Committed : A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

At the end of her bestselling memoir, Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert fell in love with Felipe, a Brazilian-born man of Australian citzenship who'd been living in Indonesia when they met. Resettling in America, the couple swore eternal fidelity to each other, but also swore to never, ever under any circumstances get legally married. (Both were survivors of previous horrific divorces. Enough said.) But providence intervened one day in the form of the United States government which, after unexpectedly detaining Felipe at the America border crossing, gave the couple a choice: they could either get married, or Felipe would never be allowed to enter the country.

Elizabeth Gilbert is an award-winning writer of both fiction and non- fiction. Her short story collection Pilgrims was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway award, and her novel Stern Men was a New York Times notable book. In 2002, she published The Last American Man, which was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critic's Circle Award. She is best known for her 2006 memoir Eat, Pray, Love, which was published in more than thirty languages.