Here are 100 books that Creative Acts for Curious People fans have personally recommended if you like
Creative Acts for Curious People.
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After a career that took me from designer to design professor, I’ve spent the past decade leading user research practices for growing product organizations. I’m excited about user research because it positions us closer to the people we design for, and challenges us to capture and explain complex scenarios in service to them. Though there are many books that teach user research, my list of recommendations is meant to demonstrate why we research, how we make sense of what we learn, and where research might take us.
The Field Study Handbook is both a guide to international field research and a beautiful work of art. Jan Chipchase comprehensively covers every possible consideration for the planning and execution of global field research, including such topics as travel logistics, lodging guidance, division of labor, and working with local guides. Jan’s deep experience from the front lines of field research comes across on every beautifully illustrated page.
Inspired by the brilliant Silicon Valley technologists that I worked with in the early 90s and the pioneering design work of my husband’s grandfather, Leroy Grumman, I believe that design thinking is one of the most important reasons to believe that teams can achieve extraordinary results. It increases the likelihood of implementation of ideas by enhancing any companies’ abilities to align, learn, and change together. I have made it my mission to build creative capacity in individuals, organizations, and cities using the language of design thinking so that everyone can make positive change within their sphere of influence.
The Catalyst will inspire every manager who wants to create extraordinary growth in spite of the organizational roadblocks standing in the way. It is both a how-to guide and an inspirational you-can-do-it guide that provides both the pathway and the vision for creating change in organizations. It is the prequel to Jeanne Liedtka’s popular Designing for Growth and Designing for Growth Field Book which are my go-to workbooks for applying design thinking to projects. A must-read.
This book will help every executive--especially those middle managers caught in the middle, between bureaucratic structures and the need for profitability--deliver the organic growth that is demanded of them. It also will help their bosses--the C-Suite executives--unleash the corporate creativity lying dormant with the organization.
Inspired by the brilliant Silicon Valley technologists that I worked with in the early 90s and the pioneering design work of my husband’s grandfather, Leroy Grumman, I believe that design thinking is one of the most important reasons to believe that teams can achieve extraordinary results. It increases the likelihood of implementation of ideas by enhancing any companies’ abilities to align, learn, and change together. I have made it my mission to build creative capacity in individuals, organizations, and cities using the language of design thinking so that everyone can make positive change within their sphere of influence.
It is hard to pick just one Jon Kolko book to recommend because all of his books are brilliant. My copy of Creative Clarity is dog-eared and heavily underlined which is an indicator of just how much I rely on it over and over again. I like it because Kolko articulates the specific conditions necessary to achieve creative cultures and most importantly details how to do it. Mastering design thinking is much more than learning new tools and building the mindsets and behaviors to deepen your experience, it is about solving more problems and ultimately creating more impact. This book will help you do that.
This book is built on a simple premise: Most companies don't know what creativity really is, so they can't benefit from it. They lack creative clarity. Creative clarity requires you to do four things: 1. Choreograph a creative strategy, describing a clear future even among the blurry business landscape. 2. Grow teams that include those creative, unpredictable outcasts; give them the space to produce amazing work; and build a unique form of trust in your company culture. 3. Institutionalize an iterative process of critique, conflict, and ideation. 4. Embrace chaos but manage creative spin and stagnation. This book is primarily…
Inspired by the brilliant Silicon Valley technologists that I worked with in the early 90s and the pioneering design work of my husband’s grandfather, Leroy Grumman, I believe that design thinking is one of the most important reasons to believe that teams can achieve extraordinary results. It increases the likelihood of implementation of ideas by enhancing any companies’ abilities to align, learn, and change together. I have made it my mission to build creative capacity in individuals, organizations, and cities using the language of design thinking so that everyone can make positive change within their sphere of influence.
My favorite business school professor gave me this book on a whim that I might be interested in the work of What If? I took it home and devoured it in a matter of hours. It’s captivating in its accessibility to normal people and probably more relevant today than it was twenty years when it was published as creative catalysts and design thinkers refocus on behaviors over process and habits over tools. By adopting the six creative behaviors outlined in the book: freshness, greenhousing, realness, momentum, signalling, and courage, innovators can increase their creative capacity and even more importantly, their creative confidence.
We all know how important creativity is at work. New ideas, fresh solutions, and innovative approaches are always talked about, but rarely ever practiced. ?Whatif!, Second Edition gives you the power, insight, and courage to capture the essence of creativity at work. This one--of--a--kind book breaks creativity into six practical behaviors and shows you how all of us----not just the wacky genuis----is packed with creative potential. This fully updated and expanded edition explores areas that the first edition did not, filled with new insights, stories, and cases it will help you find or recapture your creativity with proven exercises that…
Trained as an artist, through my work as a college professor I became committed to helping others cultivate and expand their creativity. It has always been heartbreaking to hear friends and acquaintances bemoan their lack of creativity simply because they hadn't developed drawing skills. Creativity is a human characteristic that can be developed in any discipline and with practice and encouragement, is available to anyone. In my reading and my writing, I seek a combination of accessibility and substance. If a book is engaging enough to read at the beach yet substantial enough to provide fuel for thought long afterward, it is a winner!
Due to a mania for metrics, in recent years educators have been pressured to focus on answers rather than exploring the significance of questions. This imbalance can be very damaging. Students who are only motivated by the questions their teachers pose never become intellectually independent and are unable to fully cultivate their creativity.
A More Beautiful Question tackles this problem head-on and offers an informative and engaging analysis of different types of questions and their uses. I was surprised to find gems in every chapter, even those directed at businesspeople. I often recommend this book to other college professors and those who have read it have found it transformative.
To get a great answer, you need to ask the perfect question. Warren Berger revives the lost art of questioning.
In this groundbreaking book, journalist and innovation expert Warren Berger shows that one of the most powerful forces for igniting change in business and in our daily lives is a simple, under-appreciated tool--one that has been available to us since childhood. Questioning--deeply, imaginatively, "beautifully"--can help us identify and solve problems, come up with game-changing ideas, and pursue fresh opportunities. So why are we often reluctant to ask "Why?"
Berger's surprising findings reveal that even though children start out asking hundreds…
I am a sociologist with a longstanding interest in the social aspects of medicine and public health. I started with research on HIV/AIDS. Since then, I have written many books and conducted a multitude of studies on how people understand and experience health and illness and how they seek help when they are sick or feel at risk from disease. When COVID-19 hit the world in early 2020, it was not long before I started to think about what my research training and expertise could offer to understanding the social impacts of this new pandemic. I started to write about COVID and research on people’s everyday experiences.
This edited volume, by academics Irene Gammel and Jason Wang from Ryerson University, Canada, includes contributions from authors living across the world. The chapters focus on how the arts and culture can both express and document people’s thoughts, practices, and feelings about living through the COVID pandemic. There are discussions on the role of drawing, graphic fiction, cinema, diary writing, urban space, music, streaming services, film, and video conferencing platforms in helping people cope with COVID life. Reading the book provides insights into the different social, cultural, and geographical contexts in which the pandemic has been experienced and how people adjusted to the often very stressful conditions of lockdown, restrictions on movements, fear about their health and grief.
Creative Resilience and COVID-19 examines arts, culture, and everyday life as a way of navigating through and past COVID-19. Drawing together the voices of international experts and emerging scholars, this volume explores themes of creativity and resilience in relation to the crisis, trauma, cultural alterity, and social change wrought by the pandemic.
The cultural, social, and political concerns that have arisen due to COVID-19 are inextricably intertwined with the ways the pandemic has been discussed, represented, and visualized in global media. The essays included in this volume are concerned with how artists, writers, and advocates uncover the hope, plasticity, and…
I am and always will be a teacher. For the past 25 years, I dedicated my life to inspiring students to achieve their goals and manifest their dreams. I finally decided to take my own advice and listen to the calling that has been ringing louder and louder over the years. I used my gifts to become a certified Law of Attraction coach, reiki practitioner, and Tarot reader. While I may have left the academic classroom, I was called to the world classroom. As an author, speaker, coach, and healer, I awaken the manifestation superpower that exists in all of us.
Finally, an author who gives me permission to have anything materialistically that I desire and not feel guilty about wanting it! Growing up in a religious household, I was taught that it was selfish to want anything that exceeded my physical needs. In fact, desire is part of human nature, and it is a necessary step in the manifestation process. This book explores 7 Universal Principles to manifest any desire one has. The key is to become a master of your own energy.
How to Master Your Energy so You Can Have What You Desire
Christy Whitman, transformational leader, founder of the Quantum Success Coaching Academy, and channel for The Divine Council unfolds the precise steps for bringing about the manifestation of any desire.
The book is built around 7 Universal Principles for tapping into the divine energy stream that is the source of all things so that you can have more peace, prosperity, and joy.
The Desire Factor shows you how to master your energy so you can create a life that you love despite what’s going on around you.
I am the recognized expert on work-life balance, harmony, and integrative issues, and since 2009, hold the registered trademark from the USPTO as the “Work-Life Balance Expert®." My books have been featured in 68 of the top 75 American newspapers and, in two instances, advertised in Time Magazine and The Wall Street Journal. In all, 16 of my books are published in Chinese, among them Simpler Living, appearing as a 3-volume set, Everyday Project Management, The 60 Second Innovator, The 60 Second Organizer, The 60 Second Self-Starter, Ten Minute Guide to Time Management, and Ten Minute Guide to Project Management. I also have 13 books published in Arabic.
Here is a book that I found to be highly engaging. The Greek philospher Plato was quoted as saying that "you can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation." If so, he has offered us a valid rationale for taking a stroll with someone whom we've just encountered, versus meeting at, say, a restaurant. The authors discuss one study where up to 90% of 5-year-olds tested as being highly creative. Yet by age 7, this figure declines 10%, and then declines to 2% after age 8. Hence, creativity seemingly declines as structured education begins.
Creativity involves the pressure to 'keep up' along with a bombardment of information. The accelerating pace of environmental damage is symptomatic of damage to the human spirit. One centurion said, “I lived my life" so that I would exceed age 100. For nearly all of his life,…
An anecdotal manual offers guidelines on how to eliminate stress, resist external pressures, overcome financial obstacles, set and pursue healthy goals, and realize inner potential through creative expression. Original.
I've always been fascinated with the idea that humans have so many layers of consciousness, and reality is multi-faceted. I've studied Zen Buddhism, yoga, and for the past 43 years, Sufism. My experience of life has developed into a journey of changing difficult situations into exhilarating discoveries, finding hidden patterns in nature that delight me and tell me I’m not alone in the universe, and helping many people transform into beings of joy and gratitude. I’m beginning to see that our transformation delights and changes the Divine; we are not a passing phenomenon but contributors to new creation on a major scale.
This book, for serious students of mysticism, dances between the worlds of Persia a thousand years ago and the present. For me, it took the topic of creative imagination out of the realm of fantasy and established it as a cornerstone of the way we perceive and give meaning to reality, and the way we connect to God and inner worlds.
"Henry Corbin's works are the best guide to the visionary tradition...Corbin, like Scholem and Jonas, is remembered as a scholar of genius. He was uniquely equipped not only to recover Iranian Sufism for the West, but also to defend the principal Western traditions of esoteric spirituality."--From the introduction by Harold Bloom Ibn 'Arabi (1165-1240) was one of the great mystics of all time. Through the richness of his personal experience and the constructive power of his intellect, he made a unique contribution to Shi'ite Sufism. In this book, which features a powerful new preface by Harold Bloom, Henry Corbin brings…
I blame my mother. She took us to the public library every week and let us check out as many books as we could carry. Consequently, reading was a joy rather than a burden. The writing came after I got over my false assumptions about English Lit and Modern Poetry. As a screenwriter, I craft silly stories to make audiences laugh. That’s why I watch movies after an exhausting week. As an author, I gravitate towards non-fiction–trying to reconcile my artistry with my faith. I’ve written about movies, music, video games, technology, and art–with an eye toward lifting our spirits and comforting our aching souls.
I wonder about the relationship between art and activism. I’ve long loved the sharp and prophetic songs of Sho Baraka.
Like his raps, Sho’s book simultaneously enlightened and entertained me. It has rhythm and flow, interweaving short stories and poems with insightful and enduring truths. I appreciated how he explained where hip-hop comes from and connected it to Scriptural roots. He discusses how flawed so many of our heroes may be, and yet they still accomplish amazing things.
After reading Sho’s provocative work, I want to practice the same kind of integration of faith and action.
A deep exploration of the intersection of faith, creativity, and justice from acclaimed hip-hop artist and creative polymath Sho Baraka
“Sho has the courage to say what many are thinking and the candor to say what many are not. His words have positively influenced me for years—now this book gives the world that influence.”—Lecrae
You were created to help bring truth and beauty into this broken world. God made you with an imagination and a yearning for justice. No matter your calling or vocation, you can help shape a better world around you through your creativity.
