All the Way to the River

A GUARDIAN BEST BOOK OF AUTUMN 2025
AN OPRAH WINFREY BOOK CLUB PICK

‘No one who reads this book will ever forget it’ Meg Mason
‘An absolute masterclass and truth-bomb … I think many people will be shaken awake by this book’ Emma Gannon

In her first non-fiction book in a decade, the no. 1 bestselling writer who taught millions of readers to live authentically (Eat Pray Love) and creatively (Big Magic) shows how to break free.

In 2000, Elizabeth Gilbert met Rayya. They became friends, then best friends, then inseparable. When tragedy entered their lives, the truth was finally laid bare: the two were in love. They were also a pair of addicts, on a collision course toward catastrophe.

What if your most beautiful love story turned into your biggest nightmare? What if the dear friend who taught you so much about your self-destructive tendencies became the unstable partner with whom you disastrously reenacted every one of them? And what if your most devastating heartbreak opened a pathway to your greatest awakening?

All the Way to the River is a landmark memoir that will resonate with anyone who has ever been captive to love – or to any other passion, substance or craving – and who yearns, at long last, for liberation.

Author Biography

Elizabeth Gilbert is the author of many internationally bestselling books, most recently the novel City of Girls. She has been a finalist for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the PEN/Hemingway Award.