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Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith | 
 enlarge | Author: Anne Lamott
Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $6.86
You Save: $18.09 (73%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  155 reviews
Sales Rank: 361102
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 4.8 x 1
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
ASIN: B001CB29XM
Publication Date: March 3, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
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 wrestling with mid-life hormones and weight gain while parenting Sam, now a teenager with his own set of raging hormones. Her observations cover everything from starting a Sunday school to grief over the death of her beloved dog, Sadie; lamenting the war to bitterness over her relationship with her now-departed mother. As she tugs and pokes out the knots in a slender gold chain necklace, it becomes a metaphor for letting go and learning to forgive. "…any willingness to let go inevitably comes from pain; and the desire to change changes you, and jiggles the spirit, gets to it somehow, to the deepest, hardest, most ruined parts." Its her willingness to show us the knotted-up, "ruined parts" of her life that make this collection of sometimes uneven essays so compelling. "Everything feels crazy," writes Lamott, adding, "But on small patches of earth all over, I can see just as much messy mercy and grace as ever…." Lamotts essays will serve as reminders to readers of the patches of messy mercy and grace in a chaotic world.--Cindy Crosby
Product Description
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."
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| Customer Reviews: Read 150 more reviews...
 False faith January 3, 2009
I used to love Lamott's writing, but this will probably be the last of her books that I buy. I was extremely disappointed in the underlying tone of bitterness and resentment. If she is truly a Christian, where is the joy? Her take on Christianity is superficial and false. She writes, "But in any case, we should try to stay on God's good side. It's not hard. God has extremely low standards. Pray, take care of people, be actively grateful for your blessings, give away your money--you're cool. You're in. Nice room in heaven, flossing no longer required--which is what will make it heaven for me. Oh, I mean that, and Jesus." Her ideas about God and Jesus are more cultural than biblical.
Lamott's rantings about George Bush and war in Iraq should have been omitted. We can hear that for free on CNN. Who wants to pay for that kind of drivel? She should not write when she is in a really bad mood.
 Misplaced faith in a misleading title January 2, 2009
The difference between a bad movie and a bad book is both will be a waste of time and money -- but only the book will leave you emotionally spent. The bad movie does -- and often will -- allow one to close weary and heavy lids with perchance to dream. There's no chance of slumbering with Anne Lamott's dry-drunk rage against the evils of the GOP, the evil George Bush, his far too proper and prim wife Laura Bush, the bad daddy patriarch and also heinously evil George Herbert Walker Bush, and let's -- for convenience sake -- apply the aforementioned traits to the only superficially kind Barbara Bush, and, at last, in what you'll discover is only a rare and occasional lapse of fevered hatred in Lamott's faith meditation, a milder rant or two heaped upon former attorney general John Ashcroft and defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Somehow I feel I've missed someone. But perhaps you're concerned with the possible harshness of the term dry-drunk? Yes, I know that categorizing the saintly Lamott as a dry-drunk may seem so, but when St. Anne gives no quarter to a Bush DUI transgression of thirty years ago what choice is there? You only get what you give is the law of reciprocity -- another Christian principle.
So the assessment stands: Anne Lamott is a dry-drunk. She's funny, but she's also mean and angry, and yet to her credit admits as much. I hope she can unravel her own personal bitter knots while being a bit lenient on elected officials, and those within Christ's Church who happen to be outside her immediate circle of enlightened bay-area adherents. It's big world outside of that tiny, provincial burg of San Francisco. Find the Joy, Anne, and by all means share it, but please leave the liberal angst aside. The Sixties are so over, baby.
 Finally Someone I Can Relate To!!!! October 7, 2008
When I read this book, I felt like I could have written every word. Like Anne, I sometimes think that I make Christ drink himself to sleep at night. I wish she was my sister.
Anne writes for us Christians who aren't afraid to say in really expressive terms what we really think and feel about our faith. To me, it seems like most Christian writers live in a rainbow gumdrop unicorn world where nothing bad ever happens - not Anne. She is so refreshingly honest about her struggles with both her family, friends and faith and her redeeming moments. If you are uncomfortable with people who share exactly what they feel without mincing words, this is not the book for you.
Lose the politics already! June 21, 2008
I like Anne Lamott's writings but she continuously bashes the President in this book. I think this is uncalled for. Seriously. She hates the President instead of praying for him (and as another reviewer noted she should "love thy neighbor") it totally turned me off in this book. Thank goodness I got this one at the library and did not waste my money on this book. Very disappointing.
Anne Lamott Strikes Again January 29, 2008
I love Anne Lamott and this book is no exception. As always, she writes with honesty and humor about her everyday experiences. She helps me see the lighter and darker side of Christianity and life in general. I can relate to her foibles and rejoice with her in her human triumphs. I'm glad for Christian writers who I can relate to-not holier than thou, never make a mistake writers. I won't mention names. This book was a blessing.
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