
All the Way to the River
Love, Loss and Liberation
Elizabeth Gilbert(Author)
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Published on 9. September 2025
Book
Hardback
400 pages
978-1-5266-5456-4 (ISBN)
Description
AN OBSERVER BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025
AN OPRAH WINFREY AND FEARNE COTTON 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.
AN OPRAH WINFREY AND FEARNE COTTON 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.
Reviews / Votes
With Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert started a movement ... This new memoir is just as powerful - raw, unflinching and deeply healing. She bares her soul, sharing her truth so openly, she offers readers the courage to face their own -- Oprah Winfrey Gilbert's supernatural ability to find the upside is her unique power as a writer ... [Gilbert] is a good advert for what to do when you end up on the floor: take it as a sign to look inward * Observer * Heart-breaking, sometimes harrowing, but with profound honesty, Elizabeth Gilbert asks us to hope. No one who reads this book will ever forget it -- Meg Mason An absolute masterclass and truth-bomb of a memoir, packed with rawness, courage and poetry. I feel changed by it. The deepest truest manifesto I've ever read on recovery, addiction, facing yourself and what it means to belong. I think many people will be shaken awake by this book -- Emma Gannon Elizabeth Gilbert has written her rawest memoir yet ... The acclaimed author pulls no punches, offering an unvarnished look at love, addiction, and the long road to recovery * Elle * Classic Gilbert: entertaining, insightful, wrenching, self-effacing, self-indulgent and profoundly real. Its strongest scenes, of Gilbert and partner Rayya Elias's beyond-beautiful and then beyond-ugly interactions, are punch-to-the-gut powerful ... She furthers the enduring women's crusade to split the world open * Washington Post * In gorgeous prose, we see Gilbert come apart and find the strength to put herself back together again ... A delicious mashup of narrative that's by turns harrowing and healing * People * A blockbuster: brutally honest, lurid, transcendent, and compelling ... Gilbert is undoubtedly a force * Boston Globe * A loving tribute to Elias, an unfiltered descent into substance abuse, and an intimate look at Gilbert's hard fought road to recovery * TIME * What makes this book worthy is the author's fierce self-reckoning: there's no easy triumph, just more hard work * Los Angeles Times * Deeply personal ... A beautiful portrait of a woman learning to care for herself * Real Simple * Gilbert achieves her signature intimacy through a bluntly confessional tone ... and an admirable ability to stare darkness in the face without losing hope. Readers struggling with addiction or seeking a path through heartbreak will find invaluable wisdom in these pages * Publishers Weekly, starred review * Gilbert rips open her life to share all the painful moments and grief ... in a story of despair and courage that ... must have been unimaginable to write ... A brave story with an ultimately hopeful outcome. Anyone who has faced addiction - or loved someone who has - will recognize and be moved by Gilbert's journey * Booklist, starred review * The author of the world's most famous memoir returns to the form to tell the story of a great love ... A worthy addition to the literature of addiction and recovery, charming and harrowing by turns * Kirkus * Like the romantic crash and burn Gilbert describes, a wild ride of a book. I devoured it in one sitting ... If you're a fan of addiction memoirs that are prepared to get down in the mucky darkness of life, it's an instant classic * Standard * This book has changed my life... so honest and powerful.... I don't think I've ever read a book that's as important as this book... earth-shatteringly honest.... remarkable, brutal and confronting but life-affirming... it is so effing good you have to read it * Fearne Cotton *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 238 mm
Width: 160 mm
Thickness: 40 mm
Weight
618 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5266-5456-4 (9781526654564)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
09/2025
1st Edition
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
€18.99
Available for download
Person
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.