When Isabel Gillies’s husband got a job she packed up her two toddlers, and belongings and moved from New York City to Ohio.  After only a few months of doing so her husband informed her that he was leaving her and their two boys.  A friend told her it “happens every day.”  The story doens’t even have the slightest hint of self pity, Isabel writes candidly as if speaking with a close friend.  With divorce rates close to 60% this memoir hits close to home for many of us.

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Tags: book, divorce, happens every day, isabel gillies, Literature, memoir, New York City, nonfiction, ohio, read

Contrary to what you think a title like NIghts and Weekends might be about this movie does not involve divorce and the subject of child custody but rather it is about love and the struggles that go along with a long distance relationship.  In theaters October 10th.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn-3-OSTiYA]

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Tags: custody, divorce, long distance relationship, love, movies, nights and weekends, struggle, theaters

Mention Eat, Pray, Love and everyone nods their head in recognition.  Introspectively, the journey of a woman is told who, after a divorce at age thirty-one, sojourns first to Rome for pleasure, then Mumbai for spirituality, and last to Bali in hopes to acquire a balance of both. The odyssey is honest and interacts with the reader in a meaningful, relating fashion.  I was left inspired with an urgent need to find a guru of my own.

Aside from Elizabeth Gilbert’s spiritually prompting memoir, she has produced a handful of noteworthy pieces. Published in GQ magazine, her 1997 article “The Muse of the Coyote Ugly Saloon” speaks of a dive bar in Manhattan’s East Village where she worked as a bartender.  It is also the basis for the movie Coyote Ugly.  Gilbert’s collection of short stories, under the title Pilgrims, received the Pushcart Prize in 1997, followed by the novel Stern Men, chosen as a “notable book” by The New York Times. 

Two years have past since the Eat, Pray, Love sensation hit the shelves and it continues to stir up attention. Paramount pictures is now on board, casting Julia Roberts to play Elizabeth Gilbert’s role.

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Tags: bali, books, Coyote Ugly, divorce, east village, Eat, Elizabeth Gilbert, GQ, Julia Roberts, Literature, love, memoir, mumbai, notable book, odyssey, Paramount Pictures, Pray, pushcart prize, reading, rome, spiritual, The New York Times