Eat, Sleep, Blog. Make Pasta?

I generally don't read on the subway to and from work for several reasons: My commute is relatively short, my hands are generally full (coffee, heels, lunch), and I have been known to miss my stop while reading. But I very much enjoy seeing what other people are reading (a girl can only study MTA posters so long). Today, for example, I was adjacent to not one, but two Atonement-readers. Also in close vicinity was the most ubiquitous subway-book of them all -- #1 on Goodreads' most read list for 2007 -- Eat, Pray, Love. As much as I like the title's pithy imperative, Lizzie Skurnick's splendidly useful review of this book forever cured me of all curiosity about its contents ages ago:

A sad truth for those of you out there seeking greater ones: Nothing is more boring than your epiphanies. (Even worse, sojourners–the more particular they are to you, the more they sound exactly like everyone else’s.) Such is the problem with Elizabeth Gilbert’s journey through the particulars of her digestive, spiritual and moral humors–located, for your corporeal information, in the regions of Italy, India and Indonesia, respectively. It’s a bit of a punt to say the book is self-aggrandizing–how could a book focused on one’s spiritual well-being not be?–but it’s the grand Richard Bachian strokes that provoke the reader beyond speech: “Simply put, I got pulled through the wormhole of the Absolute, and in that rush I suddenly understood the workings of the universe completely.” (Simply put.) However, we’re a girl! Fish-in-barrel elements aside, of course we loved that someone would eat pasta, meditate and tool around Indonesia for a year to get over a broken heart. There’s a lot to be said for pasta in general.