I'm always pleased when a particular book rides the waves of popularity and becomes a ubiquitous fixture of public transportation, drugstore check-out shelves, and the media. I've never read the Harry Potter series and probably never will (I find most fantasy novels difficult to read), but I love how some kids who otherwise hate to read, waited hours to get the last enormous book.

Same with The Da Vinci Code. I have no desire to read it, mostly because I don't think it will blow my mind. I remember this particular Valley Girl-ish co-worker back in college who swore Dan Brown, "Like, totally changed my life! Really! You should, like, borrow my copy!"

I declined. Good for you, but not my scene. I'm skeptical of what lots of people purport to be great, anyway. Like Orlando Bloom. What's the appeal? Am I the only person who thinks his face resembles a ferret's? And that he's a poor man's Justin Timberlake, but with ratty hair?

But enough about that. Karen, my co-teacher at the last school where I worked, returned from one of the school vacations raving about this one book that I know you have seen. I was kind of interested in her brief overview, but didn't pursue it. Then Head Honcho started telling me to read it, too. My second day in the office, he slid it to me from across his desk. "This book must be read," his expression seemed to say. I worried that it might be too touchy-feely, too mystical to captivate the likes of me. I have a serious problem with holding back the cynicism, especially when it comes to spirituality.

I read the book. On the subway one morning, I sat down next to someone and took the book out of my bag. As I started reading, I realized the girl next to me was intently reading the same book. Pop culture soulmates!

When I was almost finished a few days later, a girl standing next to me at the Good Morning America John Legend concert interrupted my rapt absorption of "Another Again" to discuss the cover winking at her from inside my handbag.

"What is that book? I've seen it everywhere!" John Legend crooned away, I swayed and looked at her. "That book in your bag? It's good, huh?"

I bent down and showed it to her. "It's the 'it book' now, and it's actually well-written. You should read it," I clipped. She said okay, and I turned my attention back to the stage. Part of me thought, "What nerve! We're at a concert!" The other part commended her curiosity. I turned around later, and she was gone.

Like Karen and Head Honcho before me, I tried to get more people on the literary bandwagon. I quickly found myself nominating the book for my book club's first reading. No one else had read it yet, and we like Indian and Italian food. That could be worked into the discussion. Not to mention, the book is piquant and funny and will make the crustiest ogre want to head for Bali.

I read Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love at a time of change and upheaval. I've had the summer off to think about where I am and where I want to be. Even typing this, something in my brain buzzes, "Redundant! You've done this before! You've written this before!" I know I have and I'll do it again. But the thoughts and conclusions will always be different and this time my thoughts were something like, "Am I happy? Do I want to be alone? Should I be in a relationship? Should I be so settled at this point in my life?" And my conclusions, well, those are still in the works.

But I do know that Gilbert felt like an older, wiser friend giving me food for thought all those nights I couldn't put the thoughts to sleep. I was sad when the book ended, but happy for her. Like when the friend you adore falls in love and finds a new person she wants to spend a lot of time with, instead of you. But she's given you so much that you'll never be without her, anyway. I felt that about this book, and that's special.

I feel connected to all of humanity, too, because every other purchase at Barnes & Noble may be this read. It's mainstream, but still good, as evidenced in these excerpts:

"I got started early in life with the pursuit of sexual and romantic pleasure. I barely had an adolescence before I had my first boyfriend, and I have consistently had a boy or a man (or sometimes both) in my life ever since I was fifteen years old. That was - oh, let's see - about nineteen years ago, now. That's almost two solid decades I have been entwined in some kind of drama with some kind of guy. Each overlapping the next, with never so much as a week's breather in between. And I can't help but think that's been something of a liability on my path to maturity."

Moreover, I have boundary issues with men. Or maybe that's not fair to say. I have issues with boundaries, one must have boundaries in the first place, right? But I disappear into the person I love. I am the permeable membrane. If I love you, you can have everything. You can have my time, my devotion, my ass, my money, my family, my dog, my dog's money, my dog's time - everything... I will give you all this and more, until I get so exhausted and depleted that the only way I can recover my energy is by becoming infatuated with someone else."

"I met an old lady once, almost a hundred years old, and she told me, "There are only two questions that human beings have ever fought over, all through history. How much do you love me? And Who's in charge?" Everything else is somehow manageable. But these two questions of love and control undo us all, trip us up and cause war, grief, and suffering."

"'God dwells within you, as you.' AS you. If there is one holy truth of this Yoga, that line encapsulates it. God dwells within you as you yourself, exactly the way you are. God isn't interested in watching you enact some performance of personality in order to comply with some crackpot notion you have about how a spiritual person looks or behaves. We all seem to get this idea that, in order to be sacred, we have to make some massive, dramatic change of character, that we have to renounce our individuality... To know God, you need only to renounce one thing - your sense of division from God. Otherwise, just stay as you were made, within your natural character."

"I have always fallen in love fast and without measuring risks. I have a tendency not only to see the best in everyone, but to assure that everyone is emotionally capable of reaching his highest potential. I have fallen in love more times that I care to count with the highest potential of a man, rather than with the man himself, and then I have hung on to the relationship for a long time (sometimes far too long) waiting for the man to ascend to his own greatness. Many times in romance I have been a victim of my own optimism."

After discussing how woman have historically had fathers decide if suitors are appropriate for their daughters to date and wed:

"If I am to truly become an autonomous woman, then I must take over that role of being my own guardian. Famously, Gloria Steinem once advised women that they should strive to become like the men they always wanted to marry. What I've only recently realized is that I not only have to be my own husband, but I need to be my own father, too."