PRAY, LOVE, REPEAT

The epiphanies of Elizabeth Gilbert.

- JIA TOLENTINO

Elizabeth Gilbert has a new mem"Eou out." The mere sentence radiates gentle inspiration-watercolors, billowy pants with elephants printed on them, sparkly truthtelling in a big straw hat. Gilbert had an estimable career as a journalist and a writer of fiction before she published "Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia," in 2006, a book that became not just a best-seller or even a phenomenon but something more like a cultural paradigm. Gilbert's autobiographical account of a yearlong, post-divorce, midthirties rediscovery of herself was read by millions, many of whom, when they picture Gilbert, likely see Julia Roberts, who starred in the film adaptation, which grossed two hundred million dollars worldwide. Upon hearing that Gilbert has written another memoir-her first proper return to that deliriously, exclusively personal form since "Eat, Pray, Love," although she's published four other books in the interim-these readers may imagine that they're in for more of what was on the movie poster: a plucky blonde, gelato spoon in mouth, ready for adventure and revelation to blow in on the breeze.