I’ll start with a confession. My name is Kate, I’m a literary academic, and Eat, Pray, Love is one of my favourite books. This apparently makes me an anti-feminist, imperialist fool. I’ve been hoodwinked by the hype: gypped by the Guru, bamboozled by Bali, swindled by spaghetti, and most recently, seduced by a sari-clad Julia Roberts. According to notable critics, such as Maureen Callahan of The New York Post and Karen Brooks in The Courier-Mail, I’m not meant to like this ‘self-indulgent twaddle’, this ‘narcissistic New Age reading’. As a teacher of literature, I should scoff, and return to my literary canon.