Elizabeth Gilbert’s favorite books about women overcoming difficulties

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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 in 2018.

‘The Summer Book’ by Tove Jansson (1972)

In this slim, magical novel, a wild young girl and her equally wild grandmother spend the summer on a remote Finnish island, using adventure 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.

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‘The Little Locksmith’ by Katharine Butler Hathaway (1943)

This vivid memoir tells of how spinal tuberculosis, diagnosed in childhood, threatened (but failed) to limit the scope of Hathaway’s 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.

‘The Awakened Woman’ by Dr. Tererai Trent (2017)

There is no easy pathway from rural African poverty, illiteracy, and early marriage to a doctoral degree in America—but in this memoir, 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’ve met. Buy it here.

‘Matrix’ by Lauren Groff (2021)

Plenty of women in history have been sent to convents as punishment, but in Groff’s brilliant and muscular novel, the 12th-­century 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. Buy it here.

‘How to Say Babylon’ by Safiya Sinclair (2023)

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.

‘Harley Loco’ by Rayya Elias (2013)

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.