Top Ten Tuesday | My Spring TBR

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature created at The Broke and the Bookish. Each week you compile a list of ten books which coincide with that week's theme. You can find everything you need to know about joining in here!

Today I'm going to talk about the books on my Spring TBR! As always, I don't tend to like TBRs much, but I do like creating seasonal TBRs.

The Rose by Jennifer Potter: This non-fiction book is all about what roses mean throughout history and around the world. It's a really heavy book, published on very thick paper for all the pictures, but it looks fascinating and I'm looking forward to reading it. Spring seems like the best time to read a book about flowers!

Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen: Even more gardens! I love witches, so the more the merrier for me!

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett: Speaking of gardens, I'd quite like to read The Secret Garden this Spring - it's one of my favourite classics, and it's such a heart-warming tale.

The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh: I picked up a second hand copy of The Language of Flowers in one of my local charity shops years ago, and still haven't read it despite it having brilliant ratings on Goodreads. Continuing with the flowery theme, I think this will make a great spring read.

The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert: And to complete this gardening theme I've got going on, the heroine of The Signature of All Things is a botanist in the 19th century. I love reading historical fiction novels about women in science, particularly when they're set during the 18th and 19th centuries, and I've yet to read any of Gilbert's fiction.

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim: April's in the title, so what better time to read this modern classic? This book is about four ladies who decide to spend April in Italy and have some time to themselves for a change. I started reading it last April but, for whatever reason, I put it down and didn't pick it back up so I'd like to give it another shot. I'm actually going to Florence in two days, so I might take it on holiday with me!

The Sparrow Sisters by Ellen Herrick: This is one of the novels the lovely Mikayla @ Mikayla's Bookshelf got me for Christmas! It's another book that seems to heavily feature flowers, herbs and plants, so it should be another great read for Spring.

The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton: Yup, even more gardens. Are you sensing a theme? Apparently this book features an old book of dark fairy tales, a secret garden, an aristocratic family and a mystery. Sounds like everything I like to read, then!

Faery Tale: One Woman's Search for Enchantment in a Modern World by Signe Pike: This is another piece of non-fiction, and one that sounds lovely. Signe Pike decided to leave her job and go in search for people who still believe in faeries. I really want to read it.

Among Others by Jo Walton: Speaking of faeries, I believe they feature in Jo Walton's most famous novel. I'm pretty sure Among Others was on my spring TBR last year too but I still haven't gotten to it, I really need to though because I think I'm going to love it.

Which books made your list this week?

Top Ten Tuesday | Don't Quote Me On It

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature created at The Broke and the Bookish. Each week you compile a list of ten books which coincide with that week's theme. You can find everything you need to know about joining in here!

This week's theme is 'Top Ten Quotes I Loved From Books I Read In The Past Year Or So', and I decided to only pick quotes from books I've read this year. Purely because I've read quite a few books this year!

Signal to Noise

by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Burial Rites

by Hannah Kent

The Miniaturist

by Jessie Burton

The Little Stranger

by Sarah Waters

Simon vs.the Homo Sapiens Agenda

by Becky Albertalli

Jane Eyre's Sisters: How Women Live and Write the Heroine's Story

by Jody Gentian Bower

Northanger Abbey

by Jane Austen

Beyond the Pale: Folklore, Family, and the Mystery of our Hidden Genes

by Emily Urquhart

Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

by Elizabeth Gilbert

My Life as a White Trash Zombie

by Diana Rowland

Which quotes made your list this week?

Review | Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert

Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

by Elizabeth Gilbert

My Rating:

Readers of all ages and walks of life have drawn inspiration and empowerment from Elizabeth Gilbert’s books for years. Now this beloved author digs deep into her own generative process to share her wisdom and unique perspective about creativity. With profound empathy and radiant generosity, she offers potent insights into the mysterious nature of inspiration. She asks us to embrace our curiosity and let go of needless suffering. She shows us how to tackle what we most love, and how to face down what we most fear. She discusses the attitudes, approaches, and habits we need in order to live our most creative lives. Balancing between soulful spirituality and cheerful pragmatism, Gilbert encourages us to uncover the “strange jewels” that are hidden within each of us. Whether we are looking to write a book, make art, find new ways to address challenges in our work,  embark on a dream long deferred, or simply infuse our everyday lives with more mindfulness and passion, Big Magic cracks open a world of wonder and joy.

I came across this book when I saw Jen Campbell talking about it on her YouTube channel; the amount of books I've gone out and bought because I've seen her talk about them is kind of ridiculous. I just can't help it.

I think there is a bit of a stigma around self-help books, though I'm not 100% sure this book is a self-help book. There's advice here for people with any interest in the arts, but it doesn't feel like Elizabeth Gilbert is trying to tell you how to live a creative life, she's simply giving advice and tips that she's learned through her own experiences and the experiences of people she knows. I think that's why I enjoyed the book.

I didn't agree with everything Gilbert said by any means, this isn't the creator's bible, but I don't think anyone will; I didn't go into this expecting it to change my life because I was more interested in reading about another writer's process. That doesn't mean I didn't find any of it helpful, because there are few a tips in here I'd definitely like to try out when I can feel procrastination tugging on my arm, but I think anyone who goes into this book expecting it to be a creative epiphany is simply setting themselves up for disappointment, and being a bit unfair on the book, too!

It's very easy to read. Before this I hadn't read anything by Elizabeth Gilbert, but since finishing it I've picked up one of her novels, The Signature of All Things, to see how her fiction compares to her non-fiction, and also because it sounds right up my alley. Big Magic is one of those books told in really small chapters, each of which is essentially a new story or tip, meaning you can either read it in one go or dip in and out of it whenever you like. For us creative types, this could be a very good book to keep by your bed.

What I loved most about it was the emphasis on just keeping going. There was a lovely section in which Gilbert talked about Harper Lee, and how she thought it was such a shame that the success of To Kill a Mockingbird frightened her from writing anything else because how could it possibly beat that? Gilbert's point is that you don't need to look at your work as the next bestseller, you just need to enjoy making it and put everything you can into it, and I thought it was great advice because, let's face it, pretty much every creative person - whether you're a writer or a painter or an actor or a musician or a florist - struggles with crippling self-doubt. Probably on a daily basis.

Ultimately I really enjoyed this, and I recommend it to any creative person out there!