7 Books for People Who Love Eat, Pray, Love

In her spiritual travelogue Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert proved herself to be an affable, self-deprecating narrator, and in her efforts to “experience the art of pleasure in Italy, the art of devotion in India, and, in Indonesia, the art of balancing the two,” she crafted vivid, discerning descriptions of cities she visited during her intensely contemplative year abroad. If you were a willing companion on Gilbert’s journey in Eat, Pray, Love, then the memoirs and novels below—perfect for the introspective armchair traveler—might be the reads you’ve been searching for.

For over four decades, Conroy has earned a prominent place in the Southern literary tradition, and The Death of Santini, a follow-up to his novel The Great Santini (1976), will do his reputation—and his many avid fans—justice. If The Great Santini, inspired by Conroy’s tumultuous relationship with his emotionally abusive, ex-Marine father, Donald Conroy, put a gulf between father and son, then The Death of Santini is proof that wounds can heal. This heartbreaking and ultimately redemptive memoir is hauntingly beautiful, and a complex tribute to family.

Anne Lamott uses down to earth language and often funny writing about her own faith to dive into prayer and spirituality. Sharing personal insights into the three types of prayer, Anne explores praying for “Help”, giving “Thanks”, and the “Wow” of the beauty of life. If you’re looking for a book that will guide you in asking for help, show you how to express gratitude and give you a newfound appreciation for life, this is it.

A follow-up to compelling best seller Help Thanks Wow, Stitches is Lamott’s latest rumination on the power of faith and prayer. As always, she’s humble, hopeful, and hilarious, offering an accessible narrative to those of us who can get bogged down in our search for meaning and peace in a frantic world. Lamott urges us to hold onto hope, reconnect with each other, and patiently repair ourselves, one stitch at a time.

If, like me, you’re willing to pick up anything Gilbert puts down, then you’ll quickly settle into this brilliantly researched celebration of the natural world. This fact-packed, fast-reading novel covers much of the 18th and 19th centuries, telling the story of Alma Whittaker, a spinster botanist who “wanted to understand the world, and…made a habit of chasing down information to its last hiding place, as though the fate of nations were at stake in every instance.” Alma is the tenacious, captivating daughter of wealthy botanist explorers, and her wonder is evident on every page of this novel. Its backdrop reveals an exceptionally exciting time in human history, when the science of the natural world flourished.

Delia, the second of four Ephron sisters , recently collected her thoughts in this touchingly candid collection of 15 essays. As the title suggests, Ephron offers insights on topics like siblings (in “Losing Nora” and “Collaboration”), navigating a complicated mother-daughter relationship (in “Why I Can’t Write About my Mother”), love and marriage (in “Blame It On the Movies”), and, a little apologetically, her dog (in “Dogs”). While Ephron’s tone is conversational, full of rhetorical questions and wry parentheticals that reveal a quirky literary mind, her prose is underscored by raw emotion and keen observation, lending her work peerless depth and vitality.

In this collection of 22 essays and commencement addresses, released this month, beloved essayist and novelist Patchett reflects on pivotal moments in her life, including her decision to become a writer, open a bookstore in her hometown of Nashville, and transition from divorce into remarriage. Additionally, she speaks candidly about the research for her critically acclaimed novel Bel Canto, and in “The Right to Read,” her commencement address to Clemson University, she offers a defense of artistic freedom, invoking her memoir Truth and Beauty, which details her friendship with writer Lucy Grealy.

Fierce emotions and complex psychology are close to the surface in this brilliant, searing novel. The protagonist, Nora Eldridge, a 37-year-old elementary school teacher, is the fastidious, self-proclaimed Woman Upstairs, who spends days with 8-year-olds and nights and weekends working on her art: creating shoebox-sized dioramas of the living spaces of heroines like Virginia Woolf. She lives quietly and meticulously, until the Shahid family—Skandar, Sirena, and their son, Reza—enter her world, and ambitions and passions long laid to rest quickly come to light. Nora is destabilized, entranced by the entire Shahid family: Skandar, the Harvard professor; Sirena, the flamboyant Italian artist; and beautiful Reza. For Nora, the Shahids come to represent all that’s missing from her isolated existence, and the end result is a novel of self-realization that will stay with you long after you finish.

Hey, Eat, Pray, Love fans—how many of these books have you read