100 Books Like The Creative Act

In the year after my father’s death in a car crash, I was a young person in New York, trying to break into the world of magazine journalism.

I had been given half of an insurance settlement after my dad’s crash, which I used to survive while I applied for jobs every day. I was too zoned out to work at the time. But one thing I did do a lot of was read. I started with a book recommended by Sharon Stone on Oprah. The Alchemist.

What I loved the most about Santiago’s journey was the unexpected lessons that reveal his true path, the omens he finds along the way, and the belief he develops that when you go after your heart’s desire, the universe supports you.

All of these ideas would end up in my book, 20 years later, and this is because The Alchemist saved my… show more.

This book gripped me with a host of difficult questions and sorrowful insights into women’s health, racism, science, and medical systems in the USA. It reveals the impact of a previously unknown woman, Henrietta Lacks, who died in 1951, and whose cervical cancer cells were taken without her consent, and then, without any acknowledgement, used by researchers and laboratories to develop numerous treatments, drugs, and experiments.

It made me confront hard questions about class, race, gender, medical ethics, profit, and confidentiality. It is a brutal and detailed read, enhanced by the involvement of her family story, as they later discovered the theft and were to confront her immortality. A must-read by a plucky author. 

I can’t recommend books about storytelling without including this masterwork. Anyone who works in storytelling will face times when their creative well is dry, and this book is the solution. I’ve run into quite a few moments in my life when tragedy and trauma prevented me from being my most creative self.

Whether I was dealing with personal or professional struggles, this book has always been able to bring me back to my authentic, creative self. I’ve done this “program of artist recovery” both alone and with a group (which Cameron calls a “creative cluster”), and it’s been just as successful each time. I even force my MFA writing students to do the “Artist Dates” explained in this book, and they always thank me later. 

This book was like a trusted mentor in book form, helping me craft content that’s clear, engaging, and downright effective. Ann strips away the boring writing advice everyone seems to give and delivers practical advice (which aligns with my own copywriting philosophy) with warmth and wit. It’s not just about grammar or structure—it’s about connecting with your audience in a way that feels authentic.

What I loved most is how versatile this book is. Whether I’m writing blog posts, website copy, or emails, I’m always using something Ann taught me. Her book is packed with actionable tips and relatable examples, and her conversational tone made it a joy to read. This is another book in my toolkit that I flick through whenever I need inspiration.

As in my second recommendation, Harari adds the historical perspective to humanity’s survival.

The coming battle with AI is just the latest for humans. One hundred thousand years ago, at least six humanoid species inhabited the Earth and battled for survival. Today there is just one. Us. Homo sapiens.

Harari does a beautiful job of explaining how our species succeed in the battle for dominance. He describes how our foraging ancestors come together to create cities and kingdoms; how did we come to believe in gods, nations, and human rights; to trust money, books, and laws; and to be enslaved by bureaucracy, timetables, and consumerism?

We need to understand our past to properly control our future with AI.

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. 

I loved reading about grit–that “passion plus perseverance toward long-term goals” is the key to success–by Angela Duckworth, who pioneered the concept. I particularly loved reading the section in her book, Parenting for Grit, which supports the parenting style of every parent I interviewed who raised entrepreneurial children.

Rather than Permissive Parenting or Authoritarian Parenting, she supports what she calls Wise Parenting, when there’s a “carefully struck balance between affection and respect on the one hand and firmly enforced expectations on the other.”

This classic is my go-to for the challenges of living the creative life and how to push through them.

In short, punchy chapters, it identifies the main source of blocks writers and artists have and how to push through them.

I love its approach to the workmanlike attitude one needs to have to create consistently and move toward a goal, and how to be clear-eyed about the inner “resistence” we all have that seems to want to stop us.

This one didn’t change my life, but it did provide me with a no-nonsense guide to pesky things like conjunctions and clauses, superlatives and synonyms, prepositions and pronouns, and, obviously, alliteration. Ha. 

What I liked most about this book is that it isn’t written like a textbook. I read what is widely considered to be the writer's bible, The Elements of Style by William Struck and E.B. White, and considered giving up on my dream of becoming a writer because the book made me feel as if only someone with an Einstein-like intellect could write. 

But, as Mr. King wrote, the story is what matters; everything else is just dressing. But in saying that, being able to string together sentences helps (I think my jokes are funny, but no one else does), and this book gives a simple explanation of how to make your copy sing.

As someone who studied history and who loves color, this book is the perfect hybrid of color with depth! Not only are there several unique shades of colors (it goes way beyond ROYGBIV), but the origins and historical context of them were fascinating!

It really helped me learn so much more about color. The biggest takeaway is that while sometimes people tend to view color as something for children, this proves historically how great of an impact it has on humans.