Eat, Pray, Love

As Elizabeth Gilbert sobbed on her bathroom floor one night, she knew she was in a mess. A bitter divorce, followed by a painful, obsessive affair didn’t fix the problem, so she undertook a year out of her life to travel to Italy, India and Indonesia in pursuit of pleasure, devotion and the balance between the two. This is the story of that year. “In fact, I found more than I’d dared to hope for,” says Gilbert. Despite occasions of loneliness, doubt and dismay, the search profoundly altered her consciousness – a success story which Gilbert says resulted from “The Physics of the Quest”. “If you are brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting [which can be anything from your house to your bitter old resentments] and set out on a truth-seeking journey [either externally or internally], and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue, and if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher, and if you are prepared – most of all – to face [and forgive] some very difficult realities about yourself...then truth will not be withheld from you.” (Bloomsbury, RRP $29.99)