Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

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, and Plan B is a book more necessary now than ever. It will prove to be further evidence that, as The Christian Science Monitor has written, "Everybody loves Anne Lamott."

"Five years after her bestselling Traveling Mercies, Lamott sends us 24 fresh dispatches from the frontier of her life and her Christian faith. To hear her tell it, neither the state of the country nor the state of her nerves has improved, to say the least. 'On my forty-ninth birthday, I decided that all of life is hopeless, and I would eat myself to death. These are dessert days.' Thankfully, her gift for conveying the workings of grace to left-wing, high-strung, beleaguered people like herself is still intact, as is her ability to convey the essence of Christian faith, which she finds not in dogma but in our ability to open our hearts in the midst of our confusion and hopelessness. Most of these pieces were published in other versions on Salon.com, and they cover subjects as disparate as the Bush administration; the death of Lamott's dog, her mother and a friend; life with a teenager and with her 50-year-old thighs — yet each shows how our hearts and lives can go 'from parched to overflow in the blink of an eye.' What is the secret? Lamott makes us laugh at the impossibility of it all; then she assures us that the most profound act we can accomplish on Earth is coming out of the isolation of our minds and giving to one another. Faith is not about how we feel, she shows; it is about how we live. 'Don't worry! Don't be so anxious. In dark times, give off light. Care for the least of God's people!' Naturally, some pieces are stronger than others — her wonderful style can come across as a bit mannered, the wrapup a bit forced. But this is quibbling about a book that is better than brilliant. This is that rare kind of book that is like a having a smart, dear, crazy (in the best sense) friend walk next to us in sunlight and in the dark night of the soul. Author tour. (Mar.)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"Readers have long awaited Lamott's second book on spirituality, and it won't disappoint....Traveling Mercies set a very high standard, and to say that Plan B almost gets there is still to say that it's a wonderful read." Kirkus Reviews

"A Presbyterian in dreadlocks who wears a red cotton cord blessed by the Dalai Lama and a Virgin Mary medallion, Lamott brings invaluable humor, imagination, and magnanimity to the conversation about faith." Booklist

"Sturdy hope and valor are to be found in these sometimes painful, sometimes desperate, but always engaging pieces..." Elle

"Plan B is vintage Lamott — the dry humor, the disarming self-loathing, the irreverence, the unshakable love of Jesus Christ..." New York Times

"[W]hat makes this book sparkle is Lamott's signature voice, wrenching honesty, willingness to look at our 'ugly common secrets,' and authentic, hard-won faith. Don't miss it." BookReporter.com

"Irresistibly funny, simultaneously cranky, snide and inspiring..." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"If you are in the group that is more distraught about 2,000 dead U.S. soldiers in Iraq than whether SpongeBob SquarePants is gay...then Lamott is your woman." Minneapolis Star Tribune

"[C]alm, and deep, and significant beyond the accomplishment of conveying wisdom that invites her readers to open their hearts an extra few centimeters." Oregonian

With the trademark wisdom, humor, and honesty that made Traveling Mercies a runaway bestseller, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith is a spiritual antidote to anxiety and despair in increasingly fraught times.

The bestselling author of Blue Shoe, Traveling Mercies, Bird by Bird, Operating Instructions, and other books, Anne Lamott is a past recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship. She is also a former columnist for Salon magazine.