9 d. ago Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir has raised eyebrows – but she always comes out on top | Emma Brockes

A new tale from the longtime purveyor of self-love is both horrific and poorly done, and nobody’s sure how to respondIf you are someone who reads multiple news sources a day, a fun way to occasionally spend your time over the last few weeks would have been to watch how critics and commentators have grappled with a hard problem. It is not, admittedly, as hard as the problem of grappling with consciousness. But it is hard enough that the famous assurance by Glennon Doyle, lifestyle coach and thought leader, that “we can do hard things,” remains relevant. I am talking about the problem of how we talk about All the Way to the River, Elizabeth Gilbert’s new memoir – specifically, how to be kinder and more measured about it than the book really deserves.As you may know if you are one of the 30 million people who bought Eat Pray Love, one of the tens of millions who have read Big Magic or one of her other novels, or simply one of her 1.2 million followers on Instagram, Gilbert recently pub...

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3 w. ago Did Elizabeth Gilbert really try to murder her dying addict girlfriend?

All the Way to the River is a revelatory new memoir from the Eat Pray Love author

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3 w. ago All the Way to the River by Elizabeth Gilbert review – excruciating to read

The Eat Pray Love author’s account of her relationship with her late partner Rayya is solipsistic and self-indulgentThe first chapter of Elizabeth Gilbert’s much anticipated new memoir closes on a four-page love letter to Gilbert from her late partner Rayya, who, dead for five years, comes to her in a “visitation”. In Rayya’s voice, Gilbert calls herself babe, baby, or “sunshine baby” multiple times, emotes in all-caps, and grants herself permission to write the details of Rayya’s terrible, humiliating final year. “Let me just look at you for a minute,” “Rayya” says to Liz. “Look at your little rainbow eyes! Look at your sparkling tears! You’re so beautiful!” The letter is deeply self-indulgent and excruciating to read. “You’re going all the fucking way this time – all the way to the enlightenment.”I believe that the dead are gone and that artists don’t need their permission to evoke them. But I was stunned that this solipsistic mess opens the book, because Gilbe...

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3 w. ago Wainwright prize for nature writing awarded to memoir about raising a hare during lockdown

Debut author Chloe Dalton’s ‘dream-like’ book Raising Hare follows the writer from London to the countrysideA memoir about a woman who rescued a hare during the pandemic has won this year’s Wainwright prize book of the year.Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton follows the author from London to the countryside, where she looked after a leveret during lockdown. Continue reading...

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3 w. ago Oprah Winfrey selects Elizabeth Gilbert's new memoir for her book club

Oprah Winfrey's new book club pick is Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir, “All the Way to the River.”

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3 w. ago She was the queen of the spiritual memoir – so how did Elizabeth Gilbert end up plotting to murder her girlfriend?

The beloved author behind ‘Eat Pray Love’ returns with a beguiling tale of drug abuse, addiction, and co-dependent love. While it’s a notable shift in subject matter from the woo-woo spirituality of her most famous work, much more interesting is the book’s repositioning of Gilbert from everyday woman to wise guru, writes Annabel Nugent

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3 w. ago Eat Pray Love author Elizabeth Gilbert reveals she planned to murder lesbian lover who she injected with drugs as she died from cancer

Fans of Eat Pray Love author Elizabeth Gilbert could be forgiven for assuming her life after publishing the best-seller which spent 57 weeks at the top of the bestseller list has been pretty peachy.

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