Title: Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
Author: Elizabeth Gilbert
Rating: 3/5
Genre: Self-Help, Mind, Body and Spirit, Healthy Living
I must confess I’m not one for traditional self-help books. I’ve also considered these sorts of books to be mantra-chanting-full-of-pity accounts, and never picked one up to read. However, when Bloomsbury sent me Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert to review, I was intrigued by the front cover, and subtitle of ‘Creative Living Beyond Fear’.
As an English Masters student and budding writer, I knew how challenging living creatively could be, and as an author who stayed on the New York Bestsellers List for 3 years, I felt she could be somebody to look up too.
So I picked up this book without any knowledge or expectations of whether it would help, me but I must admit, I was pleasantly surprised.
Big Magic follows Gilbert’s own creative processes, and from that, she imparts her wisdom/tips and tricks in order to get people think and living creatively. She offers insights into the writing process, inspiration, making new ways of work, embarking on dreams or just adding a little bit of mindfulness and passion into our everyday lives, whilst never feeling too lecture-y or self-pitying. 
The book is split into six sections, which lead naturally into each other, and really are enjoyable reads. Gilbert’s writing style is fluid, natural and remarkably unpretentious for a NYT Best Selling Author, and she seems to take on the world with wonder and majesty. She is aware that her own successes are amazing, yet she comments mainly on the joy of writing. The author also divulges the reader into her own backstory and upbringing, but doesn’t separate that from her message of living in a magical and creative way.
One thing I love about this book is her theory about ideas as sort of visceral beings that chose owners and you have to work with it. This really spoke to me, and I found myself taking real note from this book.
There has been some critics of this book, and it is true, it wouldn’t have been published if it wasn’t for the soaraway success of Eat, Pray, Love, but I personally don’t care about this.
I found this book to be a interesting read that helped me structure and subtly change my views on creativity. Whether or not I change my writing style or how I write, is a separate matter, but all in all I found this book to be a light, whimsical read that will, above all things, make you want to take up a pen, paintbrush or video camera and get creative.
Big Magic is available now through Bloomsbury Publishing House
Set in an unnamed fishing community on the North Cornish coast, the novel focuses around a new arrival to a very close-knit and closeted community. On paper, Timothy Bucchanan’s move from London to the village makes perfect sense. However, the narrative dives into a world that is completely isolated, mysterious and unfriendly to newcomers. With the ghost of a man that still holds sway over the locals, wasted fish being hauled from a contaminated sea, and unsettling dreams, Timothy soon gets swept up in village life, and with thousands of questions going unanswered, Timothy decides secrets must be unveiled, and the past has to be dug up.
With two novels published in this soon-to-be trilogy, this saga is a favourite of mine. The story-telling is good, the plot is highly enjoyable and the fact of it being somewhat of a biography for the main character, a mysterious figure known as Kvothe, makes me love it more. I have read and reread this story, and I still find it as enjoyable as when I first picked it up. If you like high fantasy, excellent writing and a host of unique characters, I suggest this.
The Stormlight Archives by Brandon Sanderson.
f high fantasy and epic fantasy and has been influenced authors for years to come. The books are atypical of Tolkien’s florid and highly descriptive writing style, and follow the story of the destruction of the One Ring by the Hobbit, Frodo Baggins and his comrades. So I would say, if you’re looking for the ultimate of ultimate fantasy novels to read, why not try this? You can’t be worse off. And then watch the movies.
er, when I had the privilege to watch the 2016 Royal Shakespeare Company’s production, I felt like I was watching something entirely new and entirely different.
i has given Polonius a new breath of life, by making him somewhat of a court jester, as well as a scatty and fussy parent.
milies at peace is crumbling, and an assassination attempt forces Kate and August into a tenuous alliance. But how long will they survive when the streets are safe, and the monsters no longer want to lurk in this shadows?
enthralled me as a young teenage, as young Chiyo is sold to a geisha house and through her trials and tribulations, ends up being of the most celebrated geisha of her time. And Marshall’s movie brings this story to life, with a very well-cast crew of actors (Gong Li is a superb Hatsumomo), and a very true-to-novel plot, the film isn’t loud of brash, but approaches Chiyo’s tale in a superb manner.
A unsettling and thrilling film which grabs all the tension of Larsson’s first novel, and runs away with it. By paying close attention to the novel, and casting the fierce Noomi Rapace as the mysterious Lisbeth Salander, the Swedish version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is ride from start to finish. Although scenes are taken from later books in Larsson’s series, the film is taut, terrifying and delightful all in one go.
ouple of Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine playing the tragic Mr and Mrs de Winter, this black-and-white gothic tale has thrilled and titillated since release. With Hitchcock’s supreme directing style, and use of suspense, it is no wonder that the author herself said that this film, along with Don’t Look Now, are the only adaptations of her work that she had time for. Also, watch out for Judith Anderson’s excellent acting as the deranged housekeeper Mrs Danvers.
. Lee’s Gothic tale of racism, inequality and moral issues has been read in countless schools, and her protagonist’s father, Atticus Finch, has served as a sort of moral hero for readers. And in Mulligan’s 1962, Gregory Peck plays Finch in a sensitive and just manner, and with an excellent script and casting of Scout and Jem, the film really blows other adaptations out of water due to its direction and faithfulness to the text.
wasn’t just his literary talent that he was praised for, but his flamboyant and very decorated personal life as a social butterfly and celebrity favourite.
Truman ultimately sacrifices his relationship for the sake of a quick buck – his infamous short story ‘La Côte Basque 1965’ fictionalises and reveals all of Babe’s secrets, resulting in his Swans cutting him out of New York society – there is a sense that Truman really did care for Babe. And with the latter chapters showing both Babe and Truman’s downward spiral, due to illness and drink and drug dependencies, it is then when the book really does come into its own. After watching interviews and reading books on Capote, I thought that Benjamin really captured his spirit well.
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