Reviews and recommendations featuring books on creativity, innovation, leadership, design thinking, and arts-based learning for business

Visit Linda Naiman’s collection of books on leadership, creativity, and innovation on Amazon:

A Book Review of “Affects, Transformations, and the Artists’ Voices”

What if art isn't just for entertainment, but a driving force behind innovation, leadership, and learning? In a world where organizations often prioritize metrics over meaningful engagement, Affects, Transformations, and the Artists' Voices, edited [...]

Linda Naiman2025-10-20T15:19:50-07:00

Your Brain on Art and The Creative Act

Why Art and Creativity Matter While many of us perceive art merely as entertainment, there exists a profound depth to its functions. Art sparks breakthroughs in creativity and innovation. Notably, even Nobel Laureates [...]

Linda Naiman2025-10-20T15:19:50-07:00

3 Keys to Resilience: Turn Obstacles Into Opportunities

Build your creative resilience capabilities In today’s fast-paced world, creative resilience is essential for reinvention and innovation. Drawing from Stoicism, Positive Psychology, and Appreciative Inquiry, we can build pathways to bounce back from [...]

Linda Naiman2025-10-20T15:19:51-07:00

Book Review: Creative Acts for Curious People

Creative Acts for Curious People includes more than eighty assignments that take you deeper into the famed d.School approach to design thinking.

Linda Naiman2025-10-20T15:19:51-07:00

3 Books on Creativity to Help You Flourish in the Future at Work

These books on creativity offer ways business leaders can support creativity, innovation, and talent in the new future of work Big Little Breakthroughs by Josh Linkner (2020) for unleashing creative potential in yourself and your [...]

Linda Naiman2025-10-20T15:19:51-07:00

Discover the Secrets to a Deeper, Wiser, Creative Life

One thing I know for sure is that my creative practice keeps me grounded and connected to my innermost self, and the larger world. I subscribe to Joni Mitchell's creative practice, which she [...]

Linda Naiman2025-10-20T15:19:51-07:00

Writing women’s history: Why you need to write your mother’s story

Marilyn Norry on writing women's history, starting with your mother It never occurred to me to write my mother’s story until I met Marilyn and attended one of her workshops on how to do just [...]

Linda Naiman2025-10-20T15:19:51-07:00

Jon Kolko on Creative Clarity & Bringing Creative Thinking Into Your Company

Managing 'wild and unpredictable' creative chaos in business I believe creative chaos is the biggest fear business managers have about creativity. Whenever we get to the messy stage of the creative process, managers who are inclined [...]

Linda Naiman2025-10-20T15:19:51-07:00

Capture Your Aspirations and Create Your Future

It has been said that every moment and every day offers us a fresh new beginning. "In the beginner's mind, there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind there are few." —Shunryu Suzuki Someone [...]

Linda Naiman2025-10-20T15:19:52-07:00

Celebrated Authors Share Their Secrets To Creativity in “Light the Dark” (And We Can All Benefit!)

Light the Dark: Writers on Creativity, Inspiration, and the Creative Process What inspires you? That is the question Joe Fassler asked 48 of the most celebrated authors in the world--including Elisabeth Gilbert, Amy Tan, Neil Gaiman, William Gibson, and Stephen [...]

Linda Naiman2025-10-20T15:19:52-07:00

Design of Work Experience: How to Create a Winning Company Culture

Karen Jaw-Madson provides a framework—Design of Work Experience—for culture change based on human-centered design principles Your Workplace Culture Matters. Here's why: It's easy to copy ideas, technology, creativity, and innovation, but what gives a [...]

Linda Naiman2025-10-20T15:19:52-07:00

Designed Leadership: 5 Lessons in Strategic Design for Entrepreneurs (or Intrapreneurs)

Drawing on the power of strategic design Moura Quayle has had an amazing career as a landscape architect, urban-systems designer, a strategic-design scholar, senior leader in government, university dean, and co-founder of UBC Sauder [...]

Linda Naiman2025-10-20T15:19:52-07:00

Book Review: Boost Your Creativity With These 4 Activity Books by Arts Professionals

Take a deep dive into this collection of inspiring books on the creative process by arts professionals and enrich your creative practice

Linda Naiman2025-10-20T15:19:53-07:00

Review of Reductionism in Art and Brain Science: Bridging the Two Cultures

Eric Kandel —a Nobel Prize-winning molecular biologist and neuroscientist—explores the parallels between art and science Art and science have a long interconnected history, and I am fascinated by what we can experience when they intersect, especially now that [...]

Linda Naiman2025-10-20T15:19:53-07:00

Book Review: The Age of Insight By Eric R. Kandel

The Age of Insight: The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind, and Brain, from Vienna 1900 to the Present If you are fascinated by the intersection of art and science, you [...]

Linda Naiman2025-10-20T15:19:54-07:00

Let the Elephants Run: Unlock Your Creativity and Change Everything – Book review

If you are interested in unlocking your creativity, you will love David Usher’s new book Let the Elephants Run. You can flip through the book for a quick hit of visually stunning images and quotes, [...]

Linda Naiman2025-10-20T15:19:54-07:00

Creative Anarchy: Book Review

Creative Anarchy: How to Break the Rules of Graphic Design for Creative Success When I was a designer of marketing communications in a former life, I was always on the lookout for great ideas [...]

Linda Naiman2025-10-20T15:19:54-07:00

April is Poetry Month: Celebrate With These Ideas

What is Poetry Good for? Here’s what Dylan Thomas had to say about poetry: "Poetry is what in a poem makes you laugh, cry, prickle, be silent, makes your toenails twinkle, makes you [...]

Linda Naiman2025-10-20T15:19:54-07:00

How to Cultivate Your Creative Brain

Dr Shelley Carson has devised a useful framework for developing your creative brain, based on findings from neuro-imaging, psycho-physiological studies, and her own research at Harvard. Carson outlines seven different "brainsets," or mental frameworks, [...]

Linda Naiman2025-10-20T15:19:54-07:00

Richard Diebenkorn: Notes to myself on beginning a painting

Richard Diebenkorn: Seawall When I studied art at CCA in Oakland California, Richard Diebenkorn was one of my favourite painters (he still is) and I used to copy his Ocean Park [...]

Linda Naiman2025-10-20T15:19:54-07:00