Staff Pick
A winner of the 2016 Pacific Northwest Bookseller Award, this collection of nonfiction essays is Doyle's spin on what is prayer worthy, and it is unconventional to say the least. Full of appreciation for the mundane, daily joys of life, and supplicant for the myriad woes that annoyingly trip us up, Doyle's beautiful "prayers" will cause tears and laughter alternately, and sometimes at the same time. Recommended By Dianah H., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Acclaimed, award-winning essayist and novelist Brian Doyle — whose writing, in the words of Mary Oliver, is "a gift to us all" — presents one hundred new prayers that evoke his deep Catholic belief in the mystery and miracle of the ordinary (and the whimsical) in human life.
In Brian Doyle's newest work, A Book of Uncommon Prayer: 100 Celebrations of the Miracle and Muddle of the Ordinary, his readers will find a series of prayers unlike any of the beautiful, formal, orthodox prayers of the Catholic tradition or the warm, extemporized prayers heard from pulpits and dinner tables. Doyle's often-dazzling, always-poignant prayers include eye-opening hymns to shoes and faith and family. In Doyle's words, "the world is crammed with miracles, so crammed and tumultuous that if we stop, see, savor, we are agog," and the pages of his newest book give voice and body to this credo. By focusing on experiences that may seem the most unprayerful (one prayer is titled "Prayer on Seeing Yet Another Egregious Parade of Muddy Paw Prints on the Floor"), he gives permission to discover the joys and treasures in what he often calls the muddle of everyday life.
About the Author
Brian Doyle is the editor of Portland Magazine at the University of Portland in Oregon — the finest spiritual magazine in America, says Annie Dillard. Doyle is the author of fourteen books of essays, stories, "proems," nonfiction (notably The Wet Engine, about the "muddles & musics of the heart"), and fiction (notably the novels Mink River and The Plover).