Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith
by Anne Lamott
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 2437)
Not as good as Traveling Mercies, but still bowled me over laughing at times. She has some great bits of wit and wisdom. Each chapter could stand on its own as a “piece,” but the book seems somewhat patched together and tiresomely anecdotal—more stories about Sam and her mother’s death, (some repeated), a commencement address seemed randomly inserted to help make the book longer. In her defence, she is more assured, less self pitying, in a word, mature—still self absorbed, admittedl...more
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Read in February, 2007
recommends it for:
almost everyone who's ever felt human
I love Anne LaMott. In fact, on my trip to northern California next weekend to the Mt. Hermon Christian Writer's Assoc. I am bugging out on Sunday to drive a rental car to Marin County to attend her church and just MAKE her be my friend and read my book. Our lives run parallel, only I realized it before she did as she got off her duff sooner than did I.
We are both single moms. We both share recovery from addiction. We both have memorable hair, hers in dreadlocks, mine sticking straight u...more
We are both single moms. We both share recovery from addiction. We both have memorable hair, hers in dreadlocks, mine sticking straight u...more
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Read in April, 2005
I love her books. I want to own them so I can refer back to them again and again.
Amazon.com
Few people can write about faith, parenting, and relationships as can the talented, irreverent Anne Lamott. With characteristic black humor, ("Everyone has been having a hard time with life this year; not with all of it, just the waking hours") she updates us on the ongoing mayhem of her life since Traveling Mercies, and continues to unfold her spiritual journey.
Plan B finds Lamott wrest...more
Amazon.com
Few people can write about faith, parenting, and relationships as can the talented, irreverent Anne Lamott. With characteristic black humor, ("Everyone has been having a hard time with life this year; not with all of it, just the waking hours") she updates us on the ongoing mayhem of her life since Traveling Mercies, and continues to unfold her spiritual journey.
Plan B finds Lamott wrest...more
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Read in June, 2008
recommended to Tricia by:
Mary Tensing
With the same wry wit and humor that she expressed about faith and life in Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott revisits familiar and unfamiliar territory in Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith. The Bush Administration and its war policy are heavily threaded throughout these essays, marking them somewhat a time capsule filled with the uncertainty of those years. Lamott questions how we find faith, hope, grace and peace in the quagmire of politics, but also in everyday life.
She frequently writes abo...more
She frequently writes abo...more
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Read in July, 2008
I'm only halfway through this one, but I'm gonna go ahead and post some thoughts now. I just started reading on Sunday, and I have been completely swept away and encouraged by this book. I can't remember the last time that I could say that a book was an encouragement to me. These short essays are so readable, so laugh-out-loud-able, so charged, and so heartfelt; I've got to recommend this highly.
This is my third tangle (tango?) with Ms. Lamott: I wasn't a big fan of "Traveling Merci...more
This is my third tangle (tango?) with Ms. Lamott: I wasn't a big fan of "Traveling Merci...more
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Read in February, 2008
This book follows up on many faith-based themes and personal relationships from her first wildly successful collection of essays on faith, Traveling Mercies. She continues musing on death, dogs, parenting and children, her son Sam, and her cool Annethoughts on what it means to be a Christian.
More than any other author that I can think of (barring a close second place with Elizabeth Gilbert), her writing style effortlessly captures that instant, breezy, humorously confessional rapport. And ...more
More than any other author that I can think of (barring a close second place with Elizabeth Gilbert), her writing style effortlessly captures that instant, breezy, humorously confessional rapport. And ...more
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Read in November, 2005
people have always raved about anne lamott, but i’ve never gotten around to reading her stuff. i really enjoyed this one. i may have to read much more of her work. i often found myself thinking throughout the audio that if i had been reading her book instead of listening to it that i would have imagined her voice to be different–more perky and ironic and less whiny. but that’s not to say that i didn’t enjoy the recording. i enjoyed it immensely. i love that she refers to her thighs as ...more
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Read in March, 2008
I just started reading this book last night and found myself laughing out loud. I am again reminded that Anne Lamott's thoughts on faith remind me of just being good to yourself and others, not necessarily all linked to Christianity. (not that there's anything wrong with that, but it is appealing to more than the crowd you would assume.)
As I am reading I keep thinking about the one story where she lets us know that when we are quick to get angry with our children, it is not the same as goi...more
As I am reading I keep thinking about the one story where she lets us know that when we are quick to get angry with our children, it is not the same as goi...more
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Read in July, 2007
recommends it for:
people who are interested in authentic spirituality
I read this book on a binge. Started it and couldn't put it down, the reading equivalent of a bag of chocolate chip cookies in front of the T.V. I've read her other books and still think Bird by Bird is the best book on writing I've ever read, but this one kinda snuck up on me. At first, I thought it was just going to be some funny bits, some thoughts on spirituality, and some ranting about Bush. Then, when Lamott suggests that she'll finally be able to forgive W. when they're sitting side by si...more
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I love Anne Lamott. She's the person I wish I was, but am glad I'm not (because I'm not as courageous... but I guess if I was her, I would be courageous enough to have her life:). Some topics from the collection: hating/trying not to hate Bush and the war, the body that comes with age, having a teenage son. I love how as she relates the tidbits of her life to us, she gives us wisdom. She made me laugh (..."I was so angry with and afraid of the right wing in this country that it was maki...more
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Read in March, 2008
short essays on anne lamott's life with each centered around her take on faith, which is a hodge podge of what she likes from different religions. as always, she is funny and messy and irreverant, but each story turns to give a sort of "afterschool special" style of resolution. and because they are essays, she gets a bit repetitive. at the barest level, she is saying: stop. breathe. think. be nice.
i first liked anne lamott for her take on families. her novels show single moms and ...more
i first liked anne lamott for her take on families. her novels show single moms and ...more
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Read in July, 2008
I do love Lammot, but I hate to say it: She exhausted her memoir resources when she wrote Traveling Mercies, Bird by Bird, and Operating Instructions. Those were great books, and this one just rehashes what we already know of her. Even within the book she self-references several times and repeats pivotal phrases and stories as if mentioning them for the first time. Where was her editor?
I also think that part of her problem in this book is lack of center. She swims between time periods a...more
I also think that part of her problem in this book is lack of center. She swims between time periods a...more
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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. 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 hopelessnes...more
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Read in April, 2008
I am not a person of faith. I wish I was, it seems to make life a little easier. Anne Lamott's faith is gentle and quite accepting of a person's faults. If I was a person of faith, I would be like Anne Lamott, sometimes surly and grumpy, sometimes loving and inclusive.
Each chapter in this book is a stand alone essay. I especially liked the ones that feature her son Sam. Having just become a mother with two teenagers in my house, I understand her frustrations with him. How quickly he turns fr...more
Each chapter in this book is a stand alone essay. I especially liked the ones that feature her son Sam. Having just become a mother with two teenagers in my house, I understand her frustrations with him. How quickly he turns fr...more
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Read in January, 2007
I got this book as a gift b/c I loved Traveling Mercies so much. Plan B is a little more political (rants about GW Bush) and also more pluralistic when it comes to spirituality.
I certainly enjoyed this book but it hasn't moved me in the same way as Traveling Mercies
Also note that the chapters seem less connected to one another than they did in Traveling Mercies, but then again it could be that I read it too many years ago to remember correctly.
Lastly, I listed 2...more
I certainly enjoyed this book but it hasn't moved me in the same way as Traveling Mercies
Also note that the chapters seem less connected to one another than they did in Traveling Mercies, but then again it could be that I read it too many years ago to remember correctly.
Lastly, I listed 2...more
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Read in August, 2007
recommended to Katy by:
parentsrecommends it for: searching christians
I actually listened to this audio book over the course of two road trips - to and from my husband's grandfather's funeral. Like Traveling Mercies, Plan B is an unconventional look at a faithful Christian life. Some people would call Lamott irreverent, but I won't do that. She's honest. She doesn't fall in line with conservative evangelicals, but she loves, honors, and fears God and keeps searcing and searching. A highlight of this book for me was her recanting of a speech she reads...more
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Read in June, 2008
I love Anne Lamott's non-fiction. She's honest, even when it reveals her cranky or crazy or vulnerable side, which just goes to show that she's not cranky or crazy, just vulnerable to a strength (as opposed to that saying, she's whatever to a fault). She says the things some think and gives a sense of hope, even when things feel hopeless. I especially liked her frankness about teenage Sam, the war, and her mother, and perhaps my favorite piece was her commencement address. That said, lots of...more
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The comments below are the same for all three of Anne Lamott's Thoughts on Faith books...
This is composed of short stories/essays inspired by events in the author's life. The title is misleading. It is not about religion but about finding peace and grace through the hurdles of life.
Anne Lamott has a way of describing feelings I have never been able to put into words. Reading Anne, I laugh aloud, mark sections of text, and reread to hear the beauty of her words.
I find that I don't k...more
This is composed of short stories/essays inspired by events in the author's life. The title is misleading. It is not about religion but about finding peace and grace through the hurdles of life.
Anne Lamott has a way of describing feelings I have never been able to put into words. Reading Anne, I laugh aloud, mark sections of text, and reread to hear the beauty of her words.
I find that I don't k...more
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I picked this up from the library of the cruise ship we were on. I was not really enjoying the book I brought with me (Ann Patchett's Run -- I really need to give it another go).
I had heard about Anne Lamott but hadn't read her before. I liked it -- especially the essay style. She does rant about George W, but she does try to explain how she uses her faith to place some perspective/understanding around the situation he had led his country into.
Sometimes I found her a sad -- just below...more
I had heard about Anne Lamott but hadn't read her before. I liked it -- especially the essay style. She does rant about George W, but she does try to explain how she uses her faith to place some perspective/understanding around the situation he had led his country into.
Sometimes I found her a sad -- just below...more
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2 comments
I started this book when it first came out and was so irritated by Lamott's anti-Bush rantings that I stopped reading. That is not to say that I am not anti-Bush, simply that I was expecting more from her...Grace and Traveling Mercies had very clear religious themes which I would normally have no patience for. Yet I loved the message and humor in every story. I picked this up again over the weekend and the ranting is still there, but the first two stories made me cry. She still has her sweet,...more
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book data (includes all editions)
avg rating (all editions): 3.83 (1961 ratings) avg rating (this edition): 3.86 (37 ratings) number of reviews: 275popular shelves
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"It's good to do uncomfortable things. It's weight training for life."
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