eat, pray, love by Elizabeth Gilbert

eat, pray, love is one of those wonderful tales of redemption that we all wish that we had the money and time to live ourselves. Gilbert, a writer wavering in a relationship that must appear in several novels finally leaves home, husband and all those children not yet born that would define "family" to suffer depression and aimlessness until she decides to treat herself to Italian lessons just because Italian sounds so wonderful.

She receives an advance on the book she will write (this one) and takes off for four months in Italy where she eats and studies Italian. Since it seems that all my friends this year have been going to Italy, I went vicariously. If only I had the food.

She goes home briefly for Christmas and then is off to India for four months in an Ashram. A very different life than her four months of pleasure in Italy. Her last four months are spent in Indonesia with a local healer.

The format of this book makes it a great summer read. Take it with you everywhere. Most of the chapters, all 108 of them (the number of prayer beads) are short enough to read almost everywhere. So enjoyable.