It's 3 a.m. and Elizabeth Gilbert is sobbing on the bathroom
floor. She's in her thirties, she has a husband, a house,
they're trying for a baby - and she doesn't want any of it.
A bitter divorce and a turbulent love affair later, she emerges
battered and bewildered and realises it is time to pursue her own
journey in search of three things she has been missing: pleasure,
devotion and balance. So she travels to Rome, where she learns
Italian from handsome, brown-eyed identical twins and gains
twenty-five pounds, an ashram in India, where she finds that
enlightenment entails getting up in the middle of the night to
scrub the temple floor, and Bali where a toothless medicine man of
indeterminate age offers her a new path to peace: simply sit still
and smile. And slowly happiness begins to creep up on her.
'A writer of incandescent talent' Annie Proulx 'It's a good read. I can't get away from it' Britney Spears, Glamour 'If a more likable writer than Gilbert is currently in print, I haven't found him or her ... Gilbert's prose is fuelled by a mix of intelligence, wit and colloquial exuberance that is close to irresistible' New York Times 'A witty, honest account of loss and new beginnings, this will be enjoyed by anyone who's realised "having it all" isn't all it's cracked up to be' Easy Living
Elizabeth Gilbert is the author of three books of non-fiction, the multi-million-copy-selling Eat, Pray, Love (now a major motion picture) and its follow-up, Committed, as well as The Last American Man (nominated for the National Book Award and a New York Times Notable Book for 2002). She has also written a short story collection, Pilgrims (a finalist for the Pen/Hemmingway Award), and a novel, Stern Men. She was a writer-at-large for American GQ where she has received two National Magazine Award nominations for feature writing. Elizabeth Gilbert lives in Frenchtown, New Jersey.
