Over 300 sold and counting....

On Thursday night I attended a reception at the Italian Institute in Westwood to meet Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love. When I raised my hand at the end of the evening to say that the small independent bookstore I work at has sold over 300 copies of her book in hardcover to date, the over 150 in attendance broke into loud applause! It continues to sell well now in paperback.

For anyone who has not yet had the pleasure of reading Gilbert's memoir of a year spent regaining her equilibrium after a failed marriage, you are in for a treat. Eat, Pray, Love tells of the year Elizabeth picked herself up from an "on the floor" depression, deciding to spend four months in Italy, to "kick start" her experience of essential human pleasure once again, followed by four months each in India, pursuing a life of devotion, and Indonesia, trying to put all the pieces together.

Elizabeth was, as one would expect after reading her book, beautiful, funny, intelligent, modest and honest. She now lives in Rome and New Jersey and YES! in two weeks is marrying the man she met in Indonesia! Come in and buy the book to get the details of how they met and fell in love! Gilbert described her writing process as one in which she writes to a specific friend, not a general audience, and therefore was surprised at the broad range of people who read and loved the book. She revealed that as she travels, she is tired of sometimes pretending to be Canadian and wants to reclaim the words, “American” and “God”. “Who am I?” is the same question to her as “Who is God?” We are all on a journey, according to Elizabeth Gilbert. She just wrote about hers.

And for those who can't get enough of HER story, you can look forward to seeing Eat, Pray, Love on the big screen. It is being made into a film starring Julia Roberts!