Our favourite books in the creativity field.
 

Rob Bevan & Tim Wright

  Unleash Your Creativity.  
Quite simply one of the best creativity books we've seen in a long time. There are 52 short chapters (handily one a week if your mind works well with that sort of structure). Each section is a different idea to enhance and open up your creativity. One of the reasons we really like this book is that there's a different focus to many other creativity books. It's not about culture or techniques, but about environment and personal development, complementing many other books. Excellent. New 1 December 2004

Edward de Bono

  Mind Pack.
Quite different from the rest of de Bono's output, this pack and its companion provide everything you need to exercise the brain, with a series of games and puzzles and the accompanying objects to make it work. Usable by most ages, the mind pack is a useful way to give the brain a workout. Don't be put off by the glossy Dorling Kindersley presentation. New 11 April 2000

  Super Mind Pack.
More mind packing, Super Mind Pack is a follow up to de Bono's successful Mind Pack. Another complete circuit training course for your imagination. New 11 April 2000

Six Thinking Hats.
This de Bono classic defines a very effective way of managing a meeting by splitting the group interaction into six different styles and allowing the participants to actively manage the process. If you are only going to buy one de Bono, buy this one.

Serious Creativity.
The de Bono book that pulls it all together, summarising a range of creativity techniques and methods. A very dry, serious approach to creativity as the title suggests, railing against the more extreme, Californian-style, let it all hang out creativity. A useful round-up of techniques. NB includes 6 Hats, so don't buy both!

Tony Buzan

Mind Maps at Work.
One of Tony Buzan's more recent books on mind maps, and probably the best one now to get into this superbly effective means of recording and structuring information that is ideal in creative situation.

The Mind Map Book. with Barry Buzan
Tony Buzan didn't invent this style of diagram, but he did invent the term. The Mind Map Book is a beautiful illustration of this powerful technique for note taking, structuring information and enhancing memory.

Guy Claxton

Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind.
This is one of the few books around that manages to explain why we think in the ways that we do and why some styles of thinking are more effective in certain circumstances than others. It is well written, easy to read and extremely informative. Claxton emphasises the need to sometimes move away from conscious effort to solve problems, to let the 'undermind' work. New 13 January 1999

Brian Clegg

Creativity and Innovation for Managers.
A practical agenda for bringing creativity into your company. Looks at what business creativity is, how it can benefit the company, how to get the most out of it and how to encourage it. New 22 April 1999

  Instant Brainpower.  
An easy to use action kit, bursting with exercises that will help you to make the most of a unique asset: your brain. Full of simple, proven techniques that will help you find fresh ideas and solutions, and to enhance your personal creativity, improve your memory and stretch your knowledge management.. New 14 October 1999

Brian Clegg and Paul Birch

Crash Course in Creativity. 
A personal creativity development course featuring 150 exercises and techniques from Instant Creativity, Instant Teamwork and Instant Brainpower, plus guided reading and Web links to expand your creativity skills.- Published September 2002

Imagination Engineering.
An innovative guide to business creativity, providing a framework and toolkit for making creativity happen. Very practical, fun and readable.

Instant Creativity.
A packed kit of creativity techniques in the Instant format, allowing you to pull out a technique to attack a problem or generate new ideas at a moment's notice. New 10 March 1999 Now available for immediate download as an Adobe Acrobat file: click here for details.

Peter Cook

  Best Practice Creativity.
An impressive overview of how creativity is being used in real companies. With an enjoyable, pragmatic rock 'n' roll metaphor, this large book makes the balance between the need to establish a creative culture and the techniques that can be used to enhance creativity. Get hold of this book and Creativity and Innovation for Managers, and you've got a must-have library for those looking to develop organizational creativity. New 10 November 2000

Suzanne Falter-Barns

   How much joy can you stand.
This is one of the most unusual creativity books around. Most of the books we recommend are strongly oriented to creativity from a business viewpoint, but whatever you need creativity for has to start from the individual - and this book is about looking inside yourself and fanning the flames of your personal creativity. It's an excellent balance to some of the more technically minded creativity books and recommended for anyone who wants to make the most of their own creativity. New 27 May 2002

Eric von Hippel

 Democratizing Innovation.
If you can cope with a rather academic text it's well worth exploring Eric von Hippel's suggestion of the new direction innovation is taking, driven by users rather than original designers. He argues that environments like open systems have produced a new approach to innovation that we can all learn from. New 8 September 2005

Jacob Goldenberg & David Mazursky

  Creativity in Product Innovation.
A dull title doesn't necessarily mean a dull book (see our own woefully titled Creativity and Innovation for Managers, for example) - not even if it's written by academics, and though this is certainly no light read, Goldenberg and Mazursky's book has enough well worked examples to keep the interest. This book belongs in the slightly niche category of creativity aimed specifically at product innovation. It has links to the TRIZ methodology (see Systematic Innovation below and Rawlinson & Straker's How to Invent Almost Anything). This is very much the MBA style of creativity with 'Creative Templates' - n the authors' words: a well-defined ideation framework integrating three major invention-enabling perspectives - being applied to product innovation, and has been used from Phillips to Rubbermaid. The book is not cheap, but it is bound to be a requirement for every complete creativity library. New 21 May 2002

Creativity in Product Innovation. 

Lloyd King

Test Your Creative Thinking. 
A simple way to exercise your mental muscles  is take a regular dose of creative problem solving, and this book is packed with puzzles and problems, often requiring a bit of lateral thinking to come to a solution. There are also two creative thinking tests to assess your level of creativity. This is the best source we've come across for such puzzles and should be on the shelf of anyone who wants to improve their personal creativity. See 'more' for one proviso. New 18 July 2003

 Amazing Aha! Puzzles. 
More puzzles to stretch the brain. Probably the better of the two collections, though both are good. Without doubt useful to help exercise thinking creatively, but click on the More button above to get the full picture.. New 2 November 2004

Michael Michalko

Thinkertoys (Second Edition).
A large format, striking book with lots of exercises and mechanisms for encouraging creativity. Just too much in it for an end-to-end read, but works very well if you divide it up, using each chapter say on a daily basis. Where this book really wins is at improving individual creativity, helping the individual break down the barriers that get in the way of personal innovation - when it comes to this, it's simply the best.  New 20 August 2006

Michael Michalko

  Thinkpack (Second Edition).
Roger von Oech started it with his Whack Pack, and Michalko followed, putting his techniques into a pack of cards. It's a very good way to access creativity techniques and provides new opportunities for flexibility and combining different possibilities...   New 20 August 2006

Steve Morris and Jane Smith

  Understanding Mind Maps in a Week. 
Mind maps are probably the best method available to capture and structure ideas. This practical, compact book provides a quick entry into mind maps without overloading the reader with unnecessary content. New 13 November 2000

Donald Norman

The Psychology of Everyday Things.
Norman isn't a creativity person in the traditional sense, but this definitive book on product design looks at why some things are usable and others aren't, providing some essential insights for those who want to make the output of their creativity practical.

The Design of Everyday Things
We haven't seen a copy, but this appears to be an updated (?) paperback version of the same book. See also Norman's new book, Emotional Design:

Roger von Oech

A Whack on the Side of the Head.
Champion of the less formal style of business creativity, von Oech's approach may be a bit too zany for some European audiences, but he knows his stuff and puts it across with verve. Don't let the surface gloss put you off a very solid content.

Creative Whack Pack.
A creativity toolkit using von Oech's techniques. Comes in the form of a four suit pack with different cards representing different techniques. Excellent stimulation for a creativity session.

Innovative Whack Pack.
In 2003, von Oech added another card-based toolkit to his Whack Pack line. Each card has a saying from the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus, then a technique built around the saying. Like it's predecessor, an excellent stimulation for a creativity session. New 22 April 2004.

A Kick in the Seat of the Pants.
If you liked A Whack on the Side of the Head then you ought to have the sequel too. More of the same, but not simply a re-hash. Like its predecessor, the coffee table approach to a creativity book - but none the worse for it.

Alex Osborn

Applied Imagination.
The seminal book on practical creativity. Everyone else's creativity techniques have directly or indirectly been derived from Osborn's key thinking on how to stimulate creativity. Not the easiest book to read that we've got listed, but surprisingly easy nonetheless and absolutely deserves a place here as the source of it all. You ought to have a copy! New 13 January 1999; Updated 15 February 2004.

Tom Peters

The Circle of Innovation.
The old master does it again! Peters foray into innovation builds on his previous books and makes excellent use of the slides from his famous presentations to make a unique business book. Though not the ultimate creativity book (we modestly recommend Imagination Engineering), if you only have one book on how to do business, this is the one. New 28 June 1999

The Circle of Innovation.  New 28 June 1999

Tudor Rickards

Creativity and the Management of Change.
Generally speaking we take a very practical approach to creativity and don't tend to recommend books that are heavy on theory, but Tudor Rickards' book, tracing the history of the development of creative organizational change is worth the effort. He recommends it as a sort of 'post MBA' learning, but it would also be interesting to any creativity practitioner or organization that is interested in making changes to aid innovation. Would be very effective in combination with our DisOrganization, which takes a purely practical approach.  New 9 November 2001

Larisa V. Shavinina

 The International Handbook on Innovation.
There are books you buy for everyone in your team... and books you don't. This is one to share with a US price of over $200 or over £100 in the UK. But that doesn't mean you can ignore it. This massive 1500 page tome, written by over 90 authors from 17 countries, covers everything you might want to know in an academic sense about innovation, from its nature, development and management to the social and cultural context. New 8 October 2003

Paul Sloane

The Leader's Guide to Lateral Thinking Skills.
A very useful guide to for managers who want to transform their business with creativity and don't know where to begin. Although there's nothing really new in the material, Sloane's book is very readable and makes a strong case for leadership over management, giving plenty of detail on setting a vision for change, the techniques of creativity, implementation and organizing for creativity. It would be excellently complemented by books like our Imagination Engineering (which provides a framework for creativity, probably the biggest omission from Lateral Thinking Skills), Creativity and Innovation for Managers (to give more detail on getting creativity into the organizational culture) and Crash Course in Creativity (as a workbook for staff) - but it's an excellent starting point. New 22 May 2003

with Des MacHale

Sit and Solve Lateral Thinking Puzzles.
Lateral thinking puzzles provide a great way to tone up the mental muscles, but few us can sensibly schedule time for dedicated puzzle solving. This delightful little book suggests a way around this - as the shape of the book suggests, we've all got daily thinking time when we can fit in a puzzle or two. New 12 November 2003

Graham Rawlinson and David Straker

  How to Invent (Almost) Anything.
The authors modestly describe this as the most comprehensive manual for innovation ever written covering the science, psychology, art and process of innovation! What it certainly does provide is an excellent study of the nature of invention (as opposed to general idea generation), and the best English language introduction to the Russian TRIZ system for idea generation.  New 16 March 2003

Marci Segal

   Creativity and Personality Type: 
Subtitled tools for understanding and inspiring the many voices of creativity this is a refreshingly different approach to creativity. It contains the familiar tools, but there's a lot more focus on how the different Jungian personality types influence creativity, both in ourselves and in others - fascinating stuff. The very powerful argument is that each of us expresses our creative energy differently, and can tap into that energy with the appropriate guidance. Particularly interesting when put alongside the Creativity Unleashed book Disorganization, which looks at the use of an alternative personality type model on group creativity. New 26 February 2001

?What If!

  Sticky Wisdom 
Lots of valuable, useful material for those who want to be more creative in business. Good case studies from big and small names. Excellent, practical steps to take in order to free up your creativity. It's just such a shame that it looks like a Christmas card from a PR company and reads like one long pat on the back for the London-based consultancy '?What If!'. Yet it is still one of the best books around for a fresh look at creativity, so grit your teeth, put on your anti-PR dark glasses and enjoy. New 3 March 2003