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Amazon.com Review:
Anne Lamott admits that she's "ever so slightly more anxious than the average hypochondriac." When faced with a small, irregular mole and a family history of skin cancer, however, she remembers her faith in God and enjoys some peace--despite behaving "a little more like Nathan Lane in The Birdcage than I would have hoped." Author Lamott reads these wonderfully detailed postcards from her meandering journey to faith. With sharp and bittersweet humor, she recounts a past full of bad relationships with men, with food, with drugs, with alcohol, and worst of all, with herself. She battles her demons thanks to the love of her friends and family and her "lurch of faith" to embrace religion, that "puzzling thing inside me that had begun to tug on my sleeve from time to time, trying to get my attention." Inspiring but not dogmatic, Traveling Mercies is a treasure. (Running time: 4 hours, 3 cassettes) --C.B. Delaney
Uniquely Anne:
I love reading Anne Lamott. She's one of the few Christian writers, along with Thomas Merton and Kathleen Norris, who doesn't make me want to take out my pocketknife and start carving on somebody's face.
pretty good book:
I read this for book club and it was an okay read. The author does a nice job and the book is interesting.
Shocking but profound:
In an e-mail exchange, a ministry colleague asked, "I have never read Anne Lamott. Do you recommend her?" I responded: Knowing your heart for broken people and for Jesus, I can recommend "Traveling Mercies" to you without qualification. I have only about 16 feet of easily reachable bookshelf, including my favorite reference books, yet this is one book that I keep avoiding moving to attic storage. Lamott is blunt about what she has gone through, how she has felt (especially about those of us who make a career of being nice), and her determination to keep Jesus out of her life at all costs. She is a product of multiple dysfunctions, and you can see why she'd have a hard time learning to love herself or to admit that perhaps God could love her. But I love the sentences by which she let Jesus come in; I have never otherwise heard such a simple prayer of conversion, nor one that is so true at the heart level. My daughter-in-law said that if I enjoyed Lamott, I'd also enjoy Kathleen Norris (The Cloister Walk). I did, but Norris is more cerebral. Lamott is at once pithy, practical, shocking, and profound. "Traveling Mercies" has confirmed in me, probably more than any other source has, an understanding of how varied, unexpected, and original God's work is in any one individual's life.
Entertaining Read...:
This book is written differently than just your average book. It's a compilation of several life lessons all molded into one story. The short stories are really interesting and her humor gives it a fun kick. She tells her stories in such detail it feels as though you're experiencing it with her. The stories are so diverse that I guarentee someone finds some story in there that they relate to. No matter what your religion is, this book is a really powerful read. Prayer helps the author out in numerous ways that will prove to the readers that there is power in prayer. This book is touching and it really makes you think about life.
"...I can always find my way home from here...":
Anne Lamott recounts the stories of her growing faith from disbelief to belief in a God who crouches down and waits patiently for her to open the door and welcome Him in. Anne recounts a harsh life of challenges with addiction, love, family, and herself. She shares her simple yet profound spiritual conversion careful to incorporate the people who have had some of the greatest impact in her life. We catch glimpses of her faith story through the people she shares relationships with: her childhood friend, a Jesuit, the people (especially the older women) of her church community, and her son. We see in her life the mundane, the struggles, a person who can be gritty in one breath and sweet in the next. Anne Lamott tells her journey of faith, in a way that is not for the faint of heart. (or the straight and narrow) She packs this memoir with everything that life is made of and allows one to enter into her story and glimpse the God who unwearyingly waits.
| Author: | Anne Lamott | | Binding: | Hardcover | | Dewey Decimal Number: | 813.54 | | EAN: | 9780786219612 | | Format: | Large Print | | ISBN: | 0786219610 | | Number Of Pages: | 357 | | Publication Date: | 1999-05 |
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