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Elizabeth Gilbert is the author of the blockbuster 2006 memoir Eat, Pray, Love. Her ninth book, the new memoir All the Way to the River, explores her stormy, codependent relationship with her friend and lover Rayya Elias, who died of cancer<\/a> in 2018.<\/p>\n \u2018The Summer Book\u2019 by Tove Jansson (1972)<\/p>\n In this slim, magical novel, a wild young girl and her equally wild grandmother spend the summer on a remote Finnish island, using adventure<\/a> and creativity to heal from loss. Never has childhood girl power been more eloquently expressed. I call this my favorite book nobody has ever read. Buy it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Week<\/p>\n Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \nSUBSCRIBE & SAVE\n<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Sign up for The Week’s Free Newsletters<\/p>\n From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n \u2018The Little Locksmith\u2019 by Katharine Butler Hathaway (1943)<\/p>\n This vivid memoir tells of how spinal tuberculosis, diagnosed in childhood, threatened (but failed) to limit the scope of Hathaway\u2019s big, imaginative life. Despite being literally tied down for all of childhood and in pain for all of adulthood, Hathaway lived a grand, artistic, and even sensual existence. Buy it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2018The Awakened Woman\u2019 by Dr. Tererai Trent (2017)<\/p>\n There is no easy pathway from rural African poverty, illiteracy, and early marriage to a doctoral degree in America\u2014but in this memoir<\/a>, Trent shows how she created that path for herself, with relentless drive and the guidance of her ancestors. This is the truly heroic journey of a woman I admire more than anyone else I\u2019ve met. Buy it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2018Matrix\u2019 by Lauren Groff (2021)<\/p>\n Plenty of women in history have been sent to convents as punishment, but in Groff\u2019s brilliant and muscular novel, the 12th-\u00adcentury mystical poet Marie de France takes that banishment and turns it into might, becoming a leader who transforms her convent into a hidden world of creativity, prosperity, and autonomy for all women<\/a>. Buy it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2018How to Say Babylon\u2019 by Safiya Sinclair (2023)<\/p>\n Raised in the crushing patriarchy of contemporary Jamaica, Sinclair fought back against the limitations of her father and her Rastafarian culture to become a magnificent poet, traveler, and author. Sinclair essentially wrote her way out of poverty and oppression, and the result, this gorgeous memoir, is pure fire. Buy it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2018Harley Loco\u2019 by Rayya Elias (2013)<\/p>\n My new book tells the story of my friendship and love with Rayya Elias, but in this memoir, she tells her own harrowing story of immigration, alienation, drug addiction, music, and recovery. Raw and unflinching, her voice continues to shine long after her death. Buy it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When you make a purchase using links on our site, The Week may earn a commission. All reviews…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39919,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[288,93,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-39918","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39918\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}