Showing posts with label Elizabeth Gilbert. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Elizabeth Gilbert. Show all posts

Saturday, April 6, 2013

Eat, Pray, And Love This!

When a reviewer called my book "the guy-friendly Eat, Pray, Love," I wasn't overwhelmingly flattered. (Drink, Pray, Spank?) Chique lit isn't my specialty. Still, I had to actually read the book to know exactly how to feel. So, I did. I think Elizabeth Gilbert's spiritual travel memoir is a great read for women or men - with some qualifications.

Two factors obviously contributed to the success of Eat, Pray, Love. Firstly, the book is targeted to women of a certain age who are experiencing some life transition or dissatisfaction, a demographic that makes up a huge slice of the avid-reader pie. This is hardly an insult. Men of a certain age experiencing some life transition or dissatisfaction tend to prefer drinking, fishing and playing with a revolver. Current literary culture mostly exists because the ladies exist.

Friday, February 4, 2011

Sucky Travel-Writing Tips

#1 Hang With Tourists like Elizabeth Gilbert

The Eat, Pray, Love author traveled to find herself but apparently no one else. In Italy, her best bud was Swiss. In India, her best bud was Texan. In Bali, her best bud was Brazilian. Did she really need to go to these places? Couldn't she have hung with expatriates in New York? If there's a reason to go somewhere, there's a reason to get to know people from there. Perhaps, locals could have enlightened her that the third phase of Buddha's search (after hedonism and asceticism) wasn't a Latino fling.