 | Flow: The Classic Work on How to Achieve Happiness by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Buy new: £8.39 / Used from: £5.99 The Bible. Every book on Videogames design will at some point reference Csikszentmihalyi's research. Very easy to read. Buy two copies because I ended up writing notes in mine.
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 | The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman
Buy new: £6.99 / Used from: £5.57 Although the references are getting dated this deals with some important concepts regarding how we interact with the world.
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 | How to Lead: What You Actually Need to Do to Manage, Lead and Succeed by Jo Owen
Buy used from: £2.49 80% of being a good designer is not about mechanics but about working with other people.
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 | Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers by Christopher Vogler
Buy new: £9.48 / Used from: £8.92 You don't just tell players stories. You need to make sure they experience them. This version of the Heroes journey is easy to read and references modern pop-culture.
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 | Universal Principles of Design: 100 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach through Design by Jill Butler
Buy new: £16.87 / Used from: £14.00 More applicable to how you present your design materials than the design itself. I still reference this book everyday.
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 | The Laws of Simplicity (Simplicity: Design, Technology, Business, Life) by J Maeda
Buy new: £11.23 / Used from: £8.49 The only book on maintaining design simplicity that is itself incredibly simple.
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 | Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt
Buy new: £4.95 / Used from: £0.75 Learn to look at the world sideways and you can treat the cause of a problem rather than the symptoms.
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 | Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman
Buy new: £7.17 / Used from: £5.20 How our emotions relate to things changes how we use them. Read this after "Everyday Things" not before.
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 | Creativity by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Buy new: £7.97 / Used from: £3.24 What Creativity actually is and how to nurture it.
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