Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India And Indonesia

From Strand Bookstore

Faced with a divorce, crushing depression, and utter despair, bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert did what anyone would do, she sold her belongings, said goodbye to the family, and set out on a year-long quest to find happiness again. Her trek took her across the world to Italy and an Indian ashram in a desperate attempt to find the thing that she was lacking the most. An acclaimed author and journalist, "Eat, Pray, Love" is a articulate and funny memoir and travelogue of self-discovery. This is a story about what can happen when you're forced to claim responsibility for your own contentment. Gilbert's most recent work is "The Last American Man."

From the Publisher

Traces the author's decision to quit her job and travel the world for a year after suffering a midlife crisis and divorce, an endeavor that took her to three places in her quest to explore her own nature, experience fulfillment, and learn the art of spiritual balance.

Review

New Yorker
"...Gilbert's exuberance and her self-deprecating humor enliven the proceedings."

Review

Jennifer Egan - New York Times Book Review
"If a more likable writer than Gilbert is currently in print, I haven't found him or her. And I don't mean this as consolation prize....I mean that Gilbert's prose is fueled by a mix of intelligence, wit and colloquial exuberance that is close to irresistible, and makes the reader only too glad to join the posse of friends and devotees who have the pleasure of listening in."

Review

Lev Grossman - Time
"[A]n engaging, intelligent and highly entertaining memoir."

Review

Publishers Weekly
"Sustaining a chatty, conspiratorial tone, Gilbert fully engages readers in the year's cultural and emotional tapestry--conveying rapture with infectious brio, recalling anguish with touching candor--as she details her exotic tableau with history, anecdote and impression." (starred review)

More about the book

Emotionally wrung-out from her divorce, the painful ending of a subsequent love affair, and a general, long-standing feeling of malaise, novelist and journalist Elizabeth Gilbert decides to recharge herself through a year's worth of travel, believing that her return to happiness could be found through exploring both physical gratification and spiritual peace and then determining an appropriate balance between the two. She pursues the first part of her program (eating, drinking, and talking) in Italy, the second in India (joining an ashram), and the third in Bali (studying with a medicine man).