How To Change Your Life In One Year

Eat, Pray, Love has sold 4.7 million copies to date, an example of a recent publishing phenomenon of mid-life recovery memoirs, a mini-genre of books focusing on "how I turned my life around in a year". The books seem to especially appeal to women, offering the vicarious thrills of change at arm's length. An article in The New York Observer outlined this unique publishing phenomenon in "How to Change Your Life in One Year! Completely". by Leon Neyfakh, March 25, 2008.

I just finished "Eat, Pray, Love" and loved the premise. Author Elizabeth Gilbert travels across three countries to restore her sense of self and soul, seeking pleasure in Italy, spiritual devotion in India and balance in Bali. At times, her excruciating recollections of the depths of her despair exorcising herself from a painful divorce and a marriage that no longer works makes for depressing reading. Yet, it is precisely this contrast between her previous lows and her newfound contentment and her invitation to join us in her journey inward and in such exotic locales which make Eat, Pray, Love great summer reading.

Don't you hate when you get to the end of a book and wish it would never end? So, if you finished Eat, Pray, Love and are looking for a new book to read, I took all the book titles listed in the New York Observer article and listed them below. Eat, Pray, Love, is just one of the books listed that's been out for sometime so you can probably pick it up in the library. But some of the other titles are new releases which are available on amazon.com.

I've also included a section of other "year in the life" memoirs that were not mentioned in the article but that are also excellent reads if you find this mini-genre appealing.

As I come across interesting articles, links or videos, I'll keep posting them here as well. Check out Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert's interview at Google as well as a link to her website