I missed (or deliberately avoided?) all of the hoopla surrounding this book when it first came out in 2006. Sure, I heard about it. But at the time, I wasn't enticed enough by the premise to pick up the book myself. I'm also such an entrenched nonconformist that I will refuse to jump on any bandwagon, no matter how good it may prove itself to be.

Now however, when I spied this title on the CD shelf of the local library, I decided to give the audiobook a chance. Am I ever glad I did! I immediately fell in love with Elizabeth Gilbert, with her admirable quests of self-discovery, with her craftsmanship of writing and with her voice. Or really, with her voices.

Liz provides enough backstory for us to understand that she is a spiritual, philosophical and emotional animal. She takes things personally. And when she aches -- literally -- from prolonged divorce proceedings and an uncertain follow-up romance, she knows she needs to take a break from all of it. Nine months on the road could be the perfect remedy. She could spend three months in each one of three countries: Italy, India and Indonesia. Fortunately, a publisher agrees and gives her an advance large enough to fund the trip. Off she goes.

Her goal in Italy is to learn the language, via deep-end-of-the-pool immersion. Of course, she also meets interesting people, visits scenic sites and eats terrific food. Eats a lot of terrific food. In India, she has a reservation to study at a private ashram under the guidance of a noted guru. Liz wants to perfect her meditation techniques and practices. Again, she meets quite a few eclectic individuals here, while keeping to a strict schedule and eating vegetarian meals. And then she heads off to the island of Bali in Indonesia, intending to learn more life lessons from an elderly native healer whom she had met two years earlier during a magazine assignment. Here, she gets even more help than she imagined.

The travelogue genre has been around for centuries. Someone visits an exotic place. When they come home, they write about what they encountered, often adding humorous tales and taking some jabs at the local culture. So what makes Liz's memoir such a winner in this field? Her masterful writing and her raw honesty. Her word choices are simply wonderful. The metaphors and similes she offers up to us are just as delicious as the food she was eating. Yes, many tasty morsels can be found in this book.

Sharing the details of one's private life with the world can come with risks too, including public judgments. While Liz is upfront about which identities have been withheld to protect others, including locations, she does reveal an awful lot, otherwise. You have to admire her extrovertedness for this.

The audio edition contains 11 CDs that translate into 13 hours of storytelling. Liz doesn't merely narrate the manuscript. She adds more fun and more personality. She speaks in the accents of the Italians, the Indians and the Balinese, when she reads through their conversations. She impersonates the voices of the other people she meets, too: from the green-hilled lilt of the Irish farmer, to the "Dude!" of the young New York-loving Indonesian, from the knowing drawl of Richard from Texas, to the "Darling!"-laced lines of one special Brazilian. Because of her approach, I highly recommend that folks listen to this book instead of reading it. I'm sure the dialects are transcribed well on the pages. But nothing can beat witnessing the expert voicing what she herself heard from her friends and from the strangers she met abroad.

I'm not at all surprised that a book called Eat Pray Love Made Me Do It (Riverhead Books, 2016) came out 10 years after this one. Here, 47 more folks tell the stories of how they too followed their own paths. It's natural to be inspired by Liz's journey and to wonder if/how you could craft your own travelogue of discovery.

I enjoyed this vicarious outing with Liz so much that I bought an Eat, Pray, Love CD set for myself. I'm going to have to travel around with her more than just once. I will decidedly NOT watch the movie version of this story, however. Julia Roberts is great, but she's no Liz Gilbert.