About this title: With the trademark wisdom, humor, and honesty that made Anne Lamott's book on faith, Traveling Mercies, a runaway bestseller, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith is a spiritual antidote to anxiety and despair in increasingly fraught times. The world is a more dangerous place than it was when Lamott's Traveling Mercies was published five years ago. ...
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Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover
Date Published: 03/2005
ISBN-13:9781573222990ISBN:1573222992
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 336 p. Previous Owner's Inscription. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover
Date Published: 03/2005
ISBN-13:9781573222990ISBN:1573222992
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 336 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover
Date Published: 03/2005
ISBN-13:9781573222990ISBN:1573222992
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 336 p. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Riverhead Trade
Date Published: 2006
ISBN-13:9781594481574ISBN:1594481571
Description: Good. 39-U Books rated "Good" may have some notes, underlining, or highlighting. These books also may contain the previous owner's name, stamp, sticker, or gift inscription, or may be library discards. read more
"Reading this book made me feel good. It's funny and honest and sprinkled with profanity, but in the end, every essay is life-affirming and love-affirming.
She's so good, she made me consider going to church sometime. That's no small thing. I am a non-religious but open-minded person who gets very bored during sermons. Bored, or alienated.
The last time I tried out a Christian church -- the first time since high school -- the guest speaker spent 45 minutes telling us we were God's chosen ones, then bemoaned the fact that she couldn't convert a Jewish man before he killed himself gruesomely at his office (the cause of death, in her mind, being the lack of Jesus in his life).
True believers like this frighten me, make me yawn, or climb all over my last nerve. They give Christians a bad name.
Anne Lamott gives Christians a good name. She's not perfect, she doesn't rain judgment down on people who aren't like her, and she struggles daily to stay close to God, to keep an open mind, and to be kind to herself and others.
Reading her essays got me wanting to live a more mindful, generous, and helpful life, *especially* when it's inconvenient and difficult to do so."
"Anyone who has a teenager should read this book. She does rant a lot about the Bush administration (she lives in Northern California), but when she describes her 15 year-old's alter-ego who appears from time to time, it is hilarious. She even has a name for the devil chlld, and then she mentions that in biblical times, they used to stone adolescents frequently. She elicits the image of Mary holding a stone after Jesus was gone at the temple for three days. It just makes you feel better about the frustrations of living with teens."
""Bird By Bird" was recommended to me by the fabulously talented Pearl Cleage, when I encountered her after her appearance(to promote her, at-that-time-upcoming book, "What Looks Like Crazy On An Ordinary Day") at Agnes Scott's Lit Fest. I believe this was in 1997 or 1998. I read the book with excitement, and Anne Lamott(as well as Ms. Cleage) are favorite authors to this day. "Plan B" was published in 2005, just a short time after the 2004 election. Let me give you the first few lines of "Plan B". I dare you to NOT read this book, after you read the following lines: "On my forty-ninth birthday, I decided that all of life was hopeless, and I would eat myself to death. These are desert days. Better to go out by your own hand than to endure a slow death by scolding at the hands of the Bush administration." You'll roar with laughter as Ms. Lamott gives her prescient take on George W. You'll see yourself in her incredibly irreverent view of what is "sacred". And you'll marvel at her faith--in herself, her family, friends--and an elusive entity she refers to as God. Give yourself a gift this year: Anne Lamott!!!"
"I suppose it's a little strange that I would really like this book given it's spiritual overtones, but Anne Lamott's unique blend of humor, observations on relationships and life in general ("Everyone has been having a hard time with life this year; not with all of it, just the waking hours"), not to mention her caustic comments about Bush even as she struggles to love him because her faith insists on it, should win over just about everyone. She can have you moved to tears as she describes the painful death of a friend to howls of laughter describing bumps in the road raising a teenager.
Lamott is unfailingly honest about herself and others. Predictably, some reviewers have complained about an occasional "vulgarity," but to me that just makes her writing more honest and real. After all Jesus, himself, was nothing if not radical and honest. I suggest that anyone offended by this book has no life and little compassion.
Lamott has all these great lines. We were listening to her read her book; I would recommend this as she is such a great raconteur. I was unable to write down all the great lines, but here's a small sample:
"If you insist on having a destination when you enter a library, you're short-changing yourself." "Someday the lamb is going to lie down with the lion, but the lamb is not going to get any sleep." "Jesus was soft on crime; he'd never get elected to anything." "On my forty-ninth birthday, I decided that all of life is hopeless, and I would eat myself to death. These are dessert days.""
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