Here are 100 books that The Artist's Way fans have personally recommended if you like
The Artist's Way.
Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
I have been thinking about spiritual things since I was around 9 years old, and as soon as I was old enough, I was off learning experientially in the world. This has allowed for deep learning and understanding of a wide range of subjects, particularly spirituality and ultimate reality. I teach philosophy, religious studies, and politics in my day job, and so, now on the cusp of 46 years, I can truly say I love spiritual and philosophical thought. I also think it’s hard to write books about these topics and I love how allegory and fable can be so accessible.
I think I learned the most about allegory and symbolism from this book. I also loved the protagonist's exciting and perilous journey, which inspired me to learn about spirituality and the unknown.
I loved the fact that this book is accessible to anyone, no matter what they believe, and I liked how you could take your own messages from its pages. I enjoyed the beautiful scenes the author creates, which on their own can influence faith.
A global phenomenon, The Alchemist has been read and loved by over 62 million readers, topping bestseller lists in 74 countries worldwide. Now this magical fable is beautifully repackaged in an edition that lovers of Paulo Coelho will want to treasure forever.
Every few decades a book is published that changes the lives of its readers forever. This is such a book - a beautiful parable about learning to listen to your heart, read the omens strewn along life's path and, above all, follow your dreams.
Santiago, a young shepherd living in the hills of Andalucia, feels that there is…
I remember experiencing a true nervous breakdown once in high school. I had to leave campus in tears, filled with familiar sorrows and emotions I didn’t recognize as my own. Something was happening and I couldn’t put my finger on it, and it was utterly disorienting. Luckily, a spiritual mentor lived right down the street. She was quickly able to diagnose my experience. “You’re a very strong empath,” she said. I had to learn what that meant, so I devoted many years to learning as much as I could about the empathic experience from psychological, physiological, anthropological, and metaphysical lenses alike.
This book is the number one book I’d bring along if stranded on a desert island. Like my magickal friend Stephanya once said, “I rejoice that such a beautiful thing can spring from the brain of a human being!” I couldn’t agree more. This book begins with a story documenting the author’s psychedelic research as a Harvard professor (then known as Richard Alpert), as well as his adventures in India, where he met his mountaintop Guru, Neem Karoli Baba. Ram Dass would soon become a Guru himself and help introduce Western spiritual seekers to deep mysticism and Eastern philosophy.
So, why is this relevant to empaths, even those who aren’t into psychedelics? The reason is simple: every part of this book, most especially the profoundly artistic “brown pages,” deeply, acutely, and spiritually reminds us that separation is an illusion, that we are all one, and we need to live in…
Beloved guru Ram Dass tells the story of his spiritual awakening and gives you the tools to take control of your life in this “counterculture bible” (The New York Times) featuring powerful guidance on yoga, meditation, and finding your true self.
When Be Here Now was first published in 1971, it filled a deep spiritual emptiness, launched the ongoing mindfulness revolution, and established Ram Dass as perhaps the preeminent seeker of the twentieth century.
Just ten years earlier, he was known as Professor Richard Alpert. He held appointments in four departments at Harvard University. He published books, drove a Mercedes…
The reason I’m so fascinated by stand-up and books on writing is because I have done both. For a brief time I was a comedian, and the lessons in creativity and writing I learned along the way helped me find the career of copywriting. I’m passionate about learning how great writers write, and more importantly, keep writing, even when they don’t feel like it. I like to be inspired with lessons I can bring with me to every Word doc I open up.
Ryan Holiday, like Steven Pressfield, is a no-nonsense writer whose words inspire you to start that project you’ve been putting off.
Already started it but running into some, well, obstacles? Holiday describes in his book how obstacles are a good thing and inspires us to look for creative solutions. This book made me reframe how I look at challenges, both personally and professionally.
We give up too easily. With a simple change of attitude, what seem like insurmountable obstacles become once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. Ryan Holiday, who dropped out of college at nineteen to serve as an apprentice to bestselling 'modern Machiavelli' Robert Greene and is now a media consultant for billion-dollar brands, draws on the philosophy of the Stoics to guide you in every situation, showing that what blocks our path actually opens one that is new and better.
If the competition threatens you, it's time to be fearless, to display your courage. An impossible deadline becomes a chance to show how dedicated you…
I am through and through a storytelling creature and fell in love with books as a child. I first aspired to be a librarian, then an author. Life took me in other directions, and when I found songwriting as a teen, I figured it would be the closest I would ever come to my original dreams. It was not until I escaped from my abusive family as a young adult and dove headfirst into therapy that I realized my story was far darker than I had ever let myself admit. I am now a singer-songwriter and memoirist who believes that sharing our stories with one another will change the world.
Sent to me by a dear friend just when I needed it, this delightfully cheeky book about writing gave me the push to be courageous and truthful both in life and in my written endeavors.
Full of candid advice, hilarious anecdotes, and helpful information, this book is half manual and half a memoir of Lammott’s escapades in authorship. It speaks directly to the part of us that holds our deepest stories and silently longs to make them into something useful, beautiful, and meaningful–whether or not we plan to share them with the world.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An essential volume for generations of writers young and old. The twenty-fifth anniversary edition of this modern classic will continue to spark creative minds for years to come. Anne Lamott is "a warm, generous, and hilarious guide through the writer’s world and its treacherous swamps" (Los Angeles Times).
“Superb writing advice…. Hilarious, helpful, and provocative.” —The New York Times Book Review
For a quarter century, more than a million readers—scribes and scribblers of all ages and abilities—have been inspired by Anne Lamott’s hilarious, big-hearted, homespun advice. Advice that begins with the simple words of wisdom…
I’m a writer who just published a book I didn’t have any interest in writing. I didn’t like the subject matter, so I had no interest in doing the research to create credible characters and a cohesive plot.
This book had me laughing from the first paragraph.
I had no plan to write novels then. I just wanted to write in a beautiful leather journal a good friend gave me to record my thoughts on my trip to Greece. It was a trip I’d planned with others, one in particular. But when he decided to leave, I went anyway. Alone.
A friend of mine knew the trip would be emotionally and technically difficult. Travelling alone in a non-English-speaking country can be dicey. She hoped that this book would provide relief from the debris of my personal life. And it did.
Experience a modern classic on writing as you've never heard it before. With nearly one million copies of Writing Down the Bones in print, Natalie Goldberg has helped change the way writing is practiced in homes, schools, and workshops across America. Through her heartfelt personal reflections and her ingenious Zen-based exercises, Goldberg makes writing available to you as a tool for personal expression, self-exploration, and healing.
In this enhanced reading of her seminal work, Goldberg offers new commentary about the creative, spiritual, and practical dimensions of writing. Join her as she looks back on her life, sharing the story of…
I was driven to become a veterinarian for as long as I could remember. Then, in high school, I developed a love of performance. I felt stuck. Should I choose art or science? I chose science, and despite a great career, I felt like something was missing. When I reconnected with my creativity through stand-up comedy, entrepreneurship and other non-artistic creative outlets, I found out what I had been missing. Why do we drop creativity for science? It was a common story. I dove into the research on creativity, and was blown away by how a bit of creativity can make us happier, more resilient, and make workplaces more effective.
In this book, I loved the way the author explains the creative process and what it takes to engage your muse and catch ideas. In a different way from The War Of Art, I learned what holds us back from expressing ourselves creatively and how we can overcome this fear of being seen.
Elizabeth Gilbert shares stories and philosophies about how to be more creative every day in a funny and optimistic way.
Readers of all ages and walks of life have drawn inspiration from Elizabeth Gilbert's books for years. Now, this beloved author shares her wisdom and unique understanding of creativity, shattering the perceptions of mystery and suffering that surround the process - and showing us all just how easy it can be.
By sharing stories from her own life, as well as those from her friends and the people that have inspired her, Elizabeth Gilbert challenges us to embrace our curiosity, tackle what we most love and face down what we most fear.
Whether you long to write a book, create…
As an artist, photographer, author, and workshop leader, my goal is to help others become more skilled with photographic techniques and more creative with their photographic and artistic practice. I like to tell workshop participants that to take better photographs, one should stand in front of more interesting things. But to become a really better photographer one needs to become a more interesting person. The books in the list have helped me grow as a person and photographer, and I hope they also enhance your technique and your passion as a photographer.
This book has been extremely influential and helpful to my journey as a creative photographer. This is a short book and covers material that is often not easy because it gets at some of the deep-seated reasons that many of us find it hard to consistently create art.
The underlying issue is “resistance”: a force that is the antithesis of creativity and serves to stymie us all to a greater or lesser degree. I have found the succinct discussion of resistance in the book, along with tools and techniques for overcoming resistance, one of the most valuable discussions I have encountered in my journey as a photographer and artist.
A succinct, engaging, and practical guide forsucceeding in any creative sphere, The War ofArt is nothing less than Sun-Tzu for the soul.
What keeps so many of us from doing what we long to do?
Why is there a naysayer within? How can we avoid theroadblocks of any creative endeavor—be it starting up a dreambusiness venture, writing a novel, or painting a masterpiece?
Bestselling novelist Steven Pressfield identifies the enemy thatevery one of us must face, outlines a battle plan to conquer thisinternal foe, then pinpoints just how to achieve the greatest success.
I’ve finally realized that you can’t outwork yourself out of systemic problems and that so many of the messages we receive have got the problem wrong. Growing up, I was taught to respect my elders. To defer to those who know what they are talking about. But just because someone says something with conviction doesn’t mean they are right. What we’ve been told is imposter syndrome could actually be imposter treatment, and it messes deeply with our sense of self. So even if I’ve taught at brand name institutions, at corporate heavyweights, and on six continents, I’m always seeking to learn.
This book opened my eyes to see introversion as a strength rather than a weakness. But more so, it gave me the permission to question how things that we took as “just the way things are” might have been positioned incorrectly from the start.
If it wasn’t true that introversion is inherently worse than extroversion, what else might popular culture and mainstream workplace practices have gotten wrong? I felt seen by the book and hopeful of what more honest conversations about how people are wired might both reveal and help heal.
SUSAN CAIN'S NEW BOOK, BITTERSWEET, IS AVAILABLE TO PRE-ORDER NOW
A SUNDAY TIMES AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER, THIS BOOK WILL CHANGE HOW YOU SEE INTROVERTS - AND YOURSELF - FOREVER.
Our lives are driven by a fact that most of us can't name and don't understand. It defines who our friends and lovers are, which careers we choose, and whether we blush when we're embarrassed.
That fact is whether we're an introvert or an extrovert.
The most fundamental dimension of personality, at least a third of us are introverts, and yet shyness, sensitivity and seriousness are often seen as…
As a published author with an MFA in Writing, I know how hard writing can be in terms of how to find a muse, employ an elusive craft, and deal with the soul-shaking consequences of digging deep. But as a survivor of life, including multiple moves, broken relationships, alcoholism, illness, and debilitating grief, I've also experienced the transformative power of writing. I took that belief into the community, and developed writing workshops for cancer survivors, women facing domestic violence, and many other people wrestling with trauma and illness, often recommending some of these books in my workshops. And along the way, I’ve witnessed time and again what the written word can do.
Writers often struggle to think of themselves as “writers” because the world has us believing that we can only carry that title if we aresuccessfully published, and of course words such as “success” and even “published” can be fraught with subjective controversy. One of the lessons I learned from Brenda Ueland, among other great thinkers, is that we need to focus first on our own authenticity and only much, much later dare we think about what the world might have to say. This allowed me to let go and move on and trust myself on my writing path. It wasn’t easy, but as emphasized in If You Want to Write, we will be all right if we believe in our inner richness.
Brenda Ueland was a journalist, editor, freelance writer, and teacher of writing. In If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit she shares her philosophies on writing and life in general. Ueland firmly believed that anyone can write, that everyone is talented, original, and has something important to say. In this book she explains how find that spark that will make you a great writer. Carl Sandburg called this book the best book ever written about how to write. Join the millions of others who've found inspiration and unlocked their own talent.
As both a professor of graphic design and creative director of Fast Company, I’m dedicated to helping others be more creative. At Fast Company, my job is to ensure the visuals for the world’s leading business media brand are consistently innovative. (Yea…no pressure.) Honestly, sometimes it’s tough to be innovative when I’m faced with a squeezed schedule, a towering to-do list, and a bargain basement budget. But, as a marathoner, I’ve learned that if you want to be successful, you need to push through sub-optimal circumstances. That’s where these five books come into play: they all provide relatable stories and insights into achieving success, despite tough odds. Let’s do this.
This book offers real-world examples of how peer feedback is critical to creative success. When I lose myself in the creative process, I rely on trusted collaborators to help dig me out of that hole.
Recognizing this is a universal problem for creatives, Ed Catmull introduces us to The Braintrust, a team at Pixar that provided feedback on movie scripts such as The Incredibles and Wall-E. I believe we all need our own personal Braintrust to be successful.
Part autobiography, part history of Pixar, part business book, Creativity Inc is a stimulating, feel-good, insightful and highly inspirational collection of lessons in creativity and business from the president of Pixar and Disney Animation, Ed Catmull.
'Just might be the best business book ever written.' -- Forbes Magazine 'Great book. Wish I could give it more than 5 Stars' -- ***** Reader review 'Incredibly inspirational' -- ***** Reader review 'Honestly, one of the best books I've read in a long time' -- ***** Reader review 'Read it and read it again, then read it again and then again' -- *****…
