February 2010 Good Housekeeping selection.

If you were one of the women joining in the collective ‘awww’ at the end of Elizabeth Gilbert’s bestselling Eat, Pray, Love, your energy was well spent. It paid off and here is the sequel to her emotionally witty journal of her round-world trip to reacclimatise after a painful divorce. At the end of that journey, the author fell in love with Felipe, a Brazilian-born Australian (look out for Javier Bardem as Felipe in the film version out this year, with Julia Roberts as Elizabeth). In Committed, the couple return to the States and take vows of fidelity, but are determined not to marry. When the US Government insists they wed, they are forced into the institution they’d sworn never to enter. Combining her fabulous soul-searching style with solid research, Gilbert reveals what love means to her in a jaded world.

Comparison: Mary Lawson, Annie Proulx, Barbara Kingsolver
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Synopsis

At the end of her bestselling memoir Eat, Pray, Love , Elizabeth Gilbert fell in love with Felipe - a Brazilian-born man of Australian citizenship who'd been living in Indonesia when they met. Resettling in America, the couple swore eternal fidelity to each other, but also swore to never, ever, under any circumstances get legally married. (Both survivors of difficult divorces. Enough said.) But providence intervened one day in the form of the U.S. government, who - after unexpectedly detaining Felipe at an American border crossing - gave the couple a choice: they could either get married, or Felipe would never be allowed to enter the country again. Having been effectively sentenced to wed, Gilbert tackled her fears of marriage by delving completely into this topic, trying with all her might to discover (through historical research, interviews and much personal reflection) what this stubbornly enduring old institution actually is. The result is Committed - a witty and intelligent contemplation of marriage that debunks myths, unthreads fears and suggests that sometimes even the most romantic of souls must trade in her amorous fantasies for the humbling responsibility of adulthood. Gilbert's memoir - destined to become a cherished handbook for any thinking person hovering on the verge of marriage - is ultimately a clear-eyed celebration of love, with all the complexity and consequence that real love, in the real world, actually entails.

Reviews

'A writer of incandescent talent.'
Annie Proulx

Praise for Eat, Pray, Love:

'A word-of-mouth bestseller. As funny as it is wise'
Elle

'It's what i'm giving all my girl friends'
Julia Roberts

'Utterly of the moment: it manages, effortlessly, to be both spiritual and sexy all in the same tumultous breath'
Guardian

About the Author

Elizabeth Gilbert is the author of a short story collection, Pilgrims (a finalist for the PEN/Hemmingway Award), a novel, Stern Men and a book of non fiction, The Last American Man (nominated for the National Book Award and a New York Times Notable Book for 2002). She is a writer-at-large for American GQ where she has received two National Magazine Award nominations for feature writing. Elizabeth Gilbert currently lives in Philadelphia. Photograph © Marion Ettlinger More books by this author Author 'Like for Like' recommendation