Creative Life Series: My Favourite Books on Creativity

As we start to near the end of my Creative Life series, I'd like to bring your attention to one of the main pillars of my own creative soul - books. You all know how much I love books, and I really love books about creativity. I've racked up quite a reading list over the past few years, and here are some titles that I return to over and over. It's so comforting to think that if you have any of these to hand, you need never be without inspiration or your creative mojo ever again!

 

I love Keri Smith. I bought this book, Living Out Loud: Activities to Fuel a Creative Life in 2007, and it changed my whole perception on how grown ups create and view the world. I realised I had lost that unique magical perspective kids take on life, and I was inspired to start embracing creativity through play once again. This book contains all sorts of fun activities (and stickers. STICKERS!) and I must have come back to it dozens of times in the last six years. 

Speaking of which...

If you're nervous about being free and messy in your creativity, I wholly recommend you get yourself one of these. Keri Smith is a genius. Fact. 

Next up, a more refined, disciplined approach to creativity. Twyla Tharp is a professional dancer and choreographer, and I must admit that her book The Creative Habit: Learn it and Use it For Life took me a little perseverance to get into at first, and I ended up listening to the audiobook as well. Once I did, I was hooked, and really found myself identifying with Twyla's way of thinking. This really is a book about habits, which of course can be hard to form, but if you want to make creativity an everyday habit in your life and work, this book is really worth investing your attention. 

 

One of the bastions of the world of books on creativity is Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity; a book I've mentioned a few times on this blog. Don't be put off by the quasi-religious undertones, Cameron makes it clear that spiritual leanings are not necessary to getting the most out of this course-in-a-book. The way I practise creativity is based heavily on what I garnered from this book. From the concept of morning pages to the idea of the artist's date, if you want to become more creative you really can't fail with this one. I've even backed my copy to stop it wearing out with use. 

 

Time for a fun one. Jurgen Wolff is a rather clever thinker, and here he's come up with one of those 'dip into any page for instant inspiration' books. A lot of ideas in these sorts of books can be a little samey, especially if you read lots of them like I do, but this one genuinely contains lots of fresh notions, and it acts as an excellent confidence booster too. It also introduced me to this! 

So those are my staples. Now for a couple currently on my Kindle:

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I'll report back when I've finished them both! Do you have any recommended books on the subject of being creative? I'd love to hear them!