As is.”
5. A Room of One’s Own - Virginia Woolf
I know this is a book that was written at a time when women were a lot less financially independent, but I think it is still relevant and important… and true.
If you’re a woman with creative yearnings I bet the thought has crossed your mind that if you had financial independence, you would be able to create to your heart’s content.
Women not only need financial independence but a space that is private and separate from the distractions and demands of others.
This is perhaps the more difficult aspect of being a creative practitioner today. It’s finding time to take yourself away from the daily demands on your attention.
Memorable quotes:
“I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.”
“So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say.”
“Literature is strewn with the wreckage of those who have minded beyond reason the opinion of others.”
Remember that EVERYONE is creative including you.
Everything that exists that was not created in nature, was at some point an idea that sprung from someone’s imagination.
From simple recipes to complex architecture to bestselling novels. From a matchstick to a screwdriver to a suspension bridge.
We are innately creative and as the books above show, there are so many ways to approach our self-doubt and our fear around creativity.
But one thing is essential: DO IT!