Read this: Elizabeth Gilbert, 'Lost' fans' fury, Gilbert Arenas photo flap

Elizabeth Gilbert (Helayne Seidman for the Washington Post)

Good afternoon, everyone. Elizabeth Gilbert's new book, "Committed," is out, and gets a favorable review in today's Style section.

Ellen McCarthy sat down with the author to discuss the book -- a sequel to Gilbert's wildly popular "Eat, Pray, Love" -- and Gilbert's now-omnipresent cult of . . . well, meaning.

Gilbert cannot explain it still, the wild propagation of her book. She can guess at why it resonated so deeply with so many (mostly women) readers. It has something to do with being a permission slip, she thinks: "You are actually really permitted to give yourself a little bit of time to contemplate what you would like the meaning of your life to be."

But she cannot be sure why her book, though it had plenty of detractors, has stayed on the bestseller list for almost three years (it's currently No. 6 in the New York Times paperback rankings). She can't fully comprehend why Oprah Winfrey would devote two full installments to the book. Or why it prompted women to e-mail her saying "Eat, Pray, Love" had inspired them to marry or divorce or quit their jobs or follow her tracks through Italy, India and Indonesia, eating where she ate, sleeping where she slept, trying to find the people she found.

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