Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia From:Elizabeth Gilbert , Penguin (Non-Classics) ,
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See larger picture. | | Amazon Sales Rank:# 9 User Rating: Customer Reviews List Price:$15.00 Availability:Usually ships in 24 hours |
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 910.4
EAN: 9780143038412
ISBN: 0143038419
Label: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 352
Packaged Height: 80 hundredths-inches
Packaged Length: 830 hundredths-inches
Packaged Weight: 65 hundredths-pounds
Packaged Width: 550 hundredths-inches
Publication Date: 2007-01-30
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Studio: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Product Description:
This beautifully written, heartfelt memoir touched a nerve among both readers and reviewers. Elizabeth Gilbert tells how she made the difficult choice to leave behind all the trappings of modern American success (marriage, house in the country, career) and find, instead, what she truly wanted from life. Setting out for a year to study three different aspects of her nature amid three different cultures, Gilbert explored the art of pleasure in Italy and the art of devotion in India, and then a balance between the two on the Indonesian island of Bali. By turns rapturous and rueful, this wise and funny author (whom Booklist calls “Anne Lamott’s hip, yoga- practicing, footloose younger sister”) is poised to garner yet more adoring fans.
Customer Reviews:
1 of 4 customers found the following review helpful:
 Couldn't put it down!, 2008-09-05
I was shocked when I logged on to Amazon and saw so many snarky, bitter reviews; I expected this book to have a solid five star rating. I do a lot of reading and it not every day that I find a book so engrossing, so honest, so profound, and so funny that I clear my schedule in order to plow through it. To all those mean-spirited reviewers, my question is: if you hated the book so much, why did you waste your time on it? Seems to me those folks are the ones who needed this book the most, yet read it without appreciating any of the gifts it has to offer. Now, I am not saying that this book is some sort of holy text; to the contrary, the writer is, or at least starts out, as a whiney, neurotic mess, who admittedly can be quite annoying in her self-referential misery. And her path to spirituality reads more like a TV reality show than the Bhagavad Gita. But I love the intensely personal, hyper observant, open-to-everything way in which she embraces her experiences, as well as the gritty and witty way she communicates. The chapters are packed with wonderful nuggets of information, wise insights, fascinating observations of people and cultures, and delicious moments of sensuality, spirituality, grace and inspiration. As a person who enjoys nature writing, my one disappointment with the book was that her interest seems so exclusively focused on people. I would have enjoyed a little more natural history, the names of some of the beautiful flowers and butterflies she describes, or a description of a dog or cat or sacred cow that even begins to match the sensitivity and wonder with which she describes humans. But that is a minor quibble with a major achievement. And I don't even say this because I identify with the author's journey. I spent my glorious months in Italy when I was 20, have met my soul mate, and am able to quiet my mind without visiting an Ashram. But I, and I suspect most of us, can always use some help expanding our world views and and shoring up our moral and spiritual failings; this book inspires such self-work while being thoroughly entertaining.
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