Elizabeth Gilbert’s huge bestseller “Eat, Pray, Love” was created with lots of hard work and a little bit of fairy dust — which she’s happy to sprinkle in your direction. Also, James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem wants to make the New York City subway a more pleasant place by giving it a new soundtrack. And for the writer William T. Vollmann, research isn’t about spending a sedate afternoon at the library — it involves hopping trains, getting shot at, and nearly freezing to death at the North Pole.