Creativity in Research: Cultivate Clarity, Be Innovative, and Make Progress in your Research Journey

I highly recommend this book. I like it so much that after I read it, I decided to organize a "book club" focused on it, over a semester, for my graduate students. The book finds that sweet spot of being easy to read but full of interesting and thought-provoking insight. Its provides scores of useful pointers for researchers, and does a nice job of noting how its points are relevant for researchers at many stages (though I think it maybe slightly more tuned to earlier-career researchers). Its overall organization makes its seven "big ideas" fairly easy to grasp and remember, and its visuals do a great job of encapsulating take-away points. Adding to this general usefulness and readability, one of my favorite aspects of the book its is substantial list of exercises at the end of every chapter. I used a number of them and found them refreshing and quite helpful. And I especially look forward to engaging in some of these activities with my students -- e.g., I'm very curious what ideas are going to come from throwing the question "How would this problem be solved in a Disney movie?" at a research conundrum. Who knows what may happen? And that's the point!

This book is the perfect gift for Ph.D. students. It helped me make progress in my Ph.D. journey when I felt stuck and unmotivated. It reads almost like a self-help book and has fun activities throughout that helped me organize my ideas and aspirations. I've been recommending it to every researcher I know!