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Gilbert has spent her career writing about reinvention — leaving a life that looks correct on paper for one that actually feels true. Eat Pray Love made her a household name and, for a while, a punchline; the more interesting argument lives in Big Magic, that creativity and self-permission are the same muscle. Below are all ten titles that appear under her name, in order, including the two novels and the biography that most lists leave off, and the one book that is not actually hers.
By Lisanne Swart · 9 books of her own · 1 she introduced · Best memoirs · 1997–2025 · Updated September 2026
Quick answer
Elizabeth Gilbert has written nine books of her own, from the short-story collection Pilgrims (1997) to the memoir All the Way to the River (2025). A tenth title, the cookbook At Home on the Range (2012), appears on her own site and in most bibliographies but was written by her great-grandmother; Gilbert edited it and wrote the introduction. Start with Eat Pray Love (2006) for the famous one, or Big Magic (2015) if creativity interests you more than memoir.
Watch: Elizabeth Gilbert on Your Elusive Creative Genius
Quick facts about Elizabeth Gilbert
- Born
- 18 July 1969, Waterbury, Connecticut
- Books
- Nine of her own, 1997 to 2025, plus one she edited and introduced
- Breakthrough
- Eat Pray Love (2006) — more than 12 million copies, 30-plus languages
- Film
- Eat Pray Love was filmed in 2010 with Julia Roberts
- Award finalist
- National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award for The Last American Man (2002)
- Before the memoirs
- Magazine journalism — a three-time finalist for the National Magazine Award
- Time 100
- Named one of the hundred most influential people in the world, 2008
- Most recent
- All the Way to the River (2025), an Oprah's Book Club pick
All 10 books by Elizabeth Gilbert, in order
Pilgrims
Twelve stories about cowboys, bartenders and drifters, written in her twenties while she was working as a cook on a ranch and a bartender in New York. It was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award and won a Pushcart Prize, and almost nobody who arrived through Eat Pray Love knows it exists.
Stern Men
Her first novel, set among the lobster fishermen of two feuding islands off the coast of Maine, where a young woman comes home from boarding school and finds a territorial war she is expected to have an opinion about. Comic, and closely observed about work.
The Last American Man
A biography of Eustace Conway, who left home at seventeen to live in the woods and spent decades trying to persuade Americans to follow him. Gilbert takes him seriously and also sees clearly what the mission costs the people around him. A finalist for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award — the most decorated thing she has written.
Eat Pray Love
After a divorce in her early thirties she spent a year travelling — Italy for pleasure, India for devotion, Bali for balance — and turned it into a memoir that has sold more than twelve million copies in over thirty languages and was filmed in 2010 with Julia Roberts. It is funnier and more self-aware about privilege and panic than its reputation suggests.
→ Best memoirs and biographiesCommitted: A Love Story
A direct sequel. She and Felipe — José Nunes — are forced by an immigration ultimatum to marry, the one institution she had sworn off after her divorce, so she spends the book researching the history and politics of marriage in order to make peace with saying yes. More sceptical and more argued than its predecessor.
At Home on the Range
This one is on almost every Elizabeth Gilbert bibliography, including her own site, and she did not write it. It is a 1947 cookbook by her great-grandmother, Margaret Yardley Potter, which Gilbert rediscovered and had reissued with an introduction of her own. Worth knowing before you order it expecting a Gilbert book.
The Signature of All Things
A nineteenth-century novel following Alma Whittaker, a botanist's daughter whose obsession with moss carries her toward a theory of evolution decades before Darwin publishes. Her most ambitious fiction, built on real research into the period's botany, and named a best book of 2013 by the New York Times, the Washington Post and the New Yorker among others.
Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
The argument that creativity is a daily practice rather than a gift reserved for suffering geniuses, and that perfectionism and fear are the actual obstacles rather than talent. It draws on the years of rejection before Eat Pray Love, and it is the book her readers reread.
City of Girls
Nineteen-forties New York, told by Vivian, sent to live with her aunt in a run-down theatre after being thrown out of Vassar, who pursues pleasure and independence and is not punished for it. Gilbert has said plainly that she wanted to write a woman's freedom without the moral comeuppance that period fiction usually demands.
All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, and Liberation
The story of her relationship with Rayya Elias — first her friend, then, after Elias was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2016, her partner — and of Gilbert's own collapse during the years that followed. Elias died in January 2018. There is no travel arc and no tidy resolution; it is the least Eat Pray Love thing she has written, and by most accounts the most honest. An Oprah's Book Club pick.
Why the Count Is Nine, Ten or Six Depending Who You Ask
Almost every list of Elizabeth Gilbert's books disagrees with almost every other one. Three things cause it.
- At Home on the Range (2012) — Her great-grandmother Margaret Yardley Potter wrote it in 1947. Gilbert rediscovered it, had it reissued and wrote the introduction. It appears under Gilbert's name in most catalogues, which is why the total is usually given as ten rather than nine.
- The first three books — Pilgrims (1997), Stern Men (2000) and The Last American Man (2002) came out before Eat Pray Love and are missing from a surprising number of “complete” lists. The Last American Man is the one that was a National Book Award finalist.
- Editions and repackaging — Committed has appeared with two different subtitles, A Love Story and A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage, which some lists count twice.
How Elizabeth Gilbert Writes: Permission as a Subject
The through-line from the short stories to the last memoir is permission — who gets to want something, and what it costs to admit it. In Eat Pray Love it is a woman leaving a marriage nobody thought she should leave. In City of Girls it is a young woman refusing to be sorry. In Big Magic it is stated outright as an argument.
She writes in the second person more often than most memoirists, and directly at the reader. That is why the books get called self-help and why they sell: she is not describing an experience so much as handing it over. Readers who dislike her usually dislike exactly this.
Her fiction is a different instrument and the reason to take her seriously as a writer rather than a phenomenon. The Signature of All Things sustains a nineteenth-century voice across five hundred pages of real botanical research, and The Last American Man is reported biography that was a National Book Award finalist. Neither reads anything like the memoirs.
The late work has got harder. All the Way to the River has no redemptive structure at all, which is the opposite of the shape that made her famous, and she seems to know it.
Elizabeth Gilbert's Books in Order of Publication
In order: Pilgrims (1997), Stern Men (2000), The Last American Man (2002), Eat Pray Love (2006), Committed (2010), At Home on the Range (2012), The Signature of All Things (2013), Big Magic (2015), City of Girls (2019) and All the Way to the River (2025).
Only one pair needs reading in order. Committed (2010) picks up where Eat Pray Love (2006) ends and assumes you know how that book finished. Everything else stands alone.
Three periods, and they barely resemble each other. Before 2006 she was a magazine journalist writing fiction and reported biography. From 2006 to 2015 she is the memoirist and then the creativity writer. From 2013 onward she alternates: a large historical novel, then a nonfiction book, then a novel again, then the hardest memoir of the lot.
Where to Start with Elizabeth Gilbert
If you want the famous one
→ Eat Pray Love (2006). Read it past its reputation; it is sharper about privilege and panic than the parody version suggests.
If memoir is not your format
→ Big Magic (2015). It requires no interest in her personal life and is the book people return to.
If you doubt she is a serious writer
→ The Last American Man (2002), a National Book Award finalist, or The Signature of All Things (2013). Neither sounds like the memoirs.
If you want the novel that is pure pleasure
→ City of Girls (2019). Nineteen-forties New York, and nobody is punished for enjoying themselves.
If you want the hardest thing she has written
→ All the Way to the River (2025). No travel arc, no resolution.
If you want to start at the beginning
→ Pilgrims (1997), the short stories almost nobody reads.
Frequently asked questions about Elizabeth Gilbert's books
How many books has Elizabeth Gilbert written?
Nine of her own, published between 1997 and 2025: Pilgrims, Stern Men, The Last American Man, Eat Pray Love, Committed, The Signature of All Things, Big Magic, City of Girls and All the Way to the River. You will usually see ten, because most lists include At Home on the Range (2012) — a cookbook written by her great-grandmother that Gilbert edited and introduced.
What are Elizabeth Gilbert's books in order?
Pilgrims (1997), Stern Men (2000), The Last American Man (2002), Eat Pray Love (2006), Committed (2010), At Home on the Range (2012), The Signature of All Things (2013), Big Magic (2015), City of Girls (2019) and All the Way to the River (2025). Only Committed needs to be read after another book — it continues directly from Eat Pray Love.
Is At Home on the Range an Elizabeth Gilbert book?
Not really, and this catches people out. It is a 1947 cookbook by Margaret Yardley Potter, Gilbert's great-grandmother. Gilbert found it, had it reissued in 2012 and wrote the introduction. Because it is catalogued under her name it turns up in her bibliography and pushes the usual total from nine to ten.
What is the best Elizabeth Gilbert book to start with?
Eat Pray Love (2006) if you want the book she is known for. Big Magic (2015) if you would rather have the argument about creativity without the personal story attached — it is the one readers most often reread. If you want to know whether she can really write, The Last American Man (2002) was a National Book Award finalist.
What is Elizabeth Gilbert's most famous book?
Eat Pray Love (2006), by a long way. It has sold more than twelve million copies in over thirty languages and was filmed in 2010 with Julia Roberts. It is also the reason her earlier and arguably better books are so often overlooked.
Did Elizabeth Gilbert write fiction as well as memoir?
Yes, and it is a substantial part of the shelf. Pilgrims (1997) is a short-story collection, Stern Men (2000) is a novel about lobster fishermen in Maine, and The Signature of All Things (2013) and City of Girls (2019) are large historical novels. The Last American Man (2002) is reported biography.
What is Elizabeth Gilbert's newest book?
All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, and Liberation, published in 2025 and selected for Oprah's Book Club. It is a memoir about her relationship with Rayya Elias and the years after Elias was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2016.
Which Elizabeth Gilbert book won awards?
The Last American Man (2002) was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her debut Pilgrims (1997) was a PEN/Hemingway Award finalist and won a Pushcart Prize. As a magazine journalist she was a three-time finalist for the National Magazine Award.
Is Eat Pray Love a true story?
Yes. It is a memoir of the year Gilbert spent in Italy, India and Indonesia after a divorce in her early thirties. Committed (2010) continues the story and is more sceptical about where it ended up.
Who is Elizabeth Gilbert?
Elizabeth Gilbert, born 18 July 1969 in Waterbury, Connecticut, is an American writer of memoir, fiction and narrative nonfiction. She began as a magazine journalist, was a National Book Award finalist in 2002 for The Last American Man, and became internationally known with the 2006 memoir Eat Pray Love. Time named her one of the hundred most influential people in the world in 2008.
Sources
- Elizabeth Gilbert — official site
- Elizabeth Gilbert — Wikipedia
- At Home on the Range — McSweeney's
- Pilgrims (short story collection) — Wikipedia
Bibliography last verified 7 September 2026.
“You need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select your clothes every day.”
— Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat Pray Love (2006).
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