March pleasure reading

Well technically I'm not sure if this book should go in the February or March category. I started it last weekend but I read the last 80 pages or so this morning, so I finished it in March. Oh well, it's going in the March category.

This month's pleasure reading is Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia. I know a lot of people who have read this book, and I've been seeing it around for awhile, so I finally bought it last weekend with one of the gift cards I received for Christmas.



I really enjoyed this book! I didn't know too much about what it was about until I actually bought it; I didn't even know it was autobiographical (which, come to think of it, seems to describe most of the books I have read lately...) until I started reading it. She starts out the book describing how/why she took this trip, talking about her nasty divorce and the depression she suffered for no real reason (that she could see).

When she really thinks about what would make her happy, she decides it is to learn to speak Italian, so she moves to Italy for 4 months to learn the "art of pleasure". Following her time there, she moves to India to study with a guru for 4 months to learn the "art of devotion". And finally she moves to Bali for 4 months to learn the "art of balance" where she is able to blend both pleasure and devotion.

I really wish I had the freedom to do this in my career pathway. I am excited to be where I am, but it would be so liberating to just drop everything for a year and go with Keegan to Italy to enjoy the food, to India to learn to pray and find spiritual solace, and then Bali to enjoy the people and the sights. Or anywhere really I guess. But I don't exactly have the writing chops that would allow me to just take a year off, write about it, then get paid lots of money. Or to just get paid a huge advance and live off of that while I write my book (like Elizabeth Gilbert did). Of course maybe some day Keegan and I will be offered the opportunity to live abroad through our work, which I think would be really exciting and would also help us grow as a couple.

So, in any event, I think I will read her next book, Committed, which was released in January, at some point during this year. Of course, I am a bit OCD and since I own Eat, Pray, Love in paperback I really can't handle having Committed in a hardcover. I know. Weird.

I think next on my list will be either Catch-22, which I started and never finished, or The Once and Future King, which I have owned for a very long time and never read. Or perhaps Anthem or We the Living. I have many options...