Just Jennifer

Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert (Riverhead, September 2015)

This book is like talking with your wisest friend: intimate and conspiratorial, genuine and friendly, often self-deprecating, but never arrogant. Gilbert offers advice on being open to living a more creative life, be it in the arts, sciences or sports (she focuses mainly on writing) without fears holding you back.   Gilbert discusses her own creative process and her belief that inspiration and ideas are in the air for the taking, but that if we do not care for them and nurture them they will leave us and find someone who will.  Gilbert approaches her writing as something that she needs to care for and to nurture and something she hopes, in return, will care for her.  Above all, Gilbert’s tone makes you want to believe that you can do it, whatever it is: return to a long overlooked, but dearly loved hobby from an earlier time, write your novel or just be more open to new ideas.  There is something for everyone in these pages.