Did you enjoy reading the Eat Pray Love book and now you’re looking for something new to read? Well you’re in luck as there are many other books to choose from that will appeal to you, whether you were most attracted by the travel, spiritual or personal aspect of the story.
Travel has long been a method for people to ‘find themselves’ and there are several travel memoirs which cataloged the authors’ travels around Asia or other faraway lands and show how their outlook on life is changed by the experiences they encounter while travelling. Learning to enjoy being alone and single is also a large part of the Eat Pray Love book and there are also many self help books which can help you to do exactly this. Finally if you’re just a fan of Elizabeth Gilbert’s writing style then you will probably enjoy her other books.
If you enjoyed the tales of Elizabeth’s stay in the ashram in India then you will also probably enjoy Yoga School Dropout
by Lucy Edge. This is another autobiographical novel documenting the author’s trip to India in an attempt to find spiritual enlightenment through intensive yoga training in an Indian Ashram.
While the book offers an insight to the spiritual lessons Lucy learned on her journey, it is not all serious and there is a real touch of comedy to the writing, especially the descriptions of the various inhabitants of the ashram. This is a great book for anyone looking for an insight into India’s ashram culture with a few laughs thrown in.
In a similar vein, The Battersea Park Road to Enlightenment
by Isabel Losada is another memoir of the author’s attempts to find spiritual enlightenment through a number of different methods. She attends an ‘Insight seminar’, explores the world of tantric sex and even tries colonic irrigation in her attempts at self discovery. This is another funny book which does not take itself too seriously and gives the reader some really useful insights into the various methods that are offered as the way to enlightenment. You may also like A Beginner’s Guide to Changing the World
by the same author in which she visits India and Tibet and gives an interesting view into the culture and lifestyles of this part of the world.
If you’re really looking to change your life rather than reading about other people’s attempts to do the same, there are various books in the ‘self-help’ genre that can put you on the right path. Choose To Be Happy: A Guide to Total Happiness
by Rima Rudner aims to show you that anyone can change their life with the power of positive thinking. This book is the solution for overcoming negativity and spurring you into action in order to create happiness within your own life rather than waiting for it to happen.
A Weekend to Change Your Life: Find Your Authentic Self After a Lifetime of Being All Things to All People
by Joan Anderson is another highly recommended guide for personal growth. Anderson draws on her own experiences of the time she spent away from her husband in order to grow as a person (which she also wrote about in A Year by the Sea: Thoughts of an Unfinished Woman
) and suggests exercises as experienced by women in her weekend by the Sea Retreats. Activities include beach walks, making lists and drawing pictures in order to find the ‘real you’.
The recently single can find tips and ideas for enjoying their new life in Single: The Art of Being Satisfied, Fulfilled and Independent
, by Judy Ford. This book can help anyone from recent divorcees to the terminally single enjoy their single status and show how in the end, only you can provide the true happiness that you need. Another useful book on the same theme is On My Own: The Art of Being a Woman Alone
by Florence Falk. This book is an essay on the opportunities of solitude, helping readers to abandon the cultural associations of being a woman alone and learn to appreciate the freedom that comes from being single.
Elizabeth Gilbert fans will probably want to read her other books, starting with Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage
. This book could be considered as somewhat of a sequel to Eat Pray Love, chronicling Elizabeth’s relationship with Felipe after they met in Bali and their eventual marriage. The book also acts as a history of marriage in divorce in different cultures intermingled with personal travel stories.
Gilbert has also written The Last American Man
– a biography of Eustace Conway, a fascinating character who lived alone in the mountains, hunting to survive from the age of 17; Stern Men: A Novel
, a coming of age story set on an island in Maine in the 1970s; and Pilgrims
– a collection of 12 short stories all featuring characters who are looking for something in one way or another.