Thursday, May 22, 2008

Eat, Pray, Love

Well, I think I've finally caught up with everyone else in America by reading Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. For some reason, I was under the impression that this was a self-help book, but it is (of course) really a memoir about divorce, depression, travel, enlightenment, spirituality, and amazing Italian food, among other things.

This is a book that has really stuck with me; I've been reading it since the end of April, when I picked up my sister-in-law's half-finished copy and couldn't put it down. I ended up thinking about it for the entire hour that I was stuck in traffic in Toronto on the way home, and as soon as possible I got a copy for myself so that I could continue reading. It was slow going, though; there was too much to think about and process. It may not be a self-help book per se, at least not in the sense that I thought it was, but it did speak to a lot of things I've been thinking about over the last couple of years.

For anybody who's already read Eat, Pray, Love and was as bewitched by it as I was, Elizabeth Gilbert's website has a page of frequently asked questions about the journey she took. There are also photographs of some of the people and places she described in the book. Good stuff.