Here are 100 books that The Creative Cure fans have personally recommended if you like
The Creative Cure.
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I’ve always loved fairytales, whimsical stories, and mysteries. Plus, I’m passionate about mind-expanding, heart-opening books that offer me new ways to understand myself and the Universe we live in. And I particularly like books that show me ways to have more of what brings me joy and pleasure. When I can get all of this in a novel I’m in heaven.
I was already familiar with two of the four agreements: “doing my best” and “keeping my word” but the idea of “never making assumptions,” and “not taking anything personally” were mind-blowing and they were a big gift to my nervous system.
I now understand that no one is waking up in the morning plotting ways to make me miserable and if I am miserable it is often because I took something personally or made a wrong assumption!
In The Four Agreements, bestselling author don Miguel Ruiz reveals the source of self-limiting beliefs that rob us of joy and create needless suffering. Based on ancient Toltec wisdom, The Four Agreements offer a powerful code of conduct that can rapidly transform our lives to a new experience of freedom, true happiness, and love.
• A New York Times bestseller for over a decade • Translated into 46 languages worldwide
“This book by don Miguel Ruiz, simple yet so powerful, has made a tremendous difference in how I think and act in every encounter.” — Oprah Winfrey
I’m a seeker and fascinated by spirituality. Books were among some of my best friends growing up and I’ve been reading and writing for as long as I can remember. I started my business Write On Creative in 2003 and have helped mission-driven business owners, entrepreneurs, and corporate leaders craft their messages, create marketing messages with integrity, and develop strategies to get their work out into the world. I firmly believe that business is personal so it makes sense that my first book released via the Write On Creative Publishing imprint is my story of healing with love. I live in magical, Ashland, Oregon and love spending time in nature.
Radical Remission was my go-to healing guide when faced with cancer.
What impressed me most about Dr. Kelly Turner is her ability to connect the dots and realize that spontaneous remission wasn’t actually spontaneous. She did extensive research to determine the 9 key factors that help people heal from cancer (and they are not what you might think).
This is a must-have for all resource libraries. I’m also deeply honored that my book was included in The Radical Remission Projects newsletter as recommended reading.
In her New York Times bestseller, Radical Remission: Surviving Cancer Against All Odds, Dr. Kelly A. Turner, founder of the Radical Remission Project, uncovers nine factors that can lead to a spontaneous remission from cancer—even after conventional medicine has failed.
While getting her Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkley, Dr. Turner, a researcher, lecturer, and counselor in integrative oncology, was shocked to discover that no one was studying episodes of radical (or unexpected) remission—when people recover against all odds without the help of conventional medicine, or after conventional medicine has failed. She was so fascinated by this kind of…
I’m a seeker and fascinated by spirituality. Books were among some of my best friends growing up and I’ve been reading and writing for as long as I can remember. I started my business Write On Creative in 2003 and have helped mission-driven business owners, entrepreneurs, and corporate leaders craft their messages, create marketing messages with integrity, and develop strategies to get their work out into the world. I firmly believe that business is personal so it makes sense that my first book released via the Write On Creative Publishing imprint is my story of healing with love. I live in magical, Ashland, Oregon and love spending time in nature.
While I am a big fan of the entire body of work that Neale Donald Walsch has produced, I highly recommend What God Said.
This book encapsulates the 25 core messages from the Conversations With God series and anchors in the truth that God is not at all what many organizations claim. It was, quite honestly, difficult to pick just one book by Neale.
A couple of other favorites are God's Message to the World, You’ve Got Me All Wrong, and The God Solution: The Power of Pure Love. All of his books are must-reads for anyone who wants to deepen their relationship with God in a new way.
I’ve had the great honor of attending a spiritual retreat hosted by Neal and that was even more life-changing. I’m also incredibly grateful that Neale read my book Spiritual Sugar and provided a beautiful afterword that brought me to tears.
Inspired by his nine-book Conversations with God series, many people have asked Neale Donald Walsch to find a way to deliver the most essential pieces of God’s message to us in a more succinct way.
The result is a concise text detailing and expanding just what we need to know about life and how to live it. Bringing their many conversations over the years into sharper focus than ever before, Walsch in What God Said encourages readers to cast aside religious and cultural trappings.…
These are the books that changed my life and were the catalyst for a change in career from litigation attorney to life coach. I am also a Friendship expert who is currently traveling the US, meeting a stranger in every state to share a meal with. These books align with the way I live and the energy and lessons that I hope to share with everyone I meet. These are not just books to entertain but also books that have helped me get through some difficult times in life and have helped me find real purpose and meaning in the way I move through life.
This book changed my life. This is the book that taught me the power of journaling.
I found the journal prompts that the book offers to be useful and appreciate that they provided a guide that helped me define my core beliefs and taught me to listen to my inner voice in a way that brought about an easy method to figure out not only what is truly important to me but this method also helped me to define my goals and purpose in a no-fuss bare bones way.
This book was the catalyst that eventually led me to my career as a life coach.
Your bucket list. Quarterly objectives. Strategic plans. Big dreams. Goals. Lots of goals and plans to achieve those goals-no matter what. Except ...
You're not chasing the goal itself, you're actually chasing the feeling that you hope achieving that goal will give you.
Which means we have the procedures of achievement upside down. We go after the stuff we want to have, get, or accomplish, and we hope that we'll be fulfilled when we get there. It's backwards. And it's burning us out.
So what if you first got clear on how you actually wanted to feel in your life,…
I strive to inspire others through my writing, yoga card decks, and workshops; therefore, I’m passionate about finding inspiration and passing it on to others. For me discovering a dose of wise counsel or learning how someone else endured and overcame challenging times is a lifeline…especially when I feel hopelessly stuck. These 5 books are a balm for the soul, quieting the negative self-talk long enough to clear a path to joy, optimism, and creativity. I hope these recommendations bring the same sense of inspiration for you…just when you need it most!
This wise and wonderful little book humorously holds up a mirror to the self-sabotaging techniques that can snap a fledgling idea right off the vine. (Procrastination, anyone?) Each page features “advice,” along with hilarious illustrations, on how not tobe creative, and has me ROTFLMAO with recognition. Here are some faves: “Smoke a lot of dope for inspiration. Forget why it’s called dope. Forget your inspirations.” “Compare your work to the masterworks of the great masters.” “The minute you have an idea, ask yourself: How much cold, hard cash is it worth?” “Take seriously every negative thing anyone says.” (To wit, “That ain’t art, sister.”) With a wink and the perfect amount of reverse psychology, this whimsical book skillfully catapults me out of a creative funk!
In How to Avoid Making Art, the bestselling author of The Artist's Way delivers a (tongue-in-cheek!) guide to doing anything and everything you possibly can to avoid making art. Anyone who is engaged in a creative pursuit will no doubt identify with these wonderful cartoons by award-winning artist Elizabeth Cameron of creative wannabes doing everything except actually getting down to work.
"For most people creativity is a serious business," says Julia Cameron. "They forget the telling phrase 'the play of ideas' and think that they need to knuckle down and work more. Often, the reverse is true. They need to…
I’ve been obsessed with the creative process since I was 8 and read Harriet the Spy and realized her writing saved her and after I spied on one of my parent’s cocktail parties and wondered why everybody was so dull (I was so cheeky). Still, it’s the quest that drives me: how do we be fully ourselves in this world and how does creativity help? I explore this question on my podcast Create Out Loud and in my weekly newsletter, and these books have helped me formulate, if not answers, creative and mindful practices that sustain me daily. I hope they inspire you too.
This is one of those secret gems of a book that hardly anybody has heard of but after you read it, you’ll be giving multiple copies away to every creative you know. Rich with real-life examples from working artists and writers, and Priscilla’s long history as a working creative and teacher, I have underlined an idea or suggestion on almost every page.
Minding the Muse is a practical handbook for the artist or writer—highly experienced, aspiring, or somewhere in between. Long draws from her extensive background as a poet, writer, and master teacher, but also gathers the insights and practices of a wide range of high-achieving artists, including mystery writer Raymond Chandler, choreographer Twyla Tharp, poet and performance artist Patti Smith, and the painter Joan Miró. Beginning with the first sparks of artistic creation—“Gathering, Hoarding, Conceptualizing”—Long moves through the various stages to “Completing Works” and “Poet as Peddler, Painter as Pusher: Marketing.” Every creative worker will find something here to take to…
I began exploring the topic of creativity after my mother’s death in 2010. Mom was an extremely creative woman. The mother of ten children, living in poverty, she was a self-taught artist who managed to beautify her simple home with her art, building a home business selling paintings, woodcarvings, wall hangings, and quilts she created. When I began speaking to groups of women about creativity, I was shocked to discover just how few of them saw themselves as creative. Thus began my odyssey into creativity research and therapeutic art, and the resulting book and workshops that inspire and encourage others to discover their creative self.
This book is perfect for anyone who likes to see research that supports what they believe. There’s science behind the study of creativity and Wired to Create does an excellent job explaining it. Based on psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman’s groundbreaking research, this book offers a glimpse inside the “messy minds” of highly creative people. Kaufman and Carolyn Gregoire study the latest findings of neuroscience and psychology, and the practices of well-known “creatives,” concluding that we are all, in some way, wired for creating, and everyday life presents endless opportunities to express that.
Is it possible to make sense of something as elusive as creativity?
Based on psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman’s groundbreaking research and Carolyn Gregoire’s popular article in the Huffington Post, Wired to Create offers a glimpse inside the “messy minds” of highly creative people. Revealing the latest findings in neuroscience and psychology, along with engaging examples of artists and innovators throughout history, the book shines a light on the practices and habits of mind that promote creative thinking. Kaufman and Gregoire untangle a series of paradoxes— like mindfulness and daydreaming, seriousness and play, openness and sensitivity, and solitude and collaboration –…
Alongside writing, I’ve been running workshops, teaching and mentoring writers for nearly twenty years, helping people get unstuck and keep going. So I spend most of my working life thinking about creativity and writing—then suddenly I, too, couldn’t write the book I needed to write. Every book in this list is about not-writing for different reasons, in different circumstances, but between them they tell us so much about how we write, why we write, how we get writing to happen—and what’s happening when we can’t. These very different stories resonate with each other, and I hope some of them resonate with you.
There are lots of how-to-write books with a chapter or two on motivation, inspiration, perspiration, and how to get over writer’s block. But The Artist’s Way is all about what’s happening when the creative part of your life gets stuck, or never started in the first place. It goes to the sources of your human creative energy, and helps you to understand how to find them and feed them, and then how to unblock the channels which prevent that energy from actually flowing into your art, writing, or anything else. You can work your way through the book to establish a creative practice or, like me, return to it at different times, cherry-picking her ideas and processes to suit different kinds of stuckness.
'I love it. A practical, spiritual, nurturing book.' - Russell Brand
Since its first publication, The Artist's Way has inspired the genius of Elizabeth Gilbert, Tim Ferriss, Reese Witherspoon and millions of readers to embark on a creative journey and find a deeper connection to process and purpose. Julia Cameron guides readers in uncovering problems and pressure points that may be restricting their creative flow and offers techniques to open up opportunities for self-growth and self-discovery.
A revolutionary programme for personal renewal, The Artist's Way will help get you back on track, rediscover your passions, and take the steps you…
The start of my own online teaching business in 2010 felt both liberating and frustrating. I enjoyed working for myself but struggled to make my offers unique, attractive, sustainable, and successful. I had no idea how to make my voice heard in the highly-saturated and fast-growing online teaching industry. Following the advice of famous online business gurus, I lost track of what I wanted my business to accomplish and burned out following every online teaching trend there was. The books I’ve selected helped me align with my own vision and values, inspired me to overcome my limitations and succeed on my own terms.
I met the author, Adam J. Kurz, at a conference for creatives, and his story of starting and growing his creative business inspired me to buy this book. In the book Adam shares tiny, easy-to-read tips for creatives who want to share their work with the world in their own unique and authentic way. Each page of the book is perforated so you can tear it out and send it as a small reminder to a friend. I love the message in the title – things are what you make of them – and this book offers you a unique perspective on failure, success, creative block, fear, starting again, and organizing your work life so you can enjoy it.
"Adam J. Kurtz wants you to feel better. About yourself. About the world. About the creative process." -Adweek
Insights and inspiration for anyone who makes art (or anything else) from someone who's been there (and maybe still is).
From the creative mind and heart of designer Adam J. Kurtz comes this upbeat rallying cry for creators of all stripes. Expanding on a series of popular essays, this handwritten and heartfelt book shares wisdom and empathy from one working artist to others in his signature tone: empathetic, vulnerable, inclusive, and conversational. Perforated tear-and-share pages make it easy to display the most…
I've been making messes with paint, string, and words, as well as in love, mothering, and in virtually every other way imaginable my whole life. Eventually, an expertise began to grow, and the confusion in my life began to make sense through my creations, while at the same time, the seemingly irrelevant words and textures I was making started to tell me something about my life. Eventually, my lived experience and training in the Expressive Arts Therapies have led me to the roles of teacher, educator, and contemplative artist. If we pay attention to what we express and how we express things, we can find our way through any mess we find ourselves in.
Of all the creative self-help books out there, Twyla Tharp’s perspective stands out as one fueled by awareness and curiosity rather than grit and force.
For me, this gentler, more curious cultivation of creativity has proved sustaining as opposed to the conventional wisdom that suggests life must be pushed away or overcome to create. As a choreographer and dancer, her wisdom on building a life of creative expression is broad and encompassing, focusing on how one interacts with the world rather than the products one creates.
The inspiration in this book is followed up with practices that have changed the way I approach seeing the world, focusing my thoughts, and allowing the creative process to transport me to surprising places.
What makes someone creative? How does someone face the empty page, the empty stage and making something where nothing existed before? Not just a dilemma for the artist, it is something everyone faces everyday. What will I cook that isn't boring? How can I make that memo persuasive? What sales pitch will increase the order, get me the job, lock in that bonus? These too, are creative acts, and they all share a common need: proper preparation. For Twyla Tharp, creativity is no mystery; it's the product of hard work and preparation, of knowing one's aims and one's subject, of…
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