Isaac Morehouse April 15, 2014 at 11:28 am

I’d love to hear your book recs.  The first two that come to mind for me are, “The Act of Creation” by Arthur Koestler (one of the best books I’ve ever read period), and the works of Christopher Alexander, including “A Timeless Way of Building” and “Pattern Language”.

Robert Nathan May 9, 2014 at 8:23 pm

Koestler’s book is in my library. Universal Traveler is another good one. I’m also a fan of Betty Edward’s book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.

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Jeffrey Tucker May 10, 2014 at 12:08 pm

I loved IMAGINE by Jonah Lehrer. But after it came out that he had fakes some quotes by Bob Dylan, and had recycled blogs (not sure why that is a problem) the book was unpublished. It’s now very expensive!

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Isaac Morehouse May 10, 2014 at 12:14 pm

Bummer!  I wonder if some other, more radical publisher would be willing to republish it…;-)

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Andy Bratton May 10, 2014 at 12:15 pm

Creative Confidence by Tom and David Kelley (David’s the founder of IDEO, the Product Design Firm that helped get Apple’s first line of Macbooks off the ground in the 90s) is really great and focuses on promoting design thinking in everyday life. Tom also wrote The Art of Innovation, which I’m just now getting into and is pretty awesome so far!

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David Montgomery May 10, 2014 at 12:23 pm

I find memorizing poetry and listening (closely) to music helps me be creative.

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Jeffrey Tucker May 10, 2014 at 12:29 pm

My ideas come from completely unexpected times and places. Could be anything. Like that P2P article came to me after snapping one image and sending it around. I had a sudden realization of what that meant.

So if I ever feel dry of new thought, I get out a bit, go to some random store, or just generally put new things into my brain to stir up the dust a bit.

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Dave Burns May 11, 2014 at 12:37 am

I enjoyed The War of Art By Steven Pressfield so much I bought it after reading a copy from the public library. I’m not sure it actually helped me much, but I loved reading it.
Six Thinking Hats By Edward de Bono, or Lateral Thinking, same author, for a geeky treatment of how to surprise yourself.

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Isaac Morehouse May 12, 2014 at 8:52 am

I’m with you Jeff.  And Koestler’s book is full of such anectdotes to highlight one of his main points – that the eureka moment is when to separate matrices of thought collide (your retail shopping and your economic theorizing, for example).  The subconscious is at work on things all the time, and engaging in something totally unrelated to the creative task at hand can often reveal connections and inspire!

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Roger Browne May 12, 2014 at 9:40 am

I second Isaac’s recommendation of A Pattern Language.

Also, Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead is mostly about carrying out the creative act with integrity.

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B.K. Marcus May 14, 2014 at 2:38 pm

Bookworm hangout tonight (Wednesday, 5/14) at 8 PM ET?

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Robert Nathan June 2, 2014 at 4:11 pm

Here are a couple more:

Experiences in Visual thinking

Design Drawing

Conceptual Blockbusting

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