Almost Everything
A review of

Almost Everything

Notes on Hope

Anne LamottRiverhead • 2018

A New Clarity

by David Meyer

Best-selling author Anne Lamott’s tender, sage musings on her struggles will comfort anyone who doesn't always follow through on his or her best intentions – which means everyone.

Paradox

Best-selling author Anne Lamott reminds readers that truth is a paradox. Contradictions rule where you most want order. Life, the author says, is the pain you suffer and the joy you breathe. For many, spiritual growth and compassionate humanity stem from the unavoidable disasters – death, destruction and desolation. Paradox teaches that misery is not the main well of existence. When life is most wretched, you still have more, Lamott believes, to live for and learn.

Play is learning how to wait, how to applaud someone else’s success, how to let others go first. Anne Lamott

People magazine called this, “Part memoir, part manual and part sermon from the church of Lamott, this satisfying escape points to notes of beauty in our uncertain world.” The New York Times said that Lamott, “talks about God, politics and other unmentionables, and gently exhorts her readers, as she does herself, to find joy in a bleak and chaotic world.” The Wall Street Journal assured readers, “Given the warmth, liveliness and intimacy of her prose, time with one of her books can feel like a visit with a friend.”


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