Where Good Ideas Come From cover art

Where Good Ideas Come From

The Natural History of Innovation

 Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Where Good Ideas Come From

By: Steven Johnson
Narrated by: Erik Singer
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

LIMITED TIME OFFER | £0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Premium Plus auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Terms apply.

About this listen

 One of our most innovative, popular thinkers takes on-in exhilarating style-one of our key questions: Where do good ideas come from? Career Success Creativity & Genius History & Culture Innovations Motivation & Self-Improvement Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Career Technology

Listeners also enjoyed...

 The Invention of Air cover art
Loonshots cover art
Breakpoint cover art
Guns, Germs and Steel cover art
Eureka cover art
Linked cover art
The Selfish Gene cover art
Algorithms to Live By cover art
Superintelligence cover art
How the Mind Works cover art
A Whole New Mind cover art
Reframe Your Brain cover art
Surviving AI: The Promise and Peril of Artificial Intelligence cover art
You Belong to the Universe cover art
The Inevitable cover art
Know This cover art

Critic reviews

Stimulating and insightful ... a huge diversity of bright ideas—Financial Times

Johnson develops his provocative thesis in a book that is lucid and ... brilliant.—New Scientist

[An] exhilarating, idea-thirsty book ... full of intriguing facts.—Sunday Times
All stars
Most relevant
Anybody trying to understand creativity and innovation should read this book. It gives you a foundation and puts you in the right mindset to start exploring the world around you.

Even as a Ph.D. student in the field of design, I got something out of revisiting this book. It makes a strong case for concepts like the adjacent possible.

It is well-written with myriads of anecdotes. The narrator reads quotes with an accent, which seems unnecessary and a little racist.

Read it and watch the world through new eyes.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A wonderful read for anyone interested in innovation and knowledge. Thought provoking and interesting to the general curious reader. One of my favourite books.

An excellent treatise on Innovation

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Disappointing read , ok if you want snip bits of tech history - not what I was looking for

Tech history snip bits

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.