Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith » (Unabridged)

In novels such as Rosie and Hard Laughter and in her nonfiction tomes touching on everything from writing to motherhood, Anne Lamott presents a biting wit and self-pity-free look at life's tougher trials. Lamott skates on the edge of dysfunction, but faces the side of spirit and humor.

"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. Terrorism and war have become the new normal; environmental devastation looms even closer. And there are personal demands on Lamott's faith as well: turning fifty; her mother's Alzheimer's; her son's adolescence; and the passing of friends and time.

Fortunately for those of us who are anxious and scared about the state of the world, whose parents are also aging and dying, whose children are growing harder to recognize as they become teenagers, Plan B offers hope in the midst of despair. It shares with us Lamott's ability to comfort, and to make us laugh despite the grim realities.

Anne Lamott is one of our most beloved writers...

The New York Times - Lauren F. Winner

If one needs a corrective to the notion that all American Christians are happy with George W. Bush, one need look no farther than Anne Lamott's Plan B. A sequel of sorts to Traveling Mercies, her previous collection of assorted, quirky subtitular thoughts on faith, Plan B presents Lamott at middle age, totally despondent about the Iraq war, the administration and the future of the world. She decides not to kill herself -- overeating would be her preferred method -- only because she wants to stay alive to protest the war and the White House.