Here are 68 books that Peak fans have personally recommended if you like
Peak.
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I have been addicted to reverse engineering things since I was a kid. I wrote The Creative Curve to reverse engineer the science of creativity. What could academic research teach us about creativity? If we talked to some of the world’s leading creatives, what would they tell us? My goal is to help readers unlock the part of them (that, as I argue, we all have) that is creative. When I’m not writing, I invest in tech startups that I think will leverage the principles from my book. I live in New York City with my mischievous, but incredibly adorable corgi Maven.
In The Practice, Godin successfully does that “thing,” that he is so uniquely good at: sharing wisdom with panache and joy, not condescension or cliché. He artfully argues for the creative to better empathize with their audience, and in doing so, create better art. Since, creativity is nothing without impact.
From the bestselling author of Purple Cow and This is Marketing comes an elegant little book that will inspire artists, writers, and entrepreneurs to stretch and commit to putting their best work out into the world.
Creative work doesn't come with a guarantee. But there is a pattern to who succeeds and who doesn't. And engaging in the consistent practice of its pursuit is the best way forward.
Based on the breakthrough Akimbo workshop pioneered by legendary author Seth Godin, The Practice will help you get unstuck and find the courage to make and share creative work. Godin insists that…
The Victorian mansion, Evenmere, is the mechanism that runs the universe.
The lamps must be lit, or the stars die. The clocks must be wound, or Time ceases. The Balance between Order and Chaos must be preserved, or Existence crumbles.
Appointed the Steward of Evenmere, Carter Anderson must learn the…
My journey into art began as a serendipitous discovery that unfolded through curiosity. As a “can’t-be-tamed” creative, I understand the tug-of-war artists feel – craving to learn skills and create “quality” pieces, while also thumbing the snooze-fest of sticking to one thing. Been there, done that, got the paint-splattered t-shirt. This has ignited a passion for encouraging others to find their own creative voice, as I've navigated the same path while building a multifaceted career in watercolor, gouache, line drawing, urban sketching, brush lettering, and calligraphy…need I go on? The thing is, I will because there is still so much to be explored.
I can't recommend this book highly enough, and here's why: it completely shattered my misconceptions about originality in the creative process. Kleon's candid and approachable narrative made me realize that all art is, in some form, a reinterpretation or recombination of what already exists.
This book came into my life at a pivotal moment, just when I was grappling with the dreaded "impostor syndrome" and the paralyzing belief that everything I created needed to be unprecedented. Kleon's perspective is liberating. He argues that embracing influences and integrating them into your work is not only acceptable but essential for creativity.
When asked to talk to students at Broome Community College in upstate New York in the spring of 2011, Austin Kleon wrote a simple list often things he wished he'd heard when he was their age: 'Steal like an artist; Don't wait until you know who you are to start making things; Write the book you want to read; Use your hands; Side projects are important; Do good work and put it where people can see it; Geography is no longer our master; Be nice (the world is a small town.); Be boring (it's the only way to get work…
I’ve spent my career building products, scaling companies, and leading teams through the highs and lows of entrepreneurship. I know firsthand how challenging it is to take an idea and turn it into something real—whether that’s a product, a company, or a movement. The books on this list have shaped my approach to leadership, innovation, and resilience. They’ve helped me navigate tough decisions, build stronger teams, and think bigger. I’m passionate about sharing these insights because I believe great builders aren’t just born—they’re made. If you’re looking to create something meaningful, these books will push you, challenge you, and inspire you to build something great.
This book changed how I think about leadership and creativity. I’ve always believed that great products come from great teams, and this book reinforced that. Ed Catmull’s insights on building a culture where people feel safe enough to take risks and speak the truth made me rethink how I run teams.
The Braintrust—a space where candid feedback is not just encouraged but expected—stood out. I still come back to this book when shaping teams and cultures. It’s a must-read for leaders who want to build not just great products but great environments where creativity thrives.
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' -- *****…
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
Throughout my career, I’ve come across so many everyday people with awesome ideas of life-changing potential for a select group of people. And most of them struggle to reach the people they can most help. This is such an incredible shame! I’m passionate about connecting those entrepreneurs and business owners who have great ideas with the people who will most benefit from their solutions, so both parties win. A big part of that is ensuring their marketing engages their target audience, hence this book list.
No one can truly predict what will go viral, and honestly, I don’t aim for virality—my focus is on reaching a specific audience, not the masses. That said, I did want to understand the factors that make content more shareable. I wanted to craft content that resonates deeply while encouraging organic sharing, and Contagious provided a wealth of insights to achieve exactly that.
Jonah provides many examples and explains the science of why people share things in a way that I found fascinating and practical. I walked away with clear strategies for adding more share-worthy elements to my content without sacrificing authenticity or integrity.
Why are some products and ideas talked about more than others? Why do some articles make the most emailed list? Why do some YouTube videos go viral? Word-of-mouth. Whether through face-to-face conversations, emails from friends, or online product reviews, the information and opinions we get from others have a strong impact on our own behaviour. Indeed, word-of-mouth generates more than two times the sales of paid advertising and is the primary factor behind 20-50% of all purchasing decisions.It is between 8.5 and 30 times more effective than traditional media.But want to know the best thing about word-of-mouth? It's available to…
I am a passionate learner; passionate, not for knowledge, but for what Anders Ericsson calls “know-how.” I love to learn how to do things– especially writing craft techniques. These fascinate me because every technique and every skill I practice and master makes me better at the real work of writing: communication. In many of today’s writing workshops, aspiring writers are told to focus on themselves and their feelings. This is idiotic: expert writing is not about you; it’s about making things happen in other people—in their intellects and imaginations, in their hearts, even in their bodies. To make that happen, you need skills, skills anyone can learn through dedicated practice.
Had this book not been written, I would probably never have learned about Professor K. Anders Ericsson and his research; my own work—even my life—would have been much poorer. Colvin’s book (appearing years before Peak) was the first to introduce Ericsson to a wide audience. Although many similar books followed, in my mind, this is the best. It’s extremely well-researched and written, full of lively anecdotes and fascinating information about how “world-class performers” get to that level.
I especially enjoyed Colvin’s story of how Benjamin Franklin trained himself to become a better writer by imitating the work of the best stylists of his day. Imitation of experts, as Anders Ericsson later discovered, turns out to be a key technique for gaining expertise in any activity.
Since its publication ten years ago, businesspeople, investors, doctors, parents, students, athletes, and musicians at every level have adopted the maxims of Talent Is Overrated to get better at what they’re passionate about. Now this classic has been updated and revised with new research and takeaways to help anyone achieve even greater performance.
Why are certain people so incredibly great at what they do? Most of us think we know the answer—but we’re almost always wrong. That’s important, because if we’re wrong on this crucial question, then we have zero chance of getting significantly better at…
I’ve founded companies, shut them down (then rebuilt my life), and coached hundreds of executives and founders through their own turning points. Those experiences taught me that resilience isn’t about bouncing back after hard things happen to you. It’s about being open to what can happen through you, including growth, clarity, curiosity, and conviction. That’s why I wrote Rethinking Resilience and why I return to these books often. Each one has helped me see strength, adaptability, and curiosity as intentional and sustainable traits—not something we summon only after crisis. I’m passionate about helping leaders move from reaction to intention and turn pressure into power, and I think this list captures that shift perfectly.
I recommend this book because it completely flips the idea of resilience.
Taleb argues that we shouldn’t aim to be unbreakable. Instead, we should aim to grow stronger from stress and volatility. I don’t agree with every example (and it’s dense at times), but it’s one of those books that forces me to think differently about systems, teams, and even my own mindset.
It’s a powerful reminder that disruption isn’t the enemy, stagnation is.
'Really made me think about how I think' - Mohsin Hamid, author of Exit West
Tough times don't last. Tough people do.
In The Black Swan, Taleb showed us that highly improbable and unpredictable events underlie almost everything about our world. Here Taleb stands uncer tainty on its head, making it desirable, even necessary. The antifragile is beyond the resilient or robust. The resil ient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better and better.
Just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension, many things in life benefit from stress, disorder, volatility, and turmoil.…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
Art, technology, and science…I have been seamlessly traversing domains all my life. I grew up with twin interests in physical sciences and visual arts, finding beauty in math and art and seeing creativity as being one thing rather than something living in compartments. Art influenced my research in chaos and complexity, and blurring boundaries characterized my work as dean of engineering when creating educational/research initiatives in design, art, entrepreneurship, energy, and sustainability. I also received visible external recognition as a Guggenheim Fellow and member of both the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Sciences, as well as the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
This book will capture your imagination and dazzle your senses with deep scholarship.
Deep exploration of creative outputs at their maximum states, the state of “flow”, condensing Csikszentmihalyi’s thirty years of research and nearly one hundred interviews with exceptionally creative people, spanning science, business, and art, in all of their dimensions. Creativity in art, technology, and science, perceived by many as being different types of creativity, revealed, at its core, to be the same.
“Although the benefits of this study to scholars are obvious, this thought-provoking mixture of scholarly and colloquial will enlighten inquisitive general readers, too.” — Library Journal (starred review)
The classic study of the creative process from the bestselling author of Flow.
Creativity is about capturing those moments that make life worth living. Legendary psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (“The leading researcher into ‘flow states.’” — Newsweek) reveals what leads to these moments—be it the excitement of the artist at the easel or the scientist in the lab—so that this knowledge can be used to enrich people's lives. Drawing on nearly one hundred…
Since I was 8 years old starting my journey to master the skill of playing the piano, my whole life has been devoted to two things: to constantly learn and to master new skills, and to help others achieve things they didn't think they were capable of. My journey has taken me through most if not all types of neurosciences and behavioral sciences, including psychology and psychiatry, to figure out how to manage your mind and body to live a life of learning. The lack of commitment to such a life is one of the reasons why so many people suffer from dissatisfaction and mental health issues.
The Pyramid Principle is about problem-solving and communication, two areas completely decisive for anyone who has the ambition to get the most out of their personal and professional lives.
It offers practical advice on how to organize your ideas and present them in a clear and persuasive manner. It provides a framework for effective problem-solving communication that can be applied to a variety of contexts, from business writing to presentations and speeches.
It might be a stretch to call me an expert in ethics, but I have taught ethics for more than 30 years and I’ve read deeply in the field of behavioral ethics. I'm proud of the work I’ve done with the Ethics Unwrapped video project, though most of the credit goes to filmmakers Cara Biasucci (co-author of Behavioral Ethics in Practice: Why We Sometimes Make the Wrong Decisions) and Lazaro Hernandez (producer ofEthics Unwrapped). My passion for this topic is driven largely by the fact that I want my two daughters to live in a world where most people are trying to do the right thing most of the time.
Yale professor John Bargh is a wonderful writer and a great storyteller.
We all know that our minds operate at both a conscious and an unconscious level, but not until I read this book did I realize how much happens at the unconscious level and that this helps explain everything from how getting a flu shot affects our attitudes toward immigration to how having power can induce us to try to unfairly advantage people we perceive to be like us at the expense of “out-group” members.
'John Bargh's Before You Know It moves our understanding of the mysteries of human behaviour one giant step forward. A brilliant and convincing book.' - Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink and David and Goliath
How much of what we say, feel and do is under our conscious control? How much is not? And most crucial of all: if we understood how our unconscious worked - if we knew why we do what we do - could we finally, fundamentally, know ourselves?
From checking a dating app to holding a cup of coffee or choosing who to vote for, our unconscious…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I am a passionate learner; passionate, not for knowledge, but for what Anders Ericsson calls “know-how.” I love to learn how to do things– especially writing craft techniques. These fascinate me because every technique and every skill I practice and master makes me better at the real work of writing: communication. In many of today’s writing workshops, aspiring writers are told to focus on themselves and their feelings. This is idiotic: expert writing is not about you; it’s about making things happen in other people—in their intellects and imaginations, in their hearts, even in their bodies. To make that happen, you need skills, skills anyone can learn through dedicated practice.
My debt to this book is huge, and my gratitude to Professor Tufte is boundless. From this book, I learned much of what I now know about the possibilities of the English sentence. Appositives, nominative absolutes, left- and right-branching sentences, inversions: These techniques and many more became a regular part of my writing practice. I delighted in exploring them and seeing what they could do for my writing.
Eventually, I became familiar enough with them to be able to pass them on–through practices I invented and taught my students. Undergrads, graduate students, working adults, aspiring creative writers: they all benefited. Eventually, these same techniques and practices took book form in my book above.
In Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style,Virginia Tufte shows how standard sentence patterns and forms contribute to meaning and art in more than a thousand wonderful sentences from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The book has special interest for aspiring writers, students of literature and language, and anyone who finds joy in reading and writing.
". . . Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style, generally recognized as the best study of sentence style."--Brooks Landon, University of Iowa, in Building Useful Sentences, page 122.
