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Creativity is an important and interesting topic. Unfortunately it’s a topic that seems to be dominated by hot takes, uninformed speculation, and personal anecdotes. This is even true for much academic work and articles in magazines published by the b.schools.

There’s a rich body of creativity research full of all sorts of interesting ideas, but it’s often ignored or glossed over. One factor contributing to this is the lack of a good introductory book for a general reader. For some time I’ve been referring folk interested in creativity research to Teaching creativity in the common core. The books limitation, though, is that it’s focused on secondary education which can be a distraction for some readers.

A new book, The creativity advantage by James Kaufman (one of the authors of Teaching creativity in the common core) neatly fills this hole. James provides us with an easy to read overview of research into creativity (in a somewhat quirky style, but which works) and delves into some of the benefits of creativity (beyond the obvious). The whole narrative is illustrated with anecdotes to help make the ideas concrete for the read. It’s now my go-to recommendation for a a good introductory book on creativity.