Summary

In Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert distills the powerful actions anyone can take to live a more creative life. This isn't a book just for "creatives" such as artists and writers. In a conversational style and confiding tone, Gilbert encourages anyone hoping to live a creative life to uncover the "strange jewels" that are hidden within each of us, embrace our curiosity, and let go of crushing self-doubts and inhibitions. Along with sharing inspiring personal stories, she details the attitudes, approaches, and habits we need in order to live our most creative lives. Equal parts imaginative and practical, Big Magic provides a blueprint for living more creatively day to day and finding more fulfillment in creative work.

Published in 2015, Big Magic was an instant #1 New York Times bestseller and received widely positive reviews. Gilbert narrates the audiobook herself.

Themes

• Creativity

• The importance of prioritizing art and creative expression

• Finding yourself 

• Making time and room for creation

• The magic in the mundane

• Releasing fear

Setting

Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert doesn't have a traditional narrative setting. Instead, the setting is primarily the realm of creativity itself. Gilbert explores this territory through her reflections, anecdotes, and insights on creativity, inspiration, and the creative process. The setting, therefore, is conceptual and abstract.

Key figure

Elizabeth Gilbert: American journalist and author. She is best known for her 2006 memoir Eat, Pray, Love, which has sold more than 12 million copies and been translated into over 30 languages.

Critical reception

Big Magic was a commercial success and was generally well-received for its encouraging and practical insights into creativity, although some critics raised concerns about its simplicity and repetition. Despite these criticisms, the book resonated with many readers and continues to be popular among those seeking inspiration and guidance in their creative pursuits.

FAQs

Who is the author of Big Magic?

Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear is written by Elizabeth Gilbert, a New York Times bestselling author and journalist. She is best known for her 2006 memoir Eat Pray Love, which has sold more than 12 million copies and been translated into over 30 languages.

What is the book about?

In Big Magic, Gilbert distills the powerful actions anyone can take to live a more creative life in a way that is equal parts imaginative and tangible. Whether your goal is to be a renowned painter or to experience more creative joy in your day-to-day life, this book is sure to provide the blueprint for change.

Who should read Big Magic?

People of all ages and walks of life who are looking to be more creative in their daily life, as well as "creatives" such as writers and artists seeking to break out of a slump or get more fulfillment from their work.

How has Big Magic been received by critics?

Big Magic has been praised as an inspiring, illuminating, and helpful guidebook for people who want live more creatively or make a better living from their creativity by reviewers in outlets from The New York Times Book Review to Cosmopolitan, from Fast Company to PopSugar.

Quotes

• "When I refer to 'creative living,' I’m talking about living a life that is driven more strongly by curiosity than by fear."

• "I happen to believe we are all walking repositories of buried treasure."

• "A creative life is an amplified life. It’s a bigger life, a happier life, an expanded life, and a hell of a lot more interesting life."

• "Perfectionism is just fear in fancy shoes and a mink coat."

• "If you’re alive, you’re a creative person."

• "Do you have the courage to bring forth the treasures that are hidden within you?"

Quick facts

• Elizabeth Gilbert is best known for her 2006 memoir Eat Pray Love, which has sold more than 12 million copies and been translated into over 30 languages.

• Gilbert grew up on a family Christmas tree farm in Connecticut.

• Some of Gilbert’s favorite books are David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, Middlemarch by George Elliot, and The Collected Poems of Jack Gilbert.

• Her time spent bartending in the Lower East Side of Manhattan became the basis for the hit film, Coyote Ugly.

• Elizabeth Gilbert narrates the audio adaptation of Big Magic herself.

About the author

Elizabeth Gilbert is an American author and journalist. She is best known for her 2006 memoir Eat, Pray, Love, which chronicled her journey alone around the world, looking for solace after a difficult divorce. The book was a New York Times and international bestseller, translated into more than 30 languages, with over 12 million copies sold worldwide. In 2010, Eat Pray Love was made into a film starring Julia Roberts. The book became so popular that TIME magazine named Gilbert as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Born on July 18, 1969, in Waterbury, Connecticut, Gilbert grew up on a small family Christmas tree farm. She attended New York University, studying political science by day and working on her short stories by night. After college, she spent several years traveling around the country, working in bars, diners and ranches, collecting experiences to transform into fiction. These explorations formed the basis of her first book, a short story collection called Pilgrims. It was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award and won the 1999 John C. Zacharis First Book Award from Ploughshares.

During her early years in New York City, Gilbert worked as a journalist for such publications as Spin, GQ and The New York Times Magazine. She was a three-time finalist for The National Magazine Award, and an article she wrote in GQ about her experiences bartending on the Lower East Side eventually became the basis for the movie Coyote Ugly.

In addition to Eat Pray Love and a follow-up memoir, Committed, Gilbert is the author of the The Last American Man (2002), the true story of the modern day woodsman Eustace Conway; the novels Stern Men (2000), The Signature of All Things (2013), and City of Girls (2019); and a guidebook to living life and approaching work more creatively, Big Magic (2015). Elizabeth Gilbert has narrated three of her audiobooks, Eat Pray Love, Committed, and Big Magic.