Big Magic: How to Live a Creative Life, and Let Go of Your Fear: Book Club Andreea Roșca

Named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine, Elizabeth Gilbert has a huge presence on social media and a vast fan base: over 300,000 followers on Facebook, over 70,000 on Twitter, over 20,000 on Instagram. Her TED talk has had over 8 million views, ranking among the top 20 most viewed talks of all time and this autumn she completed an eight-city tour with Oprah, speaking to over 100,000 people along the way.

I was feeling fragile about quite a few exciting projects that were up in the air. This book, which is all about creativity, helped me recognise anxiety is just part of the creative process, which made me much more accepting of the way I was feeling. Elizabeth Gilbert is the author ofEat, Pray, Love- she's so open and makes me laugh. I buy this for loved ones and recommend it to clients and students who I think will find it inspiring
A writer of incandescent talent
Gilbert dares us into adventures of worldly discovery
Sumptuous ... Gilbert's prose is by turns flinty, funny, and incandescent
Readers prepared to enter Gilbert Time will be rewarded: she is an unflaggingly curious writer, prone to delightful touches
Smart but unpretentious, funny, warm, and generous . By the end of one of her books, you feel as if she is your friend, too
Charming . Her tone is relentlessly endearing. It's like talking to your hippy-est friend, the one who never turns up at the right bar but always makes you feel great once she's got there . Some great stuff about the power of ideas themselves, about how utterly useless emotions such as fear are when trying to do anything creative, and why we all have a right to live creatively
Gilbert writes about enchantment and wonder, but her feet are always firmly on the ground .Eminently practical . Witty and self-aware, she never urges her readers to just follow their dreams or to believe that they can't fail, or any of the usual platitudes often thrown at people with creative ambitions . It's all very refreshing . In almost every section of Big Magic I found something that rang perfectly true to my situation, something that helped me to view my work and creative stumbling blocks in a new and more productive way . Whether you're worried about getting started, burning out, making money, failing or even succeeding, there is something in this book that will speak to you
Gilbert offers powerful insights into the mysterious nature of creativity, and she delivers the vibrant message that we can all find, and create, magic
Doing that [Turning fear into a positive force in your life] starts simply by acknowledging that having fear isn't the same as letting it control you. In her book Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert describes this brilliantly, explaining that living life healthily alongside fear is like taking it on a road trip
Absurdly comforting